When it was time for the evening sacrifice, Elijah prayed: Our Lord, you are the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Israel(Jacob). Now, prove that you are the God of this nation, and that I, your servant, have done this at your command. Please answer me, so these people will know that you are the Lord God, and that you will turn their hearts back to you. 1 Kings 18:36-37 CEV
Yesterday we saw how Elijah dealt with the divided hearts of the people between God and Baal. Now before you think that’s not us, we don’t worship other gods, I want you to consider something. Baal wasn’t just seen as a god, he was an idol, something that took the place of Jehovah God. We may not literally bow down to statues of idols, but we sure do have plenty of them. Careers, houses, cars, entertainers, TV, computer games, Facebook, sports, etc, you get the gist, anything that takes our focus off of the Lord or we put before Him. I truly hope you are using these days of repentance to ask Holy Spirit to show you what your idols may be.
Because idols are a snare, they are difficult to overcome and defeat. It is only by the power of God that they will lose their strongholds on our hearts. That is why today we are going to focus on the prayer that Elijah prayed that is so powerful it will tear down strongholds and can be used in any form of Spiritual warfare. First Elijah addresses the identity of God as Jehovah, the great I AM (very similar to Our Father who art in heaven). Second, he asks God to show the nation that He is their true God and they would know he was God’s servant because he followed God’s word. Third, he asked God to reveal His glory so that the people’s hearts would turn back to Him. Notice something about this prayer, it’s all about God. Not about the people, not about Elijah, not about the problem, but about the power and glory of God to draw people to Himself. And He did, and the blessings came in the form of rain.
Notice this prayer is according to the Word of God, to show His glory and power, for the good of everyone, to draw people to Him either in return or for the fist time. How different would our prayers be if we prayed more like this? But more importantly, how different would the results of our prayers be if we made them all about Him? Since God”s character never changes, perhaps it’s time for us to change our prayers.
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