Prayer a Gift from God

"Often we do not pray because we doubt that anything will actually happen if we pray. Of course, we don’t admit this publicly. But if we felt certain of visible results within sixty seconds of every prayer, there would be holes in the knees of every pair of Christian-owned pants in the world!" Donald Whitney

Prayer is one of the most wonderful and powerful gifts and privileges that God has given us. Just think, when you and I pray the God of the universe gives us His undivided attention. Many times it’s hard to even get our friends and family to do that! How awesome it is to think that God would listen to us express everything from our praises to petitions and be pleased when we do so.

Most of us have personal prayer times. However, one thing that many churches are weak is their times of corporate prayer. Praying alone is essential yet prayer is also something to be done with others in the Body of Christ. Whether it’s in a small group, large corporate gathering or at home, being with others is following a pattern modeled by those we read about in Scriptures.

In the Scriptures we see believers gathering to hear the Word and do the acts that God had set down for them. They heard, saw, tasted, smelled, felt and sang about God’s love. As the Spirit drew them together they responded in prayer. Also, public prayer shed insight to them what others private prayers were about. In His writings about Believers praying together, Robert Longman, Jr. asks us to consider this: “In public they prayed when they didn’t want to pray or didn’t feel like praying; they prayed when they had trouble concentrating on praying; they prayed when they weren’t prepared for it; they prayed the Word by drawing their liturgies and readings from the Scriptures; they prayed for and with those they were in conflict with; they prayed about people and things that they wouldn’t have thought to pray for or would have forgotten to pray for.”

Prayer is a discipline. Public prayer helps us learn through a unity of purpose and helps strengthen our private times. To have a complete prayer life we are reminded that the lessons learned during corporate prayer times feed back into our private prayer lives, and the lessons of private prayer feed back into the corporate gatherings. Each week at 7:00pm on Wednesday nights we gather to do just that, a time of prayer and praise. You are invited to come and join us as we spend time in His presence praising and praying from our hearts to His.

With you on the journey, MJ