10/08/2026
PRAYER ALONE CANNOT CHANGE THIS — APOSTLE JOSHUA SELMAN
You cannot use prayer alone to pray your way out of a life of indiscipline. You start by praying to obtain the enabling grace, but eventually, you have to take advantage of that grace and use your will to make a decision that, from today, there will be a shift in your character and in your life.
There are many things we pray about that require more than prayer. Prayer is important, but prayer is not a substitute for responsibility. There comes a point where you have to rise from the place of prayer and make certain decisions.
You cannot be asking God to change your life while you continue to maintain the same habits that are responsible for where you are. You cannot keep saying, “Lord, help me,” and then refuse to cooperate with the help that God is bringing.
Grace will not force you to become disciplined. Grace empowers you, but you must respond.
If you have a problem with your time, for instance, you can pray for grace, but you must also learn to manage your time. If you know that there are certain things that keep weakening your spiritual life, you must make a decision to stop giving yourself to those things.
There are times when what you need is not another prayer point. What you need is a decision. A decision that says, “I cannot continue like this.”
And that decision must be backed up with action. Because if there is no action, many times, the prayer becomes an emotional experience that does not translate into transformation.
At some point, you must take responsibility for your growth. You must take responsibility for your choices. You must take responsibility for the things that God has placed within your power to change.
The presence of God can empower a man, but the man must respond to that empowerment. There must come a time when you look at your life and say, “By the grace of God, this pattern ends here.” That is where transformation begins.
Not just when you pray, but when what you prayed about begins to affect the way you think, the way you make decisions, and the way you live.
