Prayer Will Change Your Life

PRAYER PRAYER

WILL CHANGE YOUR LIFE

By Elder Willie E. Hines, Jr.

rowing up as a young child at my grandmother’s home, the power and love for prayer was instilled in me at a very early age. My grandmother, the late Julia E. Hines, was a powerful prayer warrior and the epitome of a God-fearing woman. I learned through her Godly examples of how she loved to pray. She took to heart the Scripture, 1 Thessalonians 5:17; “Pray without ceasing.” She embedded this same love and desire in me. I vividly recall lining up alongside her bed from the oldest child to the youngest, as we would kneel in prayer every night reciting the Lord’s Prayer. Matthew 6: 9-13. After we would finish our prayers, we would then express to God our many thanks. As a child our prayers were simplistic and innocent in nature. We would thank God for having a good day at school, or for getting us a gift or toy. We would thank Him for having good grades, or for not getting in trouble that day. Then, we would close and say, in Jesus’ name, Amen. As time would have it, we continued to grow, so did our prayer life. Our prayer life would advance from just the simple things of what God did for us that day. It evolved to a greater level of appreciation. We were not just praying out of obligation because grandmother said to. We began to forge our own relationship with Him as our prayers continued. As time went on, the prayers began to get a little longer. We had so much more to tell God thank you for. We began to recognize that we were not just praying to a man. We were praying to a sovereign God!

GWe were praying to someone that not only heard our prayer, but to a God that was well-able to hear and answer our prayers. As Isaiah 65:24-25 states: “And it shall come to pass, that before they call, I will answer; and while they are yet speaking, I will hear.” As I grew to now have my own encounter with an Almighty God, this time in prayer literally changed my life. I learned that through prayer it not only changed me, but it also changed the circumstances around me. With this newfound revelation and knowledge, it allowed me to add content behind my prayers, where I could place a demand on God, to move and then watch Him work. I remember when my son, Elijah, was battling a rare skin disease, psoriasis. Despite the many doctor’s visits and years of intense treatment, nothing seemed to work. But, we kept praying until we saw the manifestation of our prayers. Although, it seemed like God was silent, our prayers were still in full effect. In January of 2019, after eight years, God answered our prayers! My son is healed of psoriasis! In April of 2020, God commissioned me to start a Global Prayer Call to unite believers across the country both nationally and internationally. This clarion call expanded the faith of likeminded believers to thousands around the globe. Through the power of prayer, it changed my life, and that of my son, and now thousands more. All from a small beginning of praying around the bedside to now, a life of prayer. Prayer will truly change your life!

Elder Willie E. Hines, Jr. attends Life With Jesus Ministries in Spartanburg, SC. His Pastor – Suffragan Bishop Lawyer and Lady Sandra Watson. A new author of the book, “From Trauma to Triumph” and a Sales Director for Charter Spectrum. Website: Williehinesjr.com

THE HIGH CALL

“Nevertheless I have this against you, that you have left your first love. Remember therefore from where you have fallen; repent and do the first works, or else I will come to you quickly and remove your lampstand from its place — unless you repent.” (Rev. 2:4-5)

By District Elder Mark A. Haywood

hrist loves His Church so much that He sacrificed

Himself to cleanse her from sin and purge her from all filthiness of iniquity, that she might pass from the carnal mind into the spiritual mind, “that He might present her to Himself a glorious church, not having spot or wrinkle or any such thing, but that she should be holy and without blemish” (Eph. 5:27-28). Unfortunately, the Church limps along slowly in progression toward Christ-likeness. The congregations of believers are filled with carnal Christians. Carnality is the state of the mind that hasn’t been divorced from the things of this world. How can the soul be paired to God while still in union with the things of this world? This attachment to the temporal world blinds us to the ways and wisdom of God, blocking us from the Kingdom lifestyle He has designed for us to enjoy. Christ declares that God has claimed responsibility for our daily needs, thus making it possible for us to live in His true SHALOM (peace, plenty, overflow, abundance), and His true SHABBAT (Sabbath, rest, rejuvenation). When you worry, you are focusing on the present circumstances, trying to figure out how to fix your issue, rather than trusting God’s promise to perform (Phil. 4:19). Worrying is precisely the opposite of faith. Operating in worry, makes it impossible to satisfy God, “…without faith it is impossible to please Him...” (Heb. 11:6). Wrong focus begets wrong results. Many of us are in a state of arrested development. We know how to preach, praise, and sell chicken dinners, but we don’t know JESUS. We don’t know what the hope of His calling is, why we are saved,

Cor what we are meant to do with our lives now that we are under grace. We don’t understand how it is that we are intended to redeem the time. Unfortunately, most of us are nearly without hope of receiving the answer because we haven’t arrived at the question yet! Truly, satan has sidelined many of us by using “Weapons of Mass Distraction.” The time has come for us to arise from the dust of these temporary things that distract us from the presence and will of God. It’s time for us to put on our garments of righteousness, take hold of the Kingdom, and grow in Christ. The vision our Lord has for His Church is beyond any of our ability to describe. Truly the Kingdom cannot be fully explained, it must be experienced. I will, nonetheless, attempt to give insight into the glorious life that God desires for you. God has designed for us to trust Him with every detail of our lives so that nothing in this world is able to disrupt our focus or take our attention from the Lord. When we are completely focused on God, we reach a place where we live completely free of worry, fear, doubt, and many of the other effects of the curse of sin and death. Only in this state will you be able to truly walk in the Scripture that proclaims that no weapon formed against you shall prosper! Let go (of this stuff) and let God (have His way in your life)!

District Elder Mark A. Haywood is the pastor of Greater Christ Temple in Fort Wayne, Indiana, a member of the ABSA Council of Indiana, and a PAW Social Media Ambassador.