This past Sunday we launched a month of prayer for the church. Truly, we can do more once we’ve prayed but we cannot do anything until we’ve prayed. We are seeking to like the disciples say to Jesus, “Lord, teach us to pray,” and we are doing that in four ways. 1.) A Challenge to pray for 30 minutes every day. 2.) We are reading as a church the book “The Hidden Life Of Prayer”. It’s only 59 pages but each page matters and will impact your relationship with God. 3.) A Week Of Prayer from Monday, August 20th -Friday, August 24th from 7-8 pm each day.
May God bless us richly this month as we like the disciples ask the Lord, “Lord, teach us to pray.” Here is a devotional from Oswald Chambers book “My Utmost For His Highest” entitled:
“THE CROSS IN PRAYER”
“In that day you will ask in My name…” (John 16:26)
We too often think of the Cross of Christ as something we have to get through, yet we get through for the purpose of getting into it. The Cross represents only one thing for us— complete, entire, absolute identification with the Lord Jesus Christ— and there is nothing in which this identification is more real to us than in prayer.
“Your Father knows the things you have need of before you ask Him” (Matthew 6:8). Then why should we ask? The point of prayer is not to get answers from God, but to have perfect and complete oneness with Him. If we pray only because we want answers, we will become irritated and angry with God. We receive an answer every time we pray, but it does not always come in the way we expect, and our spiritual irritation shows our refusal to identify ourselves truly with our Lord in prayer. We are not here to prove that God answers prayer but to be living trophies of God’s grace.
“…I do not say to you that I shall pray the Father for you; for the Father Himself loves you…” (John 16:26-27). Have you reached such a level of intimacy with God that the only thing that can account for your prayer life is that it has become one with the prayer life of Jesus Christ? Has our Lord exchanged your life with His vital life? If so, then “in that day” you will be so closely identified with Jesus that there will be no distinction.
When prayer seems to be unanswered, beware of trying to place the blame on someone else. That is always a trap of Satan. When you seem to have no answer, there is always a reason— God uses these times to give you deep personal instruction, and it is not for anyone else but you.
By His Spirit,
Pastor Bill