1 Thessalonians 5:16-18 (NLT)
Always be joyful. Never stop praying. Be thankful in all circumstances, for this is God’s will for you who belong to Christ Jesus.
“You may as soon find a living man that does not breathe, as a living Christian that does not pray.” - Matthew Henry
We must pray. This has been discussed at length on this blog before but I don’t think we can ever hear it enough.
We absolutely must spend time with God in prayer. We can do this in two ways.
The first way is vocally. We can voice our praises, our concerns, our fears, our failures, and whatever else we can think of. Our God is a personal God. He is a God that we can have a one-on-one relationship with. Not only can we have this relationship with Him, we must. He is our lifeline. He is the good in us. He is what overcomes sin in our lives. He is the love we have to share. He is the power we carry with us. He is all of these things and more.
How foolishly arrogant is it for us to think we somehow have it in us to live in a Christ-like way without asking Christ to help us do so? How small-minded is it to act like we have everything together while practically sending God to the bench?
It’s amazing how quickly we begin to treat the Consuming Fire like a fire alarm. We just reach for Him when things get bad. What we have to realize is that things get bad BECAUSE we aren’t staying connected to Him. R.A. Torrey tells us that “those persons who know the deep peace of God, the unfathomable peace that passeth all understanding, are always men and women of much prayer.”
If you stayed in constant communication with someone, you would eventually begin to make every decision you make with them in mind. You would begin to see situations how they would see them. You begin to look at people how they would look at them. In the same way, if we are able to constantly be in a state of prayer throughout the day, we are able to keep things in perspective. We are able to see Christ in every situation because we’re constantly talking to Him.
The second way we can spend time with God in prayer is found in silence. It’s found in waiting for Him to speak. Sometimes we talk, talk, and talk so much that we don’t give God a chance to get a word in. I’ve heard John (the Pastor, not the Baptist) use this illustration before:
What if you had the chance to eat lunch with Jesus one day? For one hour, you could be in the immediate presence of God. Would you run your mouth the whole time or would you be hanging on every word that Jesus had to say?
Well, when we just talk and talk every time we pray, we miss a vital part of the exchange. Sometimes we have to hang up and listen.
If prayer is something that intimidates you or you’re not really sure how to get started, ask someone. Ask John. Ask Jason. Ask someone and ask them soon!
We have a serious problem and there’s no time to waste!
