Earnest Prayer for Him by Jarret Andersson December 9, 2018 ยท Centerpointe Apostolic Church (Murfreesboro, TN) Kind: teaching Scripture: Acts 12 Source: https://acts238.life/repository/sermons/jarret-andersson--earnest-prayer-for-him Published by Acts 2:38 Life from the sermon transcript on that page. Free to copy and share with attribution. ------------------------------------------------------------ Good morning. My name is Jarret Andersson, and welcome to day 8 of 21 Days of Breakthrough Prayer with the Pentecostals of Murfreesboro and LifeBridge Church. I'm glad that you could join us, as we go through this devotional. Each day someone new will walk through one day of the devotional. I encourage you to go back and catch up on the previous days if you haven't already. Day 8, the title is Earnest Prayer for Him, and this kind of focuses in on Acts chapter 12, a story that's happening to King Herod. He, he, he had James killed with a sword, and he, he kind of decides that, hey, the Jews like this, so I'm gonna do the same thing to Peter. So Peter's in prison in this story, and not only is he in prison, waiting to die, waiting for his execution, but he has 16 guards on him. But I like what the, what the scripture says. It, it gives this really bleak scenario of what Peter's going through: trapped in prison, waiting to die, 16 guards on him. And it says, but they prayed for him in earnest. There are a group of people, regardless of what Peter was wanted in it, and because of what Peter was going through, there were a group of people that, that prayed for him in earnest. Now that word earnest: it means an intense, dedicated, focused, desperate, physically exhausting, committed to achieving the desired goal, and I'm not giving up until I reach my goal. I'm not quitting. I have faith. I believe that God is able to do exceeding and abundantly above all we can ask for thing. So that's the kind of prayer that they prayed. And Peter will just kind of walked out of the prison, that the gates opened up, the guards didn't bother him, and he just walked on through. And that's the power of prayer. Now for us, how many times, you know, do we come across somebody that says, you know, I need for you to pray for this situation? Or we see on Facebook, preach, please pray for such, or, or teep on, we get these emails or text messages that say, pray for so-and-so, they're going through this, or, or whatever. And, and we just kind of have a perfunctory, Jesus, touch them, or just something that's, it's a, it's a prayer out of duty. Now I wonder if we are really truly engaging in earnest prayer in those moments. And I think that earnest prayer, it doesn't have to be a long, drawn-out process. We don't have to necessarily call fire down from heaven in that moment. But, but by earnest prayer, that just means that we are completely engaged in what we're doing. We're not just doing a half-heartedly. It's not just out of duty, but we are engaging our mind, our spirit, and our soul, all of our strength, everything that we, we are, we are engaging, whether it be for 25 minutes, an hour, or, or if it's just for 30 seconds. But we are completely honed in on, on what we are praying about, and really touching heaven for that scenario. And I think that, as the body of Christ on earth, if we can engage in that type of earnest prayer, that, that given it all type of prayer, where I'm not backing down until I touch the throne type of prayer, we can really make, make some ground in the kingdom of God. So I want to pray that right now, is that God would give us passion. He would give us dedication to our prayer lives, to not just pray words, but, but pray the, the mind of God, pray the mind of Christ, in earnest. Lord, I thank you so much that you have given us this avenue to where we can just connect with you automatically, this avenue that we call prayer. You got to ask that you would allow us to engage with you completely, Lord God. No matter how insignificant we see the need of one asks us for prayer, it is obvious that they need that. To them, they need that prayer. So let us completely engage with you in prayer, Lord God, passionately, completely, with all of our faiths, with all of our mind, everything, completely engaged in you. Let us pray in earnest. In Jesus name, amen. Be sure to watch tomorrow at 7 a.m. Someone else is going to be leading on day 9, and the topic is Prayer Is Our Weapon. Thank you.