Prayer! Is That Important To You?

How important is prayer in your life today? I mean, how often do you reach out to God in communication? How frequently do you find yourself talking and asking God's advice? Do you remember God daily or are you one of those people who are constantly whispering simple little phrases up to God as the day goes along? Do you pray once a week, once a day, once an hour, or are you in it "so deep" that you feel sometimes you are having an ongoing conversation with God?

Prayer is a personal characteristic of a person "in love" with God and wanting Him involved in as much as possible day to day in his life. Acts 3:1 says, "Now Peter and John were going up to the temple at the ninth hour, the hour of prayer." I see from this verse that these two disciples made a conscience decision to go to the temple and pray. The "ninth hour" was the regular time of day that a person of the Jewish heritage would stop everything and go to pray. About the ninth hour Jesus cried out with a loud voice, saying, "ELI, ELI, LAMA SABACHTHANI?" that is, "MY GOD, MY GOD, WHY HAVE YOU FORSAKEN ME?" That can be found in the 27th chapter if Matthew, the 26th verse. Now I'm not saying that this was the moment that 3 PM prayer was instituted (for it was already the custom of the day) however, doesn't it seem fitting that at that particular time of day, Jesus would commun with God? No Biblical correlation, just a bit of trivia.

The passage continues with the healing of the man lame from birth. He was there every day at about the 9th hour because that is when the temple would be more crowded with people who pray (good marketing strategy, I suppose). At any rate, in asking for "alms" the man received quite a different response than what he expected. Peter and John looked at the man in verse 4 and said "look at us...we do not possess silver or gold, but what we do have we give to you: In the name of Jesus Christ the Nazarene - walk!" And of course, the rest of the passage explains that the lame man got up and walked, in fact "he leaped."

Now my thought here is what do you think was going through Peter's mind as he took this bold action (in front of God and everybody)? Was he thinking, "boy, I sure hope this works?" Or, "finally we are going to see if the power Jesus promised us is really what He said it was!" Well, my feeling here is that Peter, being the "Praying man" that he was already knew with confidence that Jesus promised it and that settled it. He knew that if this man simply "slumped" back to the ground after being picked up, he would have been mocked and ridiculed and considered a crazy lunatic like the man he followed for three years.

All that to say that "Prayer" is the key here. One of the most important tools we will use in this life if we expect to be used by God. The Bible tells us that "I can do all things through Him who strengthens us" (Phil 4:13). So Peter simply chose to believe it and carry on with it, despite those around him.

The Apostle Paul thought a lot about prayer when he said "For God, whom I serve in my spirit in the preaching of the gospel of His Son, is my witness as to how unceasingly I make mention of you, always in my prayers."

There are several basic concepts regarding prayer that I hope to be able to share with you in the coming weeks ahead. Studying and reading about the attributes of prayer does one's heart good like a medicine. In fact, "God I pray for the man or woman, boy or girl who is reading this devotion right now. I would pray that their heart would be "filled up" with the medicine of prayer which You have commanded of us as we walk through this life. May you richly bless those who are obedient to your Word...in the name of the one who took action to "set us free", Jesus Christ, I pray...Amen!

God bless,

Dave