Hosanna Restoration Church

I woke up in the night and looked at the time and it was too early! My first thought was to check with the Lord and see if it was significant, and He said it was not! Then I thought about Jesus. I was reminded earlier in the week that they thought that Jesus was crucified around 9 in the morning. I began to compare how tired I was to how tired Jesus must have been in the wee hours of the morning. They kept Him up all night questioning and abusing Him! I have driven through the night many times and thought it was brutal; so how awful it was for Jesus!

Next, I considered the words of Isaiah; how He was wounded, bruised, abused, and by His stripes, we were healed. By the time He went to the cross He had taken care of just about everything for us except His death and resurrection, which of course, were for us as well. When we consider these things, we just have to thank Him!

What a difference a prayer makes! The truth is, we have no idea just how much happens when we pray.

When we pray, we say to God that we believe He cares. It shows that we trust Him and need help to trust Him more. A prayer helps us focus on Him and how important He is. Even if we do not see the answer, we can be sure that prayer is working. Zacharias and Elizabeth had been praying for a long time to have a child and now the Angel tells him that his prayer has been heard. I think we have all been surprised by answered prayers and the timing was not exactly as we had planned. It is possible that we get answers about prayers we forgot we prayed and well as some we forgot to pray.

There are a lot of people praying about a lot of things that are going on right now! More than likely there are prayers that conflict with each other. What does God do about all of this? He does what is right and best and with time we come to His same conclusion.

The important thing is that we believe Him and love Him and pray. It means a lot to Him when we show that we believe. The more we pray, the closer we draw to Him. As we draw close, we receive the impression of what He wants and feels. We are reminded like I was, that His wounds, bruises, stripes and abuse made the way for our forgiveness, peace, healing and eternal life! It helps me when I remember I am forgiven and that He made a way for me to have peace no matter what is going on. There is peace that we can step into. No matter what we may go through; He went through more with us on His mind.

A prayer is a prayer. It is not about how profound or perfect it is. When we call upon God, it assures Jesus that it was all worth it. It is like seeing something or someone that you have put effort into produce what you hoped and beyond.  A prayer tells Jesus there is faith here and that there will be faith when He returns.

Give thanks to the Lord. Call upon His name. Make His deeds known among the people. Pray!