The Purpose of This Blog

In response to the challenge by the Southern Baptist Convention that churches take on the task to share the gospel with unengaged unreached people groups, the missions team of Harmony Pittsburg Baptist Association felt the need for a way to focus prayer on the task. This blog is intended to facilitate prayer for those contemplating their role in fulfilling the Great Commission. This on-line prayer guide may prove useful to those exploring a call to missions involvement as well as to those who have sensed a call to pray for those who will go to the front lines.

Thursday, March 22, 2012

Prayer Rendered Powerless

In his book Real Evangelism, Bailey Smith, a past president of the Southern Baptist Convention, offers the shocking proposition that we can nullify the power of prayer.  He suggests that we do so by our inaction.  If we fail to act on what we pray about, we give prayer no outlet to complete its purpose.  He draws an analogy with electrical power which must complete a circuit to release its energy.  Any "short circuit" disrupts the flow leaving the intended use powerless.  Smith applies this concept to our praying for God to make us a soul-winner, but then failing to make any contacts, in effect choking off any avenue for God to answer our prayer.

In previous posts I have tried to demonstrate the connection that Jesus and others in the Bible made between prayer and faith.  It is important to realize that faith is a two-sided coin.  One side is that of receiving a word from the Lord.  If God does not speak to us, then we do not exercise faith but presumption.  When Jesus told Satan that it was wrong to tempt or test the Lord His God, He meant that He would not jump off the pinnacle of the temple unless the Spirit told Him to, regardless of what promises could be found in the written word of God (Matthew 4:5-7).

But the other side of the coin is obedience.  William Carey preached, "Expect great things from God; attempt great things for God."  Both parts of that statement are about faith.  Just as there is no faith without a word from God, there also is no faith without a work from man.  What I mean is that if we believe, we will act.  This teaching is clear in what James says about faith and works.  Much so-called faith is dead, useless (2:14-26, especially verses 20 and 26) because nothing comes from it.  While works do not produce faith, true faith always produces works.  When God's Spirit leads us, and He always does if we are truly children of God (Romans 8:14), our faith in Him and His word is revealed by our obedience.  Failure to obey is unbelief.  It is sin.  When we don't do the good we know we are to do, it is sin (James 4:17).  When we act apart from a faith-creating word from God, it is sin (Romans 14:23).  True belief always leads to action.

Of course, the act of praying is itself a work produced by faith.  We pray because we believe God will hear and do things in answer to prayer that He would not otherwise do (James 4:2).  However, let's not nullify the power of our prayers by failing to do the things consistent with what we are praying for.  The disciples, who were told to pray that the Lord of the harvest would send forth laborers into the harvest, were themselves sent into the harvest by Jesus.  As we pray for God to extend the gospel to the unengaged unreached people groups of the world, let us do all we can to go ourselves if at all possible.  Let's not short-circuit prayer's power by inaction.

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