Prayer is amazing, an astonishing opportunity and facility for us – prayer to the Father in the name of Christ. We are reading the word of God; we study it day by day. It is prayer that enlivens our minds and helps us to grasp the sense in the word. We are tempted and under pressure; it is through prayer that the force of temptation is blunted and weakened. If we do not pray to be delivered from sin as we are instructed in the Lord’s Prayer, well then, temptation will carry all its force. As we seek to put to death our sins, those wrong thoughts that arise within us, those wrong words that come onto our tongues, wrong aspirations and desires, we want to put them to death. It is by prayer only that we successfully mortify those things and put them to death. It is by prayer that we obtain a sense of communion with God. Without prayer there can be no communion with the living God. In distress it is by prayer that we draw comfort. Don’t think that the Lord will comfort you automatically because you are in trouble or distress. Because in his kindness he may do so, but, generally speaking, you must ask for his blessing and his strength and his help. It is by prayer that you obtain vigour to do all the things you have undertaken to do for the Lord. Do you pray that you may have joy as a believer? You must. It is by prayer that our sicknesses are healed. Not all of them, because God wills that we should bear some of our sicknesses. But according to his will, if we do not ask, we will not receive, and it is through prayer that our own sicknesses, as the sicknesses of others are healed. It is through prayer that our reflections are brightened. We open the word of God and we feel sometimes so heavy and lethargic. What unworthy creatures we are! We pray to have our minds brightened and our spirits lifted, and God will hear our prayer, and our devotions will become all the more rewarding. And it is prayer that brings down salvation for others. We exercise a ministry of intercession and we plead for others and God hears our cries and answers them according to his own will. It is through prayer that pain is hallowed and we are helped through these things. You have children in this present world with everything that is going on - it is by prayer alone that your children will be protected. What a wonderful, an amazing thing is prayer.