Lifewords Prayer Series 9 of 30

Lifewords  Prayer Series 9 of 30 Jesus said in Matthew 6:6 "When you PRAY,  go into your room and close the door and pray to your Father in secret, and your Father,  Who sees in secret will reward you openly."    As we surrender all to Him the Lord will teach us to pray, through the abiding presence of the Holy Spirit our Teacher. He will expose and remove the barriers of pride, unbelief, sin and unforgiveness . These four areas must be brought into the light of God's Word every day. If left unchecked, they will hinder effective praying. But when we bring them daily to the victorious cross, trusting in the power of the blood of Jesus to forgive and liberate us, we will be set free into a whole new level of prayer and intercession.      So, we come into His gates with Thanksgiving, We enter His courts with Praise. It is interesting to think about the Tabernacle of Moses, a picture for us today of how we are to approach God in prayer. Remember, the first area right after the entryway to the tent was the Altar of Sacrifice where the animal sacrifices  were made to atone for the sin of the people.  This  is a picture to us, of bringing our sacrifices of Praise  to the Lord as we come into prayer.    Next was the "Laver" or wash basin for cleansing. This signifies to us that when we come into our time of prayer, we must come by the cleansing Blood of our Savior.  We come with humility, asking the Lord to search our hearts and reveal, so that we can repent and receive forgiveness and cleansing according to 1 John 1:9. Daily repentance is powerful and necessary and vital for effective prayer! God's Word says in Psalms that "if I regard iniquity in my heart, the Lord will not hear me."  Oh, but the precious, powerful blood of our Savior who is abundant in lovingkindness and forgiveness! He wants us to come to Him, with all of our failures, all of our sin, all of our imperfection. As we come with a humble and sincere heart, repenting for all, we can receive forgiveness and cleansing. We can be confident that the power of His grace and love to forgive us is greater than our sin.There is power in His blood, in the very Name of Jesus!