Perry Noble is the pastor of NewSpring Church just across the Georgia line over in South Carolina in the Greenville-Anderson area. He writes in a VERY excited style. He is on FIRE about so many DIFFERENT things! You can tell that his mind gets blown REGULARLY by some of the insights that the Lord keeps sending his way through his family, his parishioners, Scripture study, and just out and out REVELATION.
For a while he has been penning a few posts on THINGS HE WISHES SOMEONE WOULD HAVE TOLD HIM (as if he would have been in a frame of mind to really hear!)
At any rate, part 9 was about the importance and power of prayer. And I got to wondering, "How many times have you heard someone say, ‘I’ll keep you in my prayers.’?"
Why just this morning on FOX News, I was watching some of the images of the devastation over in Atlanta, Georgia from the tornadoes, and one of the anchors was talking to a reporter at a remote location and said something to the effect of, our prayers are with those people. And mind you, I am not trying to diminish the sentiment of what he said, but I thought it would have been fascinating (and probably her last time to appear on national TV) had the remote reporter responded by saying, "Really, Matt? (I can’t remember his name) You mean tonight before you go to bed you are going to get down on your knees and keep these people in your prayers?"
Don’t you know there would have been a long, awkward pause? When people say that to me, there is always a part of me that wonders if those are just pleasant words we say, or if we really mean them? Is it sort of like people saying, "Y’all come back sometime . . ." Hmmmmm. One time I did go back, and they wondered why I had showed up. Had someone died they didn’t know about? Was someone hurt bad and in the hospital? What’s the pastor coming and knocking on my door about? He needs to stay in his office where I know when to get him when I needs him!
Nevertheless, what Perry Noble says is the absolute truth. You can quibble about if you think it is important, but I will tell you that it is powerful—far more powerful than most people have ever dared to imagine. It is a powerful force that can alter people’s lives. I have seen it keep people alive who medically should have died days earlier. Never, never underestimate its power, for if you truly pray in an importunate way, the thrust of what you desire will be given to you. Another way to put that is that the essence of that for which you pray will be given to you, maybe not the accidental, but the essence always.
