Open Heaven 12 July 2025: A Simple Prayer
MEMORISE: Mark 1:35 And in the morning, rising up a great while before day, he went out, and departed into a solitary place, and there prayed.
READ: James 5:16-18
16 Confess your faults one to another, and pray one for another, that ye may be healed. The effectual fervent prayer of a righteous man availeth much.
17 Elias was a man subject to like passions as we are, and he prayed earnestly that it might not rain: and it rained not on the earth by the space of three years and six months.
18 And he prayed again, and the heaven gave rain, and the earth brought forth her fruit.
Read Yesterday’s Open Heaven Devotional Here
Some years ago, a man’s wife ran mad, and she was taken to a herbalist for treatment.
After being with the herbalist for so long, she didn’t get any better; rather, she only grew worse.
Somebody told me about the situation, and I decided to go and pray for the woman. When I got there, I said a simple prayer and left.
After I left, some people contacted her husband and said, “This man came and prayed for only two minutes. Two minutes of prayer for this kind of problem?!” Since they didn’t believe that the prayer worked, they decided to take her to a psychiatric hospital. When they got there, the specialist said, “Let us observe this woman for a while so we can know the type of medication to administer to her.”
After two weeks, the specialist sent for her husband and told him, “If you say there is something wrong with this woman, then there must be something wrong with you.” With no medication and just a simple prayer, she was healed completely.
In 1 Kings 18:36-38, Elijah’s prayer that brought down fire must have just been for a few minutes. When ministers of God say simple prayers and great miracles happen, it is because they have spent hours with God in secret.
When Jesus walked on the earth, He only had to speak once for every miracle He performed to happen. However, the Bible records in many instances that He would retreat from His disciples and other people to go to a solitary place to pray, just as we see in today’s memory verse. This is the secret to simple prayers that carry so much power.
Every time Elijah prayed in the Bible, his prayers were short and very effective. In 2
Kings 1:9-12, when he decreed that fire should fall from heaven and consume the two captains and the soldiers they were in charge of, it was with a few words, “If I be a man of God, let fire come down from heaven and consume thee and thy fifty.”
Today’s Bible reading tells us the secret behind those simple but powerful decrees – Elijah was a man like us who prayed earnestly and fervently, and God answered him (James 5:17). If you want to pray simple but powerful prayers in public, you must labour fervently and earnestly in prayers in the secret place. Profound public results are only birthed by intense secret sacrifices.
KEY POINT: The simple but powerful prayers that birth great miracles result from intense fellowship with God in secret.
BIBLE IN ONE YEAR: Ecclesiastes 9-12
Open Heaven 12 July 2025
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