15 Oct IHOP (International House of Prayer) That’s Not on the Menu – Isaiah 43:26 Part 3

Have you ever gone to an Italian restaurant and ordered Chinese food?  This can be a very frustrating experience for you and your waiter!  Unfortunately, we do this all the time when it comes to our prayer life.  We “order” in prayer without ever bothering to read what’s on the menu.

Over the last number of weeks we have begun a series of teachings on “International House of Prayer”.  We have already laid down a foundation for prayer as we discussed “May I have your order, please?”  A few weeks ago, we began “That’s not on the Menu” and contained within this we gave “Two Principles to a Powerful Prayer Life”:

Principle #1…Don’t pray the problem (Heb. 4:15-16).

This week, let’s continue…

Principle #2…Win with the Word (II Chron. 16:9, Jer. 1:12).

These two powerful verses tell us, “For the eyes of the Lord run to and fro throughout the whole earth, to show Himself strong in the behalf of them whose heart is perfect (the Hebrew reads complete or mature) toward Him…” (II Chron. 16:9).  The Bible also tells us, “…for I will hasten (or watch over) My word to perform it” (Jer. 1:12).  If you combine these verses you can already see that not only is God looking for someone to rescue, He is looking for His Word!

I truly understand how God is looking for His Word in difficult situations.  As a pastor, there are times when I must respond to an emergency situation and I too am looking for His Word.  In any two given crises, I can walk into a hospital room and the family may apprise me of the situation but then they’ll come back with something along the lines of “Pastor, I know this situation looks bad, but as you know the Bible says…”.  That’s exactly what I’m looking for as now the Lord and I have something to work with!  Conversely, you can walk into another emergency situation and the people will be despondent and panicked and they’ll be no Word whatsoever.  While you certainly have compassion on them, you know it’s going to be very tough to help them overcome this situation.

I remember several years ago, Keith and Twylla Foust (our dear son and daughter in the faith who have been with us for over 15 years) were pregnant (particularly Twylla!).  At 22 weeks, Twylla’s water broke.  Now statistically speaking, the medical odds of a child surviving when the mother’s water has broken at 22 weeks is only one percent!  When I got to the hospital that day, Keith and Twylla were not talking the problem they were talking the Word!  Today little baby Victoria is a healthy child because God always beats the odds…but He does so with His Word!

Next week, we’ll continue our series and learn more about winning with the Word!