Skip to main content

 DEVOTE YOURSELF TO PRAYER

Colossians 4:2 "Devote yourselves to prayer with an alert mind and a thankful heart."

The word "devote" in the Old Testament refers to the whole burnt offering. To devote something was to surrender everything, nothing held back, to be consumed by the Lord.

Devoted to prayer entails giving your whole self to prayer in utter surrender of all you are to God in intentional communication, not religious meanderings. It is a seeking of the Lord, asking the Holy Spirit to reveal the Presence of God to you, to enter into the throne room in Jesus' name. This devoted seeking of the Lord in prayer involves communicating ALL the Holy Spirit brings to mind and heart.

It is a remembering all He has done for you in Christ Jesus in gratitude, worship and praise. It will contain intercessions for family, friends, and those you know who are still outside the grace of God, lost and without hope in the world. Such devoted prayer will result in you bringing the sick to lay them before the Lord Jesus. You will bring not only your needs but the needs of others you know to Him, surrendering them all to Him in prayer.

Devoted prayer doesn't try to craft "fine religious verbiage" as if that would impress God or define your devotion to Him. It will be you being completely real in His Presence, asking the Holy Spirit to reveal any and all you need to bring to the Father, all you need to confess, all you need to surrender. In His Presence, you learn to be still and listen for His voice. Pray the Psalms, pray and personalize every prayer St. Paul offers up for the churches he wrote to, pray the promises of God.

Devoted prayer becomes a life-style. It is the essence of "praying without ceasing", a way of walking in the Spirit by the Holy Spirit's moving, leading and directing your heart and mind to bring all of life to the Lord.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

 HIS POWER...HIS PROMISE Helping people walk in the Spirit the devotional below is seminal! The devotion below is today from Oswald Chambers. I makes me think of some I have known that have assumed that the Lord doesn’t want them empowered by the Holy Spirit or that He won’t manifest Himself in them because they have reasoned otherwise. Given ministry opportunities to have the Holy Spirit confirm the Word of God with demonstration of the Holy Spirit and power, they rely on how they feel, their experience thus far and not on the reality that the will of God in mission and ministry is either done in the Holy Spirit’s Power or not at all. Our capacity to do what Jesus does has nothing to do with our imagined capacity, but upon the indwelling power of God through is. Now to Him who is able to do far above and beyond what we could ever imagine or think, by His power at work in us now, to Him be glory…   Matthew 25:14-30 Jesus told the parable of the bags of gold as a warning ...
Post a Comment
Read more
 HE IS RISEN! IT IS FINISHED! After the Israelites had passed through the Red Sea by God opening the way for them to be saved, the whole of Pharoah's army, his horsemen and chariots pursued God's people into the opened way. Once they were all in, the waters flowed back into their place with suddenness and fury. Not one of the enemies survived. All perished in those waters. When Jesus Christ hung on the cross, all that sin contained, the full measure of the rebellion of mankind for all time, all the wickedness that was ever in human hearts were absorbed into the Lamb of God as He died our death, received our just judgement from God for all time, taking all that sin and death contained. In Him, sin and death died once and for all. They were overwhelmed, covered and drowned in the sea of His precious blood, poured out for the sin of the whole world. Not one enemy remained alive, all were stripped of their power to hold us in slavery to sin any longer. All their weapons were confis...
Post a Comment
Read more
 CONVICTION When the Holy Spirit convicts us of sin, He doesn't ask us to make it right. We can never add to what Jesus Christ has already done on the cross to deal with the totality of our sin. The Holy Spirit asks us to accept the truth, turn from sin and turn to the Lord. Then He will make it right. Remember Who our faith depends on from start to finish, that salvation is of the Lord alone. Laying aside every hindering weight and the sin that so easily trips us up (different for everyone), we are to run the race He has given us to run with perseverance, fixing our eyes on Jesus. He is the One upon Whom our faith depends on from start to finish. He will never run out of eyesight any more that a good shepherd would go ahead of the sheep he was leading where they couldn't see to follow. Hebrews 12:1-2 "Surrounded then as we are by a great cloud of witness to the life of faith, let us strip off everything that hinders us, as well as the sin which dogs our feet, and let us r...
Post a Comment
Read more