Confess your sins to each other and pray for each other so that you may be healed. The earnest prayer of a righteous person has great power and produces wonderful results. 17 Elijah was as human as we are, and yet when he prayed earnestly that no rain would fall, none fell for three and a half years! 18 Then, when he prayed again, the sky sent down rain and the earth began to yield its crops.
Those verses have been racing through my head much of the last couple weeks as we talked about prayer and practiced it. Praying is a practice that any follower of Jesus will know is vital to our growth, protection and connection to Jesus Himself.
In our family’s new devotion there was even more that crossed my mind. It hit me in the heart, and here is a paragraph from last night’s reading:
“Jesus speaks of faith as a “grain of mustard seed.” In this parable about the mustard seed, Jesus is sharing an important idea with us: faith begins in seed form. Faith in God is planted in the soil of our hearts and cultivated by the Spirit of God, and over time, it produces joy, peace, humility, fulfillment, power, and every other rich quality of the character of God. Faith is the source of these blessings, and prayer is the way that the source gets into the soil.”
Seriously faith does begin with a seed. If we plant the things that lead us to God, we will gain what we need and grow in Christ. Think about it. Practice it!
Here is another part of the devotion:
“Jesus tells the disciples to have faith in God and to speak to mountains without any doubt in their hearts. Perhaps instead of seeds of faith, you’ve had seeds of doubt and fear planted in your heart. Pray for the Spirit of God to uproot those things today and activate your faith through prayer.”
Activate your faith. Prayer is the place to start!
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