Prayer

     There are times when God gives us a command, through his word or from another means of revelation.  Christians however, more often than not take these commands as suggestions. They think that they can just take it or leave it.

      The Ten Commandments have been reduced to the ten recommendations. It is sin for us to ignore the word of God. James tells us that whoever knows what is good to do and does not do it is guilty of sin. So, for the growing Christian, we can ill afford to be so cavalier about the word of God. We can not ignore what God is telling us.  

     So when scripture tells us that our main function as a church is to be a house of prayer it would be good to listen. One of the greatest areas of neglect in any church is prayer. Either we think that it is not important to the workings of the church, or we think it is too hard. “Prayer is for the Pastor”, we say. And we lump it in along with the other things that we relegate to the ministers of the church like evangelism and bible study.

     But prayer is the most important thing that we can learn to do. The disciples did not ask Jesus to teach them to cast out demons, how to heal the sick, the asked; Lord teach us to pray. It was so important that Jesus gave us a model to base our prayers on.   

     We complain that we never see God answer our prayers. We never see God at work in our lives but we refuse to do the one thing that would insure that we get to see Him at work. It is past time for us to do what we are told. Either we take God at his word, drop to our knees, and earnestly seek His face, or close the book and return it to the dust on the book shelf.

What a privilege to carry everything to God in prayer! O what peace we often forfeit, O what needless pain we bear, All because we do not carry everything to God in prayer. - Oh what a friend we have in Jesus.