The Power of Prayer

The Word of God is perfect truth. It is without error. Every commandment, judgment and precept found in the word of God has inherent within it a blessing or a curse. Obey God's perfect truth and reap the fruit of your obedience. Disobey and you'll eat the evil fruit of disobedience. Why not choose life and live? Now for today's subject.

GOD SAID by the mouth of the Lord of Glory, Jesus Christ, In Luke, Chapter 21, Verse 36:

Watch ye therefore, and pray always, that ye may be accounted worthy to escape all these things that shall come to pass, and to stand before the Son of man.

Jesus Christ prayed extensively.

Luke, Chapter 6, Verse 12:

And it came to pass in those days, that he went out into a mountain to pray, and continued all night in prayer to God.

Mark, Chapter 6, Verse 46:

And when he had sent them away, he departed into a mountain to pray.

MAN SAID prayer has no real telling power except for a possible placebo effect. MAN SAID it has no real saving power because there is no God to answer the prayer.

Now THE RECORD. Hundreds of passages in God's majority-text Holy Bible direct us to pray. The sweet psalmist of Israel began his day in prayer as all believers are well advised to do. Psalms, Chapter 5, Verses 2-3:

2 Hearken unto the voice of my cry, my King, and my God: for unto thee will I pray.

3 My voice shalt thou hear in the morning, O LORD; in the morning will I direct my prayer unto thee, and will look up.

Prayer delivers a myriad of blessings. Prayer directed unto God through Christ releases the praying believer from concern and stress. Phillipians, Chapter 4, Verses 6-7:

6 Be careful for nothing; but in every thing by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known unto God.

7 And the peace of God, which passeth all understanding, shall keep your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus.

Prayer breaks the back of hatred and bitterness and releases God's blessings. Matthew, Chapter 5, Verse 44:

But I say unto you, Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you, and persecute you;

The prayer of faith is the solution to life's problems. Mark, Chapter 11, Verse 24:

Therefore I say unto you, What things soever ye desire, when ye pray, believe that ye receive them, and ye shall have them.

The power of prayer is bigger than man's knowledge. Faith-filled prayer saves the lost, heals the sick, casts out devils, delivers from all of Satan's bondage and so much more.

Science, in an ever increasing way, is proving its long held skepticism of prayer as ignorance and in fact has proven and continues to validate the supernatural power of prayer.

In the magazine Psychology Today, this article titled, "Can Prayer Get You Pregnant?" was found:

Two separate studies reveal a surprising correlation between prayer and conception, on the one hand, and longevity on the other. A team from Columbia University was amazed to discover that prayer appeared to double the chances of pregnancy in women undergoing in-vitro fertilization treatments. Women who were prayed for had a 50 percent pregnancy rate, compared with a 26 percent success rate among those for whom no one prayed.

The study rules out the power of persuasion. Neither the women nor their doctors knew that people were praying on their behalf. In fact, the 199 women were in Cha General Hospital in Seoul, Korea, thousands of miles from those praying for them in the U.S., Canada and Australia. "The results were so highly significant they weren't even borderline," says Roger Lobo, Ph.D., chairman of the Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology at Columbia's College of Physicians and Surgeons. "We spent time deciding if it was even publishable because we couldn't explain it." They opted for publication in the Journal of Reproductive Medicine to encourage others to investigate the phenomenon.

Prayer might not only hasten life but also stave off death, according to research from the University of California at Berkeley. A team there found that Christians and Jews who attended regular services lived longer and were less likely to die from circulatory, digestive and respiratory diseases.

An article titled "Emotional Wellness," was published on WebMD.com. The following excerpt is from that article:

But prayer is more than just repetition and physiological responses, says Harold Koenig, MD, associate professor of medicine and psychiatry at Duke and a colleague of Krucoff's.

Traditional religious beliefs have a variety of effects on personal health, says Koenig, senior author of the Handbook of Religion and Health, a new release that documents nearly 1,200 studies done on the effects of prayer on health.

These studies show that religious people tend to live healthier lives. "They're less likely to smoke, to drink, to drink and drive," he says. In fact, people who pray tend to get sick less often, as separate studies conducted at Duke, Dartmouth, and Yale universities show. Some statistics from these studies:

• Hospitalized people who never attended church have an average stay of three times longer than people who attended regularly.
• Heart patients were 14 times more likely to die following surgery if they did not participate in a religion.
• Elderly people who never or rarely attended church had a stroke rate double that of people who attended regularly.
• In Israel, religious people had a 40% lower death rate from cardiovascular disease and cancer.

A Woman's Day magazine article titled "Giving Thanks," reads:

Saying grace with your family at dinner takes no time at all, yet studies show adding spirituality to your home reduces your loved ones' blood pressure by four points—enough to lower their lifetime risk of heart disease 20%. And doctors say daily prayer can cut their risk of ever developing depression by 81%!

"No one's sure why, but kids who are plugged in to their faith can have better health their entire lives," says pediatrician William Sears, M.D., author of The Family Nutrition Book.

"Prayer Helps Heal Hearts," is another article published by Woman's Day. The short paragraph reads:

More evidence that prayer can work health miracles was reported by Duke University Medical Center recently. Researchers found that heart patients who were prayed for by different religious groups fared an amazing 50% to 100% better than patients who received no prayers during their hospital stays. The prayed-for patients experienced lower blood pressure and heart rate during their operations and suffered fewer serious complications and deaths afterward.

Doctor L. Dossey, former chief of staff of Humana Medical City, Dallas, reviewed 130 scientific studies that had been conducted over a 30 year period. His conclusion? Dr. Dossey said, "The evidence is overwhelming; prayer does work." It's been proven to help people overcome everything from headaches to heart attacks.

The following excerpt is from an article titled, "Does Prayer Really Work?" published in the magazine First For Women:

Doctors at San Francisco General Hospital divided 393 coronary-care unit patients into two groups. The first were prayed for by prayer groups unacquainted with the patients; the second group were not prayed for. Neither the doctors nor the patients knew which patients were getting the prayer therapy and the prayer group never met the patients—they were given names and brief illness descriptions. They discovered that prayer, combined with the proper medical treatment, provided the added boost patients needed to recover.

Specifically, they found that the prayed for group:

• were less likely to have a cardiac arrest (heart attack).
• were two and one-half times less likely to have congestive heart failure.
• were five times less likely to need antibiotics.
• suffered fewer complications.

The sub-headline in a 2001 Reader's Digest feature article titled, "Searching For The Divine," read, "There is new evidence that humans are hard-wired to believe in God."

The following excerpt found in Reader's Digest was in an article titled "Faith Is Powerful Medicine":

Conferences on spirituality and health have been sponsored by Harvard Medical School and the Mayo Clinic. Nearly half of U.S. medical schools now offer courses on the topic. In a survey of 269 doctors at the 1996 meeting of the American Academy of Family Physicians, 99 percent said they thought religious beliefs could contribute to healing. When asked about their personal experiences, 63 percent of doctors said God intervened to improve their own medical conditions.

Overwhelming evidence that prayer is the real thing continues to pour in. Over and over and over again God's word is certified, as you should expect, as the absolute perfect truth.

GOD SAID pray.

MAN SAID prayer has no real telling power except for a possible placebo effect. MAN SAID it has no real saving power because there is no God to answer the prayer.

Now you have THE RECORD.

 

References:

King James Bible

Cuvelier, M.I., "Can Prayer Get You Pregnant?" Psychology Today, Jan./Feb. 2002, p 20.

Davis, J., "Can Prayer Heal?" WebMD.com, July 23, 2001.

"Giving Thanks," Woman's Day magazine, April 13, 1999.

"Prayer Helps Heal Hearts," Woman's Day magazine, March 23, 1999.

Noonan, P., "Does Prayer Really Work?" First For Women, August 26, 1996.

McIntosh, P., "Faith Is Powerful Medicine," Reader's Digest, Oct. 1999, p 155.

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