Skip to main content

 PRAYER

1 Samuel 12:23

“Far be it from me that I should sin against the Lord by failing to pray for you.”

If you know anything about honest, healthy, and growing relationships, you know that communication is key. There must be sharing and listening. That listening must be the kind that strives to understand what is being said to you, not merely listening in order to respond.

A marriage and other kinds of true friendships grow and are strengthened by the sharing of our hearts, our concerns, out victories and our failings, our hopes and dreams, our perceived needs and assumed wants and listening to the same from our friends. Real communication is vital.

If you say that you have a living relationship with God and then in the same breath state, “Well, prayer is not my thing.”, then you need to ask yourself the hard question, “Do I really have a relationship with the Lord Jesus?”

Prayer is vital to anyone who is following Jesus Christ as Lord. You articulate your utter dependency on the Lord to live out His life within you. You pray through His Word asking the Holy Spirit to teach you, to speak to you, to guide, correct and encourage you. You speak to God in worship, in praise, in thanksgiving, confession, and repentance. One of God’s greatest gifts to a follower of Jesus Christ is direct access to Him in all things through that relationship with Jesus the Father has given you.

In prayer we surrender and abandon the lie, the folly, that we can live life as it is meant to lived by our own wisdom and in our own strength. Prayer is seeking God, Himself, to know Him and to grow in love and gratitude that will change to way we live out our lives. If God, the Son, demonstrated the need to seek God, the Father, often and intensely in prayer, then it is a no-brainer for me to realize how much I need to be in the Lord’s Presence in prayer.

Samuel’s statement above shows the necessity and vital importance of prayer not just for our own selves, but for others in our sphere of influence, and indeed for the whole world. Peter in his first Epistle calls the followers of Jesus Christ “a royal priesthood.” We are to stand before the Lord in prayer for others and before others declaring the Gospel of God’s grace and justice.

I have learned that when the Holy Spirit brings anyone to mind, and it can sometimes seem like a non sequitur, I take it as a call to pray for that person in the Spirit. I have found that in the immediacy of that intercession the Lord will sometimes give me insight as to why I am praying, but sometimes not. If I have insight given, I keep praying into that word of knowledge. If not, then I was not meant to know, but pray on I must because the Lord has brought the person to mind.

It was said by someone, somewhere, “The one who prays for me, loves me twice.” Do not neglect time with the Lord in prayer. As it is in healthy and growing relationships, sometime sitting in silence in the other’s presence is inexpressibly sweet. Sitting in the Presence of the Lord, just letting His love wash over you is better sometimes than a thousand words neatly articulated. You do both in true communication…you speak, and you listen.

1 Samuel 12:23

“Far be it from me that I should sin against the Lord by failing to pray for you.”


Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

 HEBREWS 10:1-2, 10-18 "The sacrifices under that system ( the Old Covenant) were repeated again and again, year after year, but they were never able to provide perfect cleansing for those who came to worship.   If they could have provided perfect cleansing, the sacrifices would have stopped, for the worshipers would have been purified once for all time, and their feelings of guilt would have disappeared.   For God’s will was for us to be made holy by the sacrifice of the body of Jesus Christ, once for all time.  Under the Old Covenant, the priest stands and ministers before the altar day after day, offering the same sacrifices again and again, which can never take away sins.   But our High Priest offered Himself to God as a single sacrifice for sins, good for all time. Then He sat down in the place of honor at God’s right hand.   There He waits until His enemies are humbled and made a footstool under His feet.   For by that one offering He forever m...
Post a Comment
Read more
  OUT IN THE OPEN God has not hidden what He has done to redeem humanity. He offers us the only way of true repentance, faith, forgiveness of sin and a new life that is unending. Truth is, though, He never forces repentance, faith, forgiveness and a new life on anyone. He desires a relationship, not the programmed responses of humanoid AI. His love for us has exposed the utter ruin of humanity because of our rebellion and sin. He doesn’t want us to be deceived into thinking that at the end of our lives here on earth we will all get a “participation trophy”. We have all personalized and internalized our rebellion against God. Humanity’s rebellion against God can be shocking horror or the civilized folly or relying on our broken moral compass to bring ourselves back into a state of wholeness. We want to be the ground of truth. We want our emotions enshrined and worshipped by all. The root problem is that humanity is spiritually dead and separated from Life, Himself. Both pride and ho...
Post a Comment
Read more
 James 1:5-8 " If you need wisdom, ask our generous God, and He will give it to you. He will not rebuke you for asking.   But when you ask Him, be sure that your faith is in God alone. Do not waver, for a person with divided loyalty is as unsettled as a wave of the sea that is blown and tossed by the wind.   Such people should not expect to receive anything from the Lord.   Their loyalty is divided between God and the world, and they are unstable in everything they do." We must remember that God is never upset that we don't know or understand how to live out the New Life He has given to us. That Life is now being lived out in us by the Holy Spirit. This Life of the Kingdom is radically different that the life we are accustomed to living in concert with the world. One of the main marks of a true follower of Jesus Christ is that there is change and ongoing change in us by the Holy Spirit. We do not remain as we once were. The Holy Spirit is conforming us to the Image o...
Post a Comment
Read more