This last Sunday I spoke to our youth in the youth meeting about 3 kinds of prayer that will change your life. First is the prayer of salvation, that’s the prayer we prayed when we received Jesus but it also a prayer we can and should pray when we need help, salvation, in any situation in life. Often we come into situations we didn’t plan to come into and we have no clue of how to get out of it. Then Jesus is still our savior, when we call on His name He hears, answers and saves even though we are already Christians.

Secondly we have the prayer of forgiveness. In 1 Joh 1:9 the apostle John writes ‘If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness.’ which tells us what to do when we sin, not if because we all sin frequently in our thoughts, words and deeds, and we are to confess our sins. Often we want to explain our mistakes but the Bible tells us to confess our sins and mistakes. Confess means that we say the same thing as, and in this situation we say the same thing as God says about us and what we’ve done. When we are convicted by the Word of God and the Holy Spirit we say the same thing as God says, we confess our sins to God and He then promises to forgive us. This is a life changing prayer, we get rid of the guilt and burden of sin, being freed from a bad conscience and our hearts open up to God again.

Thirdly is the prayer of power, it’s praying in the Holy Spirit. The gift of speaking in other tongues is a great gift from God. I remember many years ago I was asked to lead a person in the baptism in the Holy Spirit and failed to do so even though I just graduated bibleschool and had lots of knowledge. I got so discouraged but the pastor gave me a tape (long time ago!!!) series he had called ‘The scriptural reasons for Speaking in other tongues’. I listened to one time, then a second time, the third time I fell asleep while listening but I decided to listen one more time and that fourth and fifth time I suddenly got the message and it changed my life. I decided to pray in the spirit until I experienced the freedom the preacher had been speaking about. I started with one hour, after an hour I finished and heard a voice saying, ‘You’ve just wasted an hour on nothing’, I understood where the voice came from and decided to pray another hour. So I did and after one and half hour I finished praying without nothing special happening and the voice said again ‘Now you’ve wasted two and half hour’ so I went down on my knees deciding to pray until I experienced freedom in my spirit. I think I prayed maybe another hour and suddenly the atmosphere in the room changed and the Glory of the Lord filled my heart and the whole room. I understood I learned a lesson for life and I did. So many times in times of great struggle I’ve kneeled down starting praying until I experienced freedom on my heart and the Glory of the Lord filling me. This is the prayer of power and it is a gift from God.

Matsjan