THE DAILY PRAYER BOWL

 

It is probably correct to say that most of us do not truly understand the effect our prayers have from God’s perspective.  Revelation 5:8 speaks of “Golden bowls full of incense, which are the prayers of the saints.”  Later we read in Revelation 8:4-5, that “the smoke of the incense, with the prayers of the saints, ascended before God . . .

Then the angel took the censer, filled it with fire from the altar, and threw it to the earth.”
    What a marvelous image! When you pray from the heart and in the Spirit, you are filling the prayer bowls of heaven. In God’s perfect timing, your prayers are mixed with the fire of God (His power) and cast back down to earth to change situations as answered prayer. While this may not be how you expected the answer to be, it will be as God knows it NEEDS to be and at EXACTLY the right time.  Your prayers don’t just bounce off the ceiling; they rise like incense before

the throne of God.

 

Even if you don’t feel like anything is happening in the natural world, when you pray, you are filling the prayer bowls in the spirit realm. When God, having heard all prayers He does respond and likens it to the Prayer Bowls being full and ready to be poured out. Whether this is reality or not it is a good way to think of your own prayer life being a partnership of responding to the nudges of the Holy Spirit so that you sacrifice the time and energy to really pray (and not merely give selfish requests from the flesh).

 

We have the privilege of being able to take a moment to put a prayer request in the prayer bowl. Or we may take more time and spend moments in the Lord’s presence placing lots of prayer requests intentionally and carefully in the prayer bowl – the choice is ours.

 

The exercise  is not to fill the Bowl but to fill our lives with Jesus, His life and His heavenly perspective.

 

ADD TO THE BOWL NOON EACH DAY

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As a church, we can help more people than any doctors, politicians or stimulus bills can, as good as these all are. WE CAN PRAY. Prayer is not the last thing we can do as some suggest. Prayer is the FIRST and GREATEST thing we can do! A dear friend in our church family has relatives in a church in Maryland who are praying for 12 minutes at 12 noon. I know of a number of other churches doing the same thing here the US and in the UK, in Austria, and in Singapore. Every day at 12 noon many brothers and sisters all around the world are praying and I would like to invite you to join them. Yes, there are time zone differences! Some days you will be able and some, you won't, but when you can, what a blessing this world will receive! Our church family beyond our own walls is vast and when talking to King Jesus, powerful.  Let's move the Hand that moves the world. The Lord Jesus cares deeply about what is happening in individual's lives, families, towns, cities, counties and nations right now. He is moved with compassion and wants us to join Him in interceding for others.

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Philippians 4:6

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"Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God."