The Supernatural Powers of a Praying Man, I talk about the Ebola virus. You may never have heard of this deadly virus because it was contained before it could reach the Western world. The Ebola virus is a type of viral hemorrhagic fever.
Symptoms begin four to sixteen days after infection. Once the symptoms— fever, chills, headache, muscle ache and loss of appetite— begin, the disease can take out its victim in less than seventy-two hours.
As this disease progresses, its symptoms also progress to include vomiting, diarrhea, abdominal pain, sore throat, and chest pain. With the rapid spread of the virus, a victim's blood eventually fails to clot, causing him or her to bleed from injection sites, the gastrointestinal tract, skin, and other organs.
Another sort of outbreak in our camp is equally awful. It affects a part of you and quickly spreads like the Ebola virus, attacking and destroying the vital organs that keep our bodies functioning. I call this virus Prayerlessness Without Ceasing, or PWC.
It contrasts Jesus command to pray without ceasing. Unlike the Ebola virus, whose host is unknown, PWC has several hosts, some of which are manipulation, anger, rebellion, busy schedules, indifference, stubbornness, and pride. It is subtle and attacks from within and without. It weaves a gradual web of deceit around its victim and spreads to other parts of the body—in this case, the body of Christ.
This disease ends up trapping its victims into a prison of prayer less ness, The intricate weave of this web makes it almost impossible for one to free herself once caught in its trap. The symptoms of pwc can easily go undetected
PWC weaves itself into the fabric of overly busy lives. This virus of prayerlessness is not partial; it is an equal opportunity virus. It does not care whether you stand in the office of president or bishop janitor or general.
Its main purpose is to throw other activities seem_ ingly more pressing than prayer your way. PWC will weaken your mind first and trick you into believing that God is indifferent and understands your busy schedule. He may, but the devil will use it as an opportunity to lure you to his ways.
That is why as wives, mothers, and career women who find there is little time for anything beyond your duties in these roles, you can't let the devil into your lives. With the changing times, women are now faced with responsibilities and load that society once considered taboo. Women may be doing as much as men these days in terms of supporting the family and have a responsibility to maintain their homes and families. With the weight of the schedule of a present-day woman, how much time does she have to seek God?
As a woman, it is imperative that you find a secret place you can retreat to and fall on your face before God, a place where the enemy cannot touch you, a place where you wage war against the enemy and his plot against you. You need to maintain balance and remember that an unjust weight is an abomination to God.
Beware of imbalances caused by an overemphasis on one form of worship at the expense of another. There are several forms of worship. We worship God through
songs, through giving ourselves to the work of the ministry, through studying the Bible and so on. In our efforts to please God in all these areas, we unfortunately forget the object that bridges the gap between God and us—the vehicle of prayer.
The only way to combat the disease of prayerlessness is to pray, just as the only way to quench your thirst is to drink water. I detect imbalance in churches today because an overemphasis on other forms of worship has left the scale tipping where prayer is.
concerned. Prayer has been pushed to the bottom of the priority list and is left to a few people on the prayer team pursue.The same attitude has crept into our personal lives. We are gradually losing our sense of the importance of prayer. Prayer is for everyone, and to think it can be done once in a while when disaster strikes is a pity.
Sometimes we hide under the cloak of worship and replace prayer with worship. However, we need balance. When the enemy attacks, you cannot sing him away. You cannot quote him scriptures on finances and expect him to flee if he is attacking your children or your emotions. We are steadily losing our crucial and only connection to God, which is prayer.
As leaders of the millennium church, we have placed undue emphasis on music, praise, worship, finances, and marketing strategies, and have ignored prayer. We have taught the church to worship, to quote Scripture, to name it and claim it, but we have failed to teach the core part of our Christian walk, which is praying.
In Conclusion
Prayer is the cord that keeps us connected to the Father, but this imbalance has produced a generation of lawless and prayerless men and women who are not connected to their source.