Last week, I read a column by Chaplain Hwan Ki Kim of The Salvation Army Ride Church in Sydney, Australia. His short, concise writing style is one of the things I look forward to each month. In the October issue of The Christian Review, he wrote an article titled "Praying with the Word, breathing with the Word, and the Word works."

  Here's a quick recap Paul, who had much to boast about, counted it all as "dung." He boasted about three things. Boasting in his weaknesses (2 Corinthians 11:30), boasting in the cross of Christ (Galatians 6:14), and boasting in the saints in Thessalonica (1 Thessalonians 2:19).

  Praying with the Word: Praying with the words of Scripture. In both the Old and New Testaments, the word "covenant" means "to bind" or "to promise. The Bible is God's word of promise. To pray with the Word means to pray in reliance on the promises, pointing out that the best way to draw life from the Word is to read it in prayer and to pray with it.

  If you breathe in prayer: It is said that through prayer you change yourself to be on God's side, which means that prayer is about giving sovereignty back to God. Prayer is spiritual breathing. Breathing consists of an exhalation (呼) and an inhalation (吸). In English, this is exhalation and inhalation. The exhalation is the speaking prayer and the inhalation is the listening prayer. We breathe out our requests, and we breathe in God's Word.

  The Word works: "For this reason we give thanks without ceasing to God, because when you received the word of God, as you heard from us, you received it not in the word of men, but in the word of God; and this word also works in you who believe." (1 Thess. 2:13) The written word of revelation, the Logos, becomes the rhema (the word given to each individual) and works in the believer. To "work" means to "do work.

  Cmdr. Kim's short article made me reflect on our prayers today. So many of our prayers and requests seem to be driven by necessity, and I admit that we are so focused on our immediate and urgent needs that we often leave behind the Word (the Bible), the surety of our promises. 

  Jesus, the Logos, or Word, is the source of power, and this truth is too often overlooked. Word-based prayer is about asking for your requests and listening to God's Word, like inhaling and exhaling. When we pray in this way, we believe that the Word Himself will work in us to accomplish whatever we ask.

Translated with www.DeepL.com/Translator (free version)