If we are average Americans, we do not pray at all--nada, zilch, zero. Let us be honest for a moment. Oh, we put on a jolly good show of being solemn and prayerful at church maybe once a month--but that is all it is--a good show, which fools only ourselves!

If we are Christians, we are like average Americans, sad to say. Our prayer life is laughable. Do we pray once a week for a couple minutes? That may be stretching it! Let's be honest! Could you or I pray our way out of a paper bag?

1. Do we pray only when we are in a terrible bind, at our wits end?

2. Do we pray just to get something we want for ourselves?

3. Do we pray because other people are watching us and we just want to fit in, so we fold our hands piously and bow our heads and "pray"?

4. Do we pray to look good to people and also gain God's approval?

Satan is laughing, not God, at us! He knows full well that a prayerless Christian is a powerless Christian! A prayerless church is a powerless church! A prayerless nation is a powerless nation! We have heard that said so often, we can recite it in our sleep, right?

But have we changed? Yet, we could be very, very powerful and influential--for Christ--but only through real prayer.

Just look at the Moslem nations--they are spiritually powerless, because they do not pray to the One True God--so, sensing their utter impotence, they resort to bombs, threats, armies, and physical force and intimidation, along with lying and signing rafts of "peace" treaties with the West they never intend to keep (the Moslem doctrine of Hudna).)

America is fast becoming a powerless nation, because of our prayerlessness. It isn't our military that is declining, it is our prayerlife. Let us, one by one, turn this cart around! We can pray--it is our individual choice!

Again: But why pray? This could be the most important question of this century. This may be the most important message that is ever featured on this page of the Emmaus Walk! This will tell us, from scripture, what is the power of prayer and why we need to pray.