For the Prayer Seminar -
“Practical Praying.”
In an effort to encourage and inspire prayer, especially in the local church, Overcomers Ministries has put together a seminar that deals with many of the problems faced when trying to develop this most holy art of communication. It is an in-depth study designed to help the individual believer communicate better with God.
Without prayer we have no real hope in this life, either personally or corporately. As a result many individual lives and churches stagnate spiritually, only to fall back into sin and the ways of the world. E.M. bounds wrote, “So we come to one of the crying evils of these times, maybe of all times—little or no praying. Of these two evils, perhaps little praying is worse than no praying. Little praying is a kind of make-believe, a salve for the conscience, a farce and a delusion.”
God’s people are under a serious mandate—to make our churches and places of worship, first and foremost, houses of prayer. This series is designed to help you accomplish that goal.
You are invited to join Ray Beeson and the biblically based “Encouragement Conference” for a time of discovering ways to deal with difficult times. Ray is a former public school educator and has traveled extensively for over thirty years helping pastors and congregations develop strategies for overcoming. He is an author whose interest is to stay in tune with the trends and the movings of the Holy Spirit in America. His gentle style, transparency, and humor will touch your life as God uses him to help strengthen the Body of Christ.
Overview of “Practical Praying”:
(An Overcomers Ministries Local Church Training Series)
1. The Nature of Prayer: Prayer is the development of a divine communication system involving talking, sharing, calling on God, and pouring out our hearts to Him. Such a system brings God’s authority to bear on a situation, rescues from temptation, leads to deliverance from demons, brings peace to the human heart, helps in preaching the Gospel, helps in determining God’s will, and more.
2. The Commandment to Pray: Prayer is not an option. E. M. Bounds stated, “Prayer is not a little habit pinned on to us while we were tied to our mother’s apron strings; neither is it a little decent quarter of a minute’s grace said over an hour’s dinner, but a most serious work or our most serious years.”
4. The Elements of Prayer: Prayer can be greatly hindered when it is thought to be primarily asking God for things. But it can be powerful when it includes other elements such as praise, adoration, singing, waiting, meditating, listening, reading and praying the Word, and more.
5. The Time of Prayer: Time, place, and position all become important to the development of prayer. Consistency strengthens the spirit and gives resolve in time of difficulty and weakness. Note again the words of E.M. Bounds, “Spiritual work is taxing work, and men loath to do it. Praying, true praying, costs an outlay of serious attention and time, which flesh and blood do not relish.”
6. The Attitude of Prayer: The willing, obedience, and humble heart gets God’s attention faster than any other characteristics we may possess. S. D. Gordon wrote, “The greatest thing anyone can do for God or man is pray. It is not the only thing; but it is the chief thing. The great people of the earth today are people who pray. I do not mean those who talk about prayer; nor those who say they believe in prayer; nor yet those who can explain about prayer; but I mean these people who take time to pray.”
7. Prayer’s Need for Jesus: Even in prayer we need God’s help, for as the Scripture states, “we know not how to pray as we ought.”
8. Prayer’s Mission: Prayer changes things. By it God is glorified, we receive the mind of Jesus, unity is brought to Christ’s Body, laborers are sent into the harvest, people are saved, and more. S.D. Gordon also believed, “Prayer, real prayer, it is this that routs Satan’s demons, for it routs their chief. David killed the lion and the bear in the secret forests before he faced the giant in the open.”
9. Hindrances and Problems in Prayer: F.J. Huegel warned, “Prayer is not the cunning art of using God, subjecting Him to one’s selfish ends in an effort to get out of him what you want.” Furthermore, not a few praying people have wrestled with such things as a wondering mind, doubt, the cares of this life, unforgiveness, weariness, and laziness. Is there a solution to these problems and others?
10. The Praying Person’s Personal Life: Grace is not a substitution for holiness and righteousness. A person is only fooling himself if he thinks he can get something from God while living in known sin.
11. The Problem of Unanswered Petition: It is not prayer that is unanswered but rather some of our petitions. That is why it is important to know the nature of how to ask.
12. The Weapons of Prayer: Paul writes to the Corinthians challenging them to take on a warfare mentality. His intent is that they understand weaponry. “The weapons or our warfare are not carnal….” (2 Cor 10:5).
13. The Need for Faith: Faith is not assumption or presumption. It is the miracle of believing that comes only through Jesus.
14. Hearing God’s Voice: Many have shipwrecked their spiritual lives by failing to discern God’s voice as opposed to either their own or that of the enemy.
15. The Problem of Deception: To assume that if it is supernatural it came from God, or to believe that Christians are free from suggestions from the enemy are sure ways to get into trouble spiritually. Many undiscerning and deceived people have attacked Christ’s Body believing they were commissioned by God to do so. Jonathan Edwards challenged, “If some Christians that have been complaining of their ministers had said and acted less before men and applied themselves with all their might to cry to God for their ministers—had, as it were, risen and stormed heaven with their humble, fervent, and incessant prayers for them—they would have been much more in the way of success.”
