We Pray Wednesday: The Beauty and Blessedness of Prayer (Part 1)

The Beauty And Blessedness Of Prayer

(Part 1)

            Oh, What a beautiful thing it is to find your place in conversation and communion with God! What a comfort to know that you can, at any time, call on a loving God that has endless and unimaginable power to perform miracles and marvelous acts of love!  What a wonderful feeling it is to know that you are secure in the hands of God and nothing in the universe can touch you without His permission! The eyes of the Lord are upon all those that love Him. We serve an awesome and powerful God, One that will listen and answer the request that we make known to Him out of a pure heart. 
Prayer is a joyous privilege that we have as “Born Again Christians”.  Imagine the reality of our being; we abide on a very small planet in the midst of a universe so vast and immense that the human mind cannot comprehend. We can see thousands and thousands of light years into space with our telescopes and behold trillions of stars and planets, none of which can match up to our little planet earth that is suspended in nothingness and held together by the powerful God that we serve. We are alone in space abiding on a planet that is perfectly positioned in the universe to sustain life. What a powerful God! And we have the ability to communicate with Him and He with us. This blessed right that we have is called “Prayer”.

           

As always, I like to give God’s definition from His own word; The BIBLE, which is the final authority.  Here we find at least three Hebrew words in the old testament that define prayer; #1 – “pilla” defined as a plea or petition,

#2 – “palal”defined as a mediation or intervention,

#3 – “siha”defined as a meditation. 

Then you have at least three Greek words in the new testament defining prayer;  

#1 – “deesis” defined as a request, a petition or supplication,

#2 – “enteuxis” defined as an intercession, 

#3 – “proseuche” defined as the act of or place of praying or petitioning. 

The one common denominator of all these definitions in relation to our position with God is; Prayer is talking with God, pleading, petitioning, mediating or making intercession. Prayer must be sincere, humble and reverent in the fear of God. Praying must be done in the name of Jesus Christ, guided by the Holy Spirit and supported by pure motive. Prayer is essential for survival as a Christian. If you want to know God and have a relationship with Him, you MUST pray. Prayer is a form of worship.  It is,in my opinion, the highest form of worship, and we all know that if we are going to worship God, we must worship Him in spirit and in truth.This cannot be accomplished without talking with God on a regular basis.

We need God so very much! We are nothing without Him. He is our strength, our protection, our guidance and our wisdom. That is why we must communicate with Him numerous times daily. It is so very sad to say that the average professing Christian spends less than five minutes a day talking with God. Many do not even speak to God. Personally, I cannot imagine having the Holy Spirit living inside and not having a burning desire to have an intimate relationship with God. I am from the old school and I say; Give yourself the test. If someone has the Holy Spirit living in them, there are things that will be NOTICEABLY PRESENT in their life. 
First of all; they will possess the fruit of the spirit. The BIBLE says in Galations 5:22-23“ But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness,faith, meekness, temperance: against such there is no law.”  These things will be VERY EVIDENT in the life of the True Born Again Christian. Also, the True Born Again Christian is going to publicly testify of his/her salvation experience. I’m not buying the “sit at home, don’t ever say nothing to no-one about Jesus” salvation.  God is no respecter of persons, He wants all Born Again Christians to witness; NO EXCEPTIONS! Jesus said in Matthew 10:32-33“ Whosoever therefore shall confess me before men, him will I confess also before my Father which is in heaven.But whosoever shall deny me before men, him will I also deny before my Father which is in heaven.” 
So, what are we saying? We are merely reiterating what Jesus said in Matthew7: 20-23 "Wherefore by their fruits ye shall know them. Not everyone that saith unto me, Lord, Lord, shall enter into the Kingdom of Heaven; but he that doeth the will of my father which is in Heaven. Many will say unto me in that day, Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in thy name? and in thy name have cast out devils? And in thy name done many wonderful works? And then will I profess unto them, I never knew you: depart from me, ye that work iniquity.”   

Simply saying; If you are saved, Born Again, you will talk to God or you will be a Christian most miserable. That is why we see so many SOURPUSS Christians in the world today – because they have grieved the Spirit of God. The reason I mention these somewhat negative remarks is because Christians need to grow up and understand that we are truly nothing without God. We MUST communicate with God to survive as Christians in this wicked world that we live in today. He sees and knows all things and He knows exactly how many seconds or minutes or hours you spend in prayer each and every day.