Prayer is certainly the highway to Christian victory and is God’s way of developing a loving relationship with His people. However, prayer is also the chosen vehicle to change the plans of Satan for your life, family, community, church, city and country. Isaiah shows there must be a time of waiting before God in prayer, (Isa. 40; 31). The apostle Paul gives a plea to the church to pray, (I Tim. 2:8), “Men everywhere should pray.” The apostle James tells us the potential and powerful prayer in James 5:16. There is no limit to the power of the prayers of the righteous. The early church started with patient prayer in Acts 1: 3. They prayed for ten days. This was Christ’s command, (Lk. 24:49). We see the experience of prevailing prayer in (I Thess. 5:27). Christians should always be in the attitude of prayer. However, we see in (Matt. 6:6), a call to personal prayer and secret prayer is the miracle of the Christian life.
When we come to worship, Jesus should be our focus. If every part of the organization of the church is not Christ centered, we would do well to discontinue its activity. Every brick, block, nail, song, prayer, and program should be the means of worshiping Christ and winning others to Him.Twenty-five centuries ago, Daniel despaired when He and his countrymen were deported to a foreign land after Judah was conquered. Daniel was captured by an egocentric tyrant and surrounded by idolaters, but he never gave up. He knew that his fate did not lie in the hands of his circumstances but in his faith in God.
King Nebuchadnezzar changed the names of Daniel and the young people from Judah because he wanted to make them Babylonians. This move was to help assimilate them into a new pagan culture. For instance, Daniel means, ‘God is my judge’ in Hebrew. His name was changed to Belteshazzar, which means, ‘he who Bel favors.’ Bel was the chief Babylonian god. Hannaniah means, ‘mercy of God’, his new name Shadrach,’ means ‘under the command of Aku’ (the moon god). Mishael means, ‘who is like God.’ His new name ‘Meshach means, ‘who is like Aku.’ Azaniah means ‘whom God helps’, his new name means Abednego, ‘one who serves Nebo’ ( the fire god). By changing everything familiar to these Hebrew people, the king wanted to change their religion from Jehovah God to the Babylonia’s gods. However, Daniel and his friends determined to serve the true God.