“Throughout Scripture, in the life of every saint, of God’s own Son, throughout the history of God’s Church, God is, first of all, a prayer-hearing God.”

—Andrew Murray, The Ministry of Intercession

If we learned anything from this year’s Church in the Park, it’s that we have a prayer-hearing God, and, that He answers! Sunday, we heard dramatic testimonies of how God intervened in the lives of two of our church members to rescue them from what appeared to be certain death in trauma. In both of these instances you, as the family of God, mobilized to pray earnestly that God would spare their lives. God heard. God answered.

We can also learn that we should not wait until crises to ask God to do extraordinary things. If we truly believe He is “able to do far more abundantly beyond all that we ask or think” (Ephesians 3:20), and that he has actually answered such prayers for us, then we should be motivated to ask God for even greater things.

God does not always answer our prayers in a dramatic fashion. We’re well aware of the fact that sometimes God’s answer is “Not now,” and sometimes even “No.” Nevertheless, we would do well to make use of our Lord’s frequent invitation to pray, and to consider the words of William Carey, “Expect great things from God. Attempt great things for God.”

A few weeks ago, we introduced the Valley Bible Church prayer as a means of learning to believe more and ask exceptional things from God. As a reminder, here is a brief summary of how you can use the following questions to make use of the VBC prayer to ask God to do remarkable things through our Church.

Gratitude: What God has done. Are your prayers reflective?

Godliness: What God is doing. Are your requests life-changing?

Gospel: What God can do. Are your requests world-changing?

Glory: What God will do. Are your requests eternal?

God is a prayer-hearing God. He’s listening. Are you asking?