Derek Prince - Unlocking the Miracle Power Of God
This excerpt is from: Thanksgiving, Praise and Worship
Then another very important fact about thanksgiving... is that it's a key that unlocks the supernatural miracle power of God. I'll give you just one very conspicuous example: the incident in John 6 of the feeding of the 5,000. You remember that Jesus had a crowd of 5,000 people in front of Him, all hungry. And the only resources He had was the lunch of a little boy: five small loaves and two fishes. But He said: 'Make the multitudes sit down, we're going to feed them.'
And this is what transpired in verse 11 of John 6: And Jesus took the loaves, and when He had given thanks, He distributed them to His disciples, and the disciples to those sitting down, and likewise with the fish, as much as they wanted. So when they were filled, (they all had enough and leftover), He said to His disciples: 'Gather up the fragments that remain so that nothing is lost.' I want to point out to you that He didn't pray. He didn't ask God to do anything. All He did was thank God for what He had in His hand. And John apparently must have been very impressed by that because in verse 23, describing something that followed, some boats that came, we won't go into the background of this, but in verse 23 he says: Other boats came from Tiberius, near the place where they ate bread... after the Lord had given thanks.
So it was impressed upon John that the miracle was released not by some long prayer, but simply by giving thanks. And I really believe that many times we miss out on the power of God... simply because we don't release it by giving thanks. A little later on in the 11th chapter of John, you'll find that Jesus was standing before the tomb of Lazarus, who had been buried four days. He didn't pray a long prayer. He simply said: 'Father, I thank you that you always hear Me.' That's all He said. And then He spoke to Lazarus. And out came Lazarus.
I really believe that unless we cultivate the habit of thanking God the way it's described here, we are missing out on much of the supernatural power of God. I don't find, generally speaking, that long prayers release the power of God. Most of the really powerful prayers in the Bible are very short. I think of Moses' prayer for Miriam... when she had been smitten with leprosy because of criticizing her brother. He said: 'LORD, heal her.' That's all he said. I think if we mix more thanksgiving with our petitions, our petitions would be shorter but more effective.