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Another way that God works
in us is by prayer. We read in
Ephesians 3:20, "Now unto him that is able to do
exceeding abundantly above all that we ask or
think, [only] according to the power that
worketh in us." Many truths are made
plain through the Acts of the
Apostles. I want to go beyond
reformers and see what the formers
said.
I want to know why the
morning Church had the power they had.
Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today,
and forever. The Acts makes it
clear, from the first Chapter all the way
through, that prayer is a divinely ordained
source of
man receiving spiritual
power.
In Acts 4:29 and 31, when
the Church was threatened, they said, "...Lord,
behold their threatenings...And when they had
prayed, the place was shaken where they were
assembled together; and they were all filled
with the Holy Ghost, and they spake the word of
God with boldness." Why doesn't the
Word of God come forth with more boldness
today? We find the answer to part of
the problem in Acts 6:4, where the thought of
administering help to the needy and widows came
up. They wanted the preachers to do
it. However, the morning Churches'
way was to pick out Holy Ghost-filled men to do
the administering and visit the sick.
Verse 4 reads, "But we will give
ourselves continually to prayer, and to the
ministry of the word." You show me
more preachers who are doing that, and I will
show you the Churches' spirituality reaching a
higher level. If you're going to
feed The Church, pastors, you have to give
yourself much time in prayer and with the
Word. We must go right back to God's
chosen ways of working in and through
us.
