Pray the Price

I’ve begun reading what many would consider an old book…first printed in 1997 and now in its ninth printing, “Pray the Price” by Rev. Dr. Terry Teykl. In it, if I get the gest, Terry believes we have become lazy with our prayer life…those are my words, not his. That is to say we have become comfortable in our prayer life and that has in effect rendered us ineffective. Could this be true? Yeah, I’m pretty sure it is true. Terry calls us to reclaim our Wesleyan heritage of tenacious prayer evangelism and to “target the Great Commission with prayer so that by praying the price we might target this generation to Christ” (p. 21). I think he is on to something here. How many times have you invited someone to Church or to a specific church program only to have them decline with some flimsy excuse? Had you prayed about that invitation? Really prayed about it…not only about what you would say, but first whether or not God wanted you to invite them to the event? I am sorry to disappoint you, but God doesn’t want everyone to come to your church or my church. However, there are specific persons out there that He does want there and you might just be God’s preferred method of getting them there! So we need to pray…not just once or for a few days…we might well need to pray for months for God to prepare them for our invitation. If we run ahead of God, we will spend our invitation long before God is ready for us. If we drag behind, God will have them prepared and we will not be ready. So yes, we need to pray the price…and know it’s not an easy task…but then Jesus never said it would be did he?