“About midnight Paul and Silas were praying and singing hymns to God, and the other prisoners were listening to them. Suddenly there was such a violent earthquake that the foundations of the prison were shaken. At once all the prison doors flew open, and everyone’s chains came loose.”

— Acts 16:25-26

Many Christians have left out the praise and worship way into victory, yet this is one powerful way of defeating the enemy. Most people will say, “I have prayed and prayed but no results.” And if you ask what else, the answer is always a straight face. If we are following the foundations laid by the Apostles, we can confirm here (Acts 16:25-26), that singing/praising God is another way of prayer. We see this a lot in the book of Psalms. Every day should be a day of praise, thanksgiving, and worship of the King of Glory who has kept us. We are alive because he is seated on His throne. He never sleeps; He is watching over us.

WE ALL OWE HIM WORSHIP, PRAISE, AND THANKSGIVING - NOT ONLY BECAUSE WE HAVE A PROBLEM THAT WE ARE BELIEVING HIM TO SOLVE, BUT BECAUSE HE IS OUR GOD. Psalm 146:1-2 “Praise the Lord! Praise the Lord, O my soul! I will praise the Lord as long as I live; I will sing praises to my God while I have my being.” This psalmist was a prayer warrior. He knew that there were times when singing, dancing and worshiping God in songs was the right alternative.

Prayer Points

This is an invitation to come before the Lord. Psalm 95: 1-6 “Come, let us sing for joy to the Lord; let us shout aloud to the Rock of our salvation. Let us come before him with thanksgiving and extol him with music and song. For the Lord is the great God, the great King above all gods. In his hand are the depths of the earth, and the mountain peaks belong to him. The sea is his, for he made it, and his hands formed the dry land. Come, let us bow down in worship, let us kneel before the Lord our Maker.”
Even when you have prayed all you can, there is that time when you just spread your hands to the heaven and worship God like Solomon: 1 Kings 8:54 “And it was so, that when Solomon had made an end of praying all this prayer and supplication unto the LORD, he arose from before the altar of the LORD, from kneeling on his knees with his hands spread up to heaven.”
Are your problems weighing you down and you cannot pray? Come, before the Lord and lift up your hands and worship him: Do you have a burden? Ezra 9:5 “And at the evening sacrifice I arose up from my heaviness; and having rent my garment and my mantle, I fell upon my knees, and spread out my hands unto the LORD my God.”
There is absolutely no barrier to worshiping God. In every circumstance of life, there is a grace that enables us to arise and worship the Lord: 2 Samuel 12:19-20 ”When David saw that his servants were whispering to one another, he perceived that the child was dead. So he asked his servants, “Is the child dead?” “He is dead,” they replied. Then David got up from the ground, washed and anointed himself, changed his clothes, and went into the house of the LORD and worshiped. Then he went to his own house, and at his request they set food before him, and he ate.”
Ask the Lord to grant you the kind of grace to worship that Job had in the midst of his storm: Job 1: 19-21 “when suddenly a mighty wind swept in from the desert and struck the four corners of the house. It collapsed on the young people and they are dead, and I alone have escaped to tell you!”Then Job stood up, tore his robe, and shaved his head. He fell to the ground and worshiped, saying: “Naked I came from my mother’s womb, and naked I will return. The LORD gave, and the LORD has taken away. Blessed be the name of the LORD.”

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“And when you stand praying, if you hold anything against anyone, forgive them, so that your father in heaven may forgive you your sins.

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— Mark 11: 25

“Be merciful, even as your Father is merciful. Judge not, and you will not be judged; condemn not, and you will not be condemned; forgive, and you will be forgiven”

— Luke 6: 36-37

Forgiveness is freedom but unforgiveness is a SIN, TORTURE, and keeps us in PERMANENT BONDAGE. People hurt people all the time and there is no one who is exempted from this. Forgiveness is a choice we must make and when we chose to forgive, it does not mean what happened is not important, validated, or that we are weak. When we chose forgiveness, we are in obedience to God’s word, giving him the opportunity to act on our behalf. As believers, we have to cry for God’s mercies and forgiveness on a daily basis because so often, in one way or the other, we often offend God. It is interesting how Jesus answered in Matthew 18:22 “I tell you, not seven times, but seventy-seven times.” Therefore, it is appropriate for Jesus to ask that we forgive without limit. If this is the case, then just imagine how much we hurt God requiring his mercies and forgiveness all the time. Our ability to show mercy and forgiveness is based on our understanding and acceptance of the demonstration of God’s love on the cross of Calvary when HIS ONLY son was sacrificed as a sin offering on our behalf. Titus 3:4-7 “But when the goodness and loving kindness of God our Savior appeared, he saved us, not because of works done by us in righteousness, but according to his own mercy, by the washing of regeneration and renewal of the Holy Spirit, whom he poured out on us richly through Jesus Christ our Savior, so that being justified by his grace we might become heirs according to the hope of eternal life.”

THERE IS ABSOLUTELY NO EXCUSE FOR US NOT TO SHOW MERCY AND FORGIVE ONE ANOTHER IF WE OURSELVES HAVE BEEN FORGIVEN THROUGH THE COMPLETED WORK ON THE CROSS OF CALVARY. Ephesians 2:4-7 “We are saved because of the mercies and grace of God, made alive in Christ and seated in the heavenly places with him. “But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ—by grace, you have been saved—and raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, so that in the coming ages he might show the immeasurable riches of his grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus.”

Prayer points

Let us come before the King of Glory and ask for forgiveness for all we have done to fall short of his glory. We are all debtors to God, there is always something we have left undone or did not do right according to his word. Matthew 6:9-15 “This, then, is how you should pray: ‘Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name, your kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven. Give us today our daily bread. And forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors. And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from the evil one."
Ask God to grant you the grace of mercy and forgiveness. As a biblical principle, you can only receive forgiveness and mercy if you learn how to show mercy and forgiveness to others. “With the merciful, You will show Yourself merciful...” 2 Samuel 22:26.
Ask God to grant you the grace to show mercy and forgive anyone in your life who has hurt you. Luke 6:36-37 “Be merciful, even as your Father is merciful. Judge not, and you will not be judged; condemn not, and you will not be condemned; forgive, and you will be forgiven.”
Colossians 3:13 says, “Bearing with one another and, if one has a complaint against another, forgiving each other; as the Lord has forgiven you, so you also must forgive.”
Ask God to forgive and show mercy on you and your family: Exodus 20:5 “You shall not worship them or serve them; for I, the Lord your God, am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children, on the third and the fourth generations of those who hate Me.” Exodus 34:6-7 “The Lord, the Lord God, merciful and gracious, longsuffering, and abounding in goodness and truth, keeping mercy for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin …”
As you come before the throne with your offering, let go anyone in your heart irrespective of what they have done to you. God knows and has his way of dealing with people. Jesus came to reconcile man to God and because we have received that pardon, we have also received the grace to forgive. We only need to align ourselves with the word of God and forgive as he has commanded. Mathew 5: 23-24 “So if you are offering your gift at the altar and there remember that your brother has something against you, leave your gift there before the altar and go. First, be reconciled to your brother, and then come and offer your gift.”
Most people who have unforgiveness suffer from anger etc. Ask the Lord to heal you from every hurt, bitterness, anger, rage caused by unforgiveness: Ephesians 4: 31-32 "Get rid of all bitterness, rage, and anger, brawling, and slander, along with every form of malice. Be kind and compassionate to one another, forgiving each other, just as in Christ God forgave you."
Ask the Lord to have mercy and forgive our communities and the church: Galatians 5:19-21“Now the practices of the [a]sinful nature are clearly evident: they are sexual immorality, impurity, sensuality (total irresponsibility, lack of self-control), 20 [b]idolatry, [c]sorcery, hostility, strife, jealousy, fits of anger, disputes, dissensions, factions [that promote heresies], envy, drunkenness, riotous behavior, and other things like these. I warn you beforehand, just as I did previously, that those who practice such things will not inherit the kingdom of God.”
Ask God to forgive the ministers and ministries of the Gospel: Hebrews 8:12 “For I will forgive their wickedness and will remember their sins no more.” Micah 7:18-19 "Who is a God like you, who pardons sin and forgives the transgression of the remnant of his inheritance? You do not stay angry forever but delight to show mercy. You will again have compassion on us; you will tread our sins underfoot and hurl all our iniquities into the depths of the sea."
Our inability to forgive most often is due to our stony hearts. Ask the Lord to transform our hearts so his word can penetrate and minister to us. Ezekiel 11:19 "I will give them an undivided heart and put a new spirit in them; I will remove from them their heart of stone and give them a heart of flesh."
Ask God for the grace to forgive and try living at peace (tolerate) with people you meet daily: Romans 12:18-21 “If it is possible, as far as it depends on you, live at peace with everyone. Do not take revenge, my dear friends, but leave room for God’s wrath, for it is written: “It is mine to avenge; I will repay,” says the Lord. On the contrary: “If your enemy is hungry, feed him; if he is thirsty, give him something to drink. In doing this, you will heap burning coals on his head.” Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.”