"PRAY! PRAY NOW! PRAY! PRAY!"

Let’s consider . . . what if one of the important aspects of prayer has to do with our ASKING?  That is to say, since God could do, or could already have done, those things for which we petition Him, what if our asking is . . . important?  We know that it is.  These matters are weighty and worthwhile to commit to our understanding:

·        the fact that we need to humble ourselves to ask,

·    the honest reflection that others need us to care, and we need to care about spiritual and heavenly matters,

·        the reality of having been made so ONE with God in Spirit that we dare not fail to pray (1 Corinthians 6:17.)

There is, too, as we saw yesterday, the component of Jesus’ reign: he “ever liveth” to make intercession for the saints, so how can we “remain” in Him and be the “dwellings” (the monastery!) in which He abides, if we aren’t prayerful?  (John 15:4)

Prayer is all-important.  So . . . why do we pray so little? 

A minister once rose to speak at a New Year’s Eve service.  The worship had been as sweet as could be, the atmosphere was thick with the Nearness of God.  He was an elderly gentleman who had raised several now-grown and Godly children and had planted numerous churches all over the world.  He had lived His life for God.  This was the entirety of his message – it seared the souls of those who heard it:

“PRAY, dear ones!  PRAY!  . . .  PRAY!  . . . Oh, PRAY!  PRAY!  PRAY and PRAY!  Oh, do PRAY for those you love, PRAY for those around you.  PRAY – DO PRAY!  PRAY!  PRAY NOW!  PRAY!  PRAY!!” His soul was in an agony of truth and pleading, as if the Lord God were using his heart and lips to cry out.  Nothing has ever stirred us more in Cor Unum.

A South African missionary went around the world, ministering in churches large and small, an effective, reliable, tested method of prayer that had taken a team through many tribal villages with great evangelical results.  Simple, proven . . . delightfully presented.  We knew that hers was a  secret to answered prayer.

An author shared his experience relative to daily, consistent prayer.  He told us of the protection of God through an unfailing (though thrice neglected) commitment to prayer.  We saw God’s mercy and His might in these accounts, and we knew we were not called to prayer by fear or by religious law, but by its efficacy, by the truth that our God hears prayer!

Why do we fail to ask of God?  More tomorrow – today . . . PRAY!

Praying Hands

Albrecht Durer

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