We can call Heaven anytime—what a great privilege! In Old Testament days, the Israelites couldn’t call Heaven anytime. God would come down to the Holy of Holies on the Day of Atonement, and only the high priest was permitted to go in and make atonement before God for the sins of the people. Everyone else was left outside.

When Jesus came to Earth, He became our High Priest. He had divine blood in His veins, and He willingly shed that blood as an atonement for the sins of all mankind. Anyone who goes to Calvary and accepts that blood sacrifice is made a new creature in Christ, and they are pure and holy before the Lord. Jesus made a blood line to Heaven for all mankind, and that makes it possible for us to talk to the Lord any time of the day or night.

Do you make the most of that blood line for both you and others? When you wake up in the middle of the night, don’t lie there trying to figure out why you’re awake and never come up with the answer. Instead, consider that the Lord may have woken you up to pray for a lost soul or a person who is suffering and needs help. Then get on your knees.

God needs us in this last hour, and He honors our prayers; but they can’t be prayers of idle talk. When you talk to the Lord, you must claim His promises. When you get sick, you should pray for yourself before you ask anybody else to pray for you. My mother taught me that, and she made that a practice in her life. God honored her prayers; and many times, she didn’t need anybody else to pray for her.

The Lord said, Come now, and let us reason together (Isaiah 1:18). God wants to talk with His children. Have you ever had a talk with the Lord that lasted all night long, and you were not even sleepy? He seemed to make Himself so alive each minute, and He seemed to be just as excited to be talking with you as you were with talking to Him.

The Right Kind of Prayers

Jesus said, If ye abide in me, and my words abide in you, ye shall ask what ye will, and it shall be done unto you (John 15:7). You must first abide in divinity; and that means abiding in God’s greatness, love, faith, peace, hope, humility and self-control. Then God’s Word and His promises must abide in you, and you must know that all of God’s promises are true. Then when you go before the Lord in prayer, you can claim any promise you need.

There are different kinds of prayers. Some people pray only when they are afraid or think they are about to die, but there is no love for God in those prayers. Then once the threat of danger or death is gone, they stop praying. Job said that desperate prayers are as the wind. Do ye imagine to reprove words, and the speeches of one that is desperate, which are as wind (Job 6:26)?

Some people pray selfish prayers and are constantly asking the Lord to give them this or do that when their prayers should be full of praise and thanksgiving. The Bible says, Enter into his gates with thanksgiving, and into his courts with praise: be thankful unto him, and bless his name (Psalm 100:4). The Lord loves to be praised.

If you want God to hear your prayers, you must pray in humility and obedience. The Bible says, The effectual fervent prayer of a righteous man availeth much (James 5:16). You must burn with the zeal, power, love and grace of God in your prayer time. Then you will receive the answers you need; and that will give you divine strength, confidence in the Lord and power from On High.

Some of you have no confidence in your prayers, but I have more confidence in my own prayers than I do in anybody else’s. You should feel the same way if you live right before God and are plugged into Heaven all the time. And this is the confidence that we have in him, that, if we ask any thing according to his will, he heareth us (I John 5:14).

Old Testament Prayer Warriors

Only very few people were able to get their prayers through to Heaven in Old Testament days. Abraham was one of those people; and when he prayed, God healed an entire family. So Abraham prayed unto God: and God healed Abimelech, and his wife, and his maidservants; and they bare children (Genesis 20:17). God healed people in Old Testament days through prayer, and you can reach God through prayer for miracles and healings today. There is no defeat in Jesus Christ.

King Hezekiah walked uprightly before the Lord; and the Lord sent the prophet Isaiah to him saying, Thus saith the LORD, Set thine house in order: for thou shalt die, and not live (Isaiah 38:1). When Hezekiah heard that, he turned his face to the wall and prayed, Remember now, O LORD, I beseech thee, how I have walked before thee in truth and with a perfect heart, and have done that which is good in thy sight. And Hezekiah wept sore (Isaiah 38:3).

Afterward, the Lord sent Isaiah to Hezekiah again saying, Go, and say to Hezekiah, Thus saith the LORD, the God of David thy father, I have heard thy prayer, I have seen thy tears: behold, I will add unto thy days fifteen years (Isaiah 38:5). The Lord was going to do Hezekiah a big favor and take him home, but Hezekiah wanted to stay. He had great love for his people, and he didn’t know what would happen to them if he was gone; so he prayed to stay, and God heard him. There is no need to pray to God if you are not going to live for Him.

It had not rained in Israel for three-and-a-half years, so Elijah took his servant with him to the top of Mount Carmel; and he prayed. And Elijah…cast himself down upon the earth, and put his face between his knees (I Kings 18:42). Then he told his servant, Go up now, look toward the sea. And he went up, and looked, and said, There is nothing. And he said, Go again seven times. And it came to pass at the seventh time, that he said, Behold, there ariseth a little cloud out of the sea, like a man’s hand…And it came to pass…that the heaven was black with clouds and wind, and there was a great rain (I Kings 18:43–45). That little cloud in the form of a man’s hand meant that a man had reached the hand of God. Never give up on God.

Stay Awake in the Lord

Jesus was a great prayer warrior; and at times, He would stay awake all night praying. The disciples could not seem to do that. On the night Jesus was arrested, He had asked Peter, James and John to pray with Him; but when He checked on them, they were asleep. And he cometh unto the disciples, and findeth them asleep, and saith unto Peter, What, could ye not watch with me one hour (Matthew 26:40)? The disciples could not stay awake with Jesus.

Do you stay awake with Jesus, or do you wait until the end of the day to pray when you are tired and worn out? That is no time to try to talk to God because you will be asleep before you know it. You may pray a little, sleepy prayer; but you don’t really mean it. You are just speaking words, and that won’t work. When you pray, your heart must be connected to Heaven; and you must pray through faith. You have to mean what you are saying with your whole self—soul, mind and body.

Jesus always stayed awake in the presence of His Father, and great things took place. He prayed at Lazarus’ sepulchre; and then He said, Take ye away the stone…And when he thus had spoken, he cried with a loud voice, Lazarus, come forth. And he that was dead came forth, bound hand and foot with graveclothes: and his face was bound about with a napkin. Jesus saith unto them, Loose him, and let him go (John 11:39,43,44). When Jesus prayed, the dead were raised; and people were healed of whatever afflictions they had.

Paul followed the Lord with his whole heart and became one of the greatest apostles, and he had the same power Jesus had. When Paul was preaching one night, a man fell asleep and fell from the window where he was sitting. And there sat in a window a certain young man named Eutychus, being fallen into a deep sleep: and as Paul was long preaching, he sunk down with sleep, and fell down from the third loft, and was taken up dead. And Paul went down, and fell on him, and embracing him said, Trouble not yourselves; for his life is in him. When he therefore was come up again, and had broken bread, and eaten, and talked a long while, even till break of day, so he departed. And they brought the young man alive, and were not a little comforted (Acts 20:9–12). Paul stayed connected to Heaven, and you must stay connected too.

Help Win the Lost

In this hour, the value of prayer is immeasurable; and what we receive through it is miraculous. Don’t depend only on other people’s prayers; you must go before the Lord yourself and seek Him with your whole heart. The Lord said He would supply all your needs, and He will do just that. But my God shall supply all your need according to his riches in glory by Christ Jesus (Philippians 4:19).

If you tithe and give to God, He said He would open the windows of Heaven upon you and pour out even more than you need. Bring ye all the tithes into the storehouse, that there may be meat in mine house, and prove me now herewith, saith the LORD of hosts, if I will not open you the windows of heaven, and pour you out a blessing, that there shall not be room enough to receive it (Malachi 3:10).

When you are a child of God, He will always look out for you; so when trouble comes your way, the first thing you should do is contact the Lord. Rejoicing in hope; patient in tribulation; continuing instant in prayer (Romans 12:12). If you are living holy, you can do that at once through Jesus Christ and the Holy Ghost. Paul said, Be careful [anxious] for nothing; but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known unto God (Philippians 4:6).

Praying always with all prayer and supplication in the Spirit, and watching thereunto with all perseverance and supplication for all saints (Ephesians 6:18). Prayer can be a chore if you aren’t anointed for it, and the Lord is ready to anoint you anytime of the day or night.

Praying for the lost is more important than anything else; and in this last hour, every child of God should be praying for lost souls to be saved. We all must stand between lost souls and eternal damnation, so we must have that “go ye” that Jesus spoke of when He said, Go ye into all the world, and preach the gospel to every creature (Mark 16:15).

You must have vision for people to come to the Lord and vision to get this Gospel to the world. No sacrifice is too great. Our motto at Grace Cathedral is, “Win the lost at any cost.” You can adopt that motto as well.

A Prayer of Salvation

If you are a sinner or a backslider, the Lord is reaching out to you; and you can be saved today. Won’t you open your heart’s door and let Him in? He wants to find you, but you have to want to be found; or it won’t work.

Say this prayer right now: Oh, God, save my soul. I know you are the Son of God, and I know you came to Earth to set us free. I know you died for me; and now, I am going to live for you. I am at your feet of mercy, Lord, confessing all of my sins. I am so sorry I sinned against you; please forgive me now. I believe the blood of Jesus washes away all of my sins. Come into my heart, Jesus. Come on in! If you meant that prayer, Jesus is yours.

Now, you must go on and receive the baptism of the Holy Ghost. The Lord has let me know that no one can make the Rapture without Him because only by having His power within will you be changed when the Rapture trumpet sounds. In a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trump: for the trumpet shall sound, and the dead shall be raised incorruptible, and we shall be changed (I Corinthians 15:52).

The Bible says God will give the Holy Ghost to all who will obey Him. And we are his witnesses of these things; and so is also the Holy Ghost, whom God hath given to them that obey him (Acts 5:32). You must be one of the obedient ones and seek the Spirit with your whole heart.

Miracle Prayer

Now, you can have a physical miracle. You may have a deadly disease, but it doesn’t matter with the Lord. When Jesus was here, He healed people of whatever affliction they had. Now when the sun was setting, all they that had any sick with divers diseases brought them unto him; and he laid his hands on every one of them, and healed them (Luke 4:40). God said, I am the Lord that healeth thee (Exodus 15:26).

Lord, I bring the people to you. They may have AIDS, cancer, diabetes, lung trouble, heart trouble, paralysis or any other disease; but nothing is too hard for you. I bring sick and deformed little children to you. Heal them all in the blood name of Jesus, the One who came all the way from Heaven to deliver us! Heal, in the precious, blood name of Jesus! Heal!

As I speak that name, health is flowing to you. Be thou made whole. The healing power through the blood of Jesus Christ will get you and your loved ones well, but you must continue to serve Him and give Him all of the glory.

I want to meet you in Heaven one day, and Jesus made it possible. Thank God for Jesus! As the endless ages roll, we will praise the heavenly Father for sending us Jesus, the pearl of great price and our passport to Heaven. God bless you is my prayer.