Prayer Is The Gate

Devotional

Thomas Brooks was a great Puritan author and preacher who lived in the sixteenth century. In his book Smooth Stones Taken from Ancient Brooks, he observed that “the best and sweetest flowers of paradise God gives to his people when they are upon their knees. Prayer is the gate of heaven.”

We are focusing this month on four necessary ingredients in a great spiritual awakening: 2 Chronicles 7:14 says that “If my people who are called by my name humble themselves, and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven and will forgive their sin and heal their land” (emphasis added).

Last week’s topic was humility; this week we will focus on prayer.

If prayer is truly “the gate of heaven,” that gate has “keys” that unlock it. And over the course of this week, we’ll look at seven biblical factors that enable us to pray effectively and powerfully.

We’ll study one each day, beginning with the first: pray specifically.

Let’s look at the background story to our verse for today: Herod the Great’s grandson, Herod Agrippa I, was the ruler of that day. And, in an effort to gain favor with the religious authorities, he “laid violent hands on some who belonged to the church” (Acts 12:1). For example, verse 2 explains that “he killed James the brother of John with the sword.” Then, not long after, he arrested Peter with the intent to have him executed after the Passover (v. 4).

But the church responded in a way that we can learn from today. Acts 12:5 tells us that “Peter was kept in prison, but earnest prayer for him was made to God by the church.”

Note that “earnest,” passionate prayer was offered. And it wasn’t just offered by an individual, but “by the church,” the entire body of Christ in collective intercession. But don’t miss this fact: they prayed “for him” specifically. They prayed for Peter and his needs, asking God to deliver him from his imprisonment and pending execution.

And God answered their prayer in a dramatic way, sending an angel to free the Apostle from prison. Peter then immediately went to the house where the Christians “were gathered together and were praying” (v. 12). When he knocked on the door, “a servant girl named Rhoda” was so shocked that he was there that she left him waiting outside and ran to tell the others (v .13).

I love the detail here in verse 15: “They said to her, ‘You are out of your mind.’ But she kept insisting that it was so.” Think about it: when God answered their prayer, they didn’t even believe that he had. It’s so encouraging for me to know that we don’t have to be perfect intercessors to pray to a perfect God. He hears us and answers us in ways that transcend us.

What impossible situation are you facing today? Who is your “Peter”?

Whoever it is, pray “for him” today. Tell God your need, as directly and intentionally as possible. Pray so specifically that you would know how to answer your prayer if you were God.

Avoid generic prayers like “God be with us” (he already promised us he would be with us “always” in Matthew 28:20). Tell the Lord precisely what you are asking him to do, then trust him to answer in whatever way is best.

F. B. Meyer was right when he said, “The greatest tragedy of life is not unanswered prayer, but unoffered prayer.”

So offer your prayers specifically to your Father today as we enter a time of guided prayer.

today’s devotional is written by Jim Denison