WhenYouPray

Exodus 32:32       [Moses' prayer for his people]
"Now if You would only forgive their sin. But if not, please erase me from the book You have written."

Prayer is not designed to change God, it is designed to change us.
Prayer is not calling God in to bless our activities.
Rather, prayer takes us into God's presence, shows us His will, and prepares us to obey Him.

Moses climbed Mount Sinai and spent forty days communing with God.
God showed him the wickedness of the Israelites (Exodus 32:7).
Moses had not known their desperate condition, nor had he realized the imminence of God's judgment upon them until God revealed it to him.

As God made Moses aware of all that was at stake, Moses felt the same compassion for the people that God felt. Moses became willing to sacrifice his own life for his obstinate people.
In a compelling and selfless prayer of intercession, Moses offered to have his own name blotted out of the book of life if God would spare the people.
In Moses' time with Him, God had formed a mighty intercessor for His people.

God will use your prayer times to soften your heart and change your focus.
As you pray for others, the Holy Spirit will work in your heart so that you have the same compassion for them that God does (Romans 8:26 and 27).

If you do not love people as you should, pray for them.
If you are not as active in God's service as you know He wants you to be, begin praying.
You cannot be intimately exposed to God's heart and remain complacent.
The time spent with God will change you and make you more like Christ.

adapted from Experiencing God Day by Day by brothers Henry and Richard Blackaby, 1997

Prayer:
Father in heaven,
teach me how to pray for those You love and for those I love.
Teach me to pray especially for those who do not love You or me,
so I can be like Jesus, my Saviour and my Lord!
Amen.