Prayer is not to inform God. When you are omissioned, you don't need new information.

Dr. Tony Evans says prayer is designed for us to acknowledge what God already knows we need.

So prayer is that mechanism that God wants to use to draw down what God has decreed into our lives and into our situations.

This is the alternative with Dr. Tony Evans.

Author, speaker, senior pastor of Oakliffe Bible Fellowship in Dallas, Texas, and president of the Urban Alternative.

Good employers are going to give their workers the tools they need to get the job done right.

Likewise, God gives believers powerful tools for dealing with life.

But too many times we neglect to use what we've been given.

Let's join Dr. Evans as he reminds us of the benefits of strengthening our communication with the Lord through prayer.

If your car is falling apart, then you're going to pursue making contact with the mechanic.

If your home is in this repair, you're going to pursue making contact with the repair person.

If your grades are in decline, then you're going to seek support and help from a tutor.

If your clothes are tattered and torn, then you want to make contact with a tailor.

In other words, you're going to make contact with the expert who's designed to fix the problem that you face.

But what do you do when your world is falling apart?

When your life is in disarray, your hopes and dreams are dashed.

What do you go when people are no longer sufficient to rectify the chaos, calamity, decline, and confusion that may have engulfed your life?

James has been speaking through these four and a half chapters about living real.

That the culture offers us illegitimate alternative solutions to our dilemma, but because they seem to be so tangible, so real, so effective, we grasp and grab them, not knowing that many of them have been infused with rat poison.

That they're damaging, but on the outside, they've been coated with chocolate.

So the solutions often offered by the culture and antithesis to the will and the word of God really bring disaster rather than hope, help transformation change and healing.

In verse 13, he says pray, in verse 14, he says pray, in verse 15, he says pray, in verse 16, he says pray and pray, in verse 17, he says prayed, and in verse 18, he says prayed.

...