Our Need To Pray More

In examining of God’s Word on how to do that, I found the only thing I can find is your spiritual well-being. I’m not told to pray for your physical being at all, because it’s trivial, it means nothing to your spiritual home. Nothing. Now, it’s not wrong to pray about physical things, I don’t want you to get me wrong here, but the preoccupation must be the spiritual. In the Church of Jesus Christ, for years, matter of fact, it’s still going on today, the Church has been so bogged down in praying for the physical, the outer man, which perishes.

You know, it’s nice that the Lord would heal a broken leg, a cancer condition, but that is totally inconsequential in the light of eternity. You get it? That’s not the issue. Only insofar as it affects the spirit, the inner man, should you pray for it. Paul made it a habit to pray, he prayed. We find him praying constantly, we find him talking about it constantly. In Ephesians 6, 18, he says, praying always with all prayer and supplication for all saints. And pray for me, he said, that utterance may be given to me, that I may speak with boldness.

In Acts 6, they prayed. Philippians 1, chapter 1, Paul makes the statement, I thank my God on every remembrance of you always, in every prayer of mine, for you all, making requests with joy. He prayed for them all the time. First Thessalonians, he did the same thing in verse 2. We give thanks to God always for you, all making mention of you in our prayers. Remembering, what did you remember in your prayer? Not your physical problems, but I remembered your labour of love and your patience and your faith, spiritual things.

And I believe that if we want to see God, we have got to get onto that. We’ve got to move from the physical realities that we think we need to experience, to the spiritual outcome that you definitely need the spirits to get to go home. We’ve got to get onto prayer always for the saints. That’s what she tells us. And we’ve got to get onto praying about their spiritual things. Are you sensitive to the spiritual needs of your wife, men? And women, are you sensitive to the spiritual needs of your husband? Are you guys sensitive to the spiritual needs of your children, your neighbours, the people you rub elbows with, the people in your Bible study, people in your prayer group, the people who are your leaders, your teachers, your friends? Do you pray for their spiritual needs? Listen, don’t you ever for a minute think that we’re all got the battle licked? We don’t.

I don’t. You don’t. I know that that’s true. But do you realise that in Ephesians chapter six, probably not because we’ve not got there yet, after all the armour is said and done, and you put on the whole armour of God, and you’re able to withstand in the evil day and having them all to stand, and you get on this, get on this thing, and this thing, and this thing, and you get all the armoured up to beat the band, and when it’s all said and done, he says, by the way, in other words, hey guys, listen to what I’m fixing to tell you, even with all of that stuff on.

One last word, please. Remember, pray always for all saints. You have to realise that the divine resource is still that necessary element. We need to be holding each other in prayer. You know, in Colossians 4.2 it says, continue in prayer. It says continue in prayer. Now, there are other verses that say that as well. Jesus said in Luke 21 and 36, pray always. The Apostle Paul said to the Thessalonians, pray without ceasing. Romans 12.12, continue diligently in prayer. Philippians 4.6, be anxious for nothing but in everything by prayer and supplication.

Let your requests be known unto God. There’s a lot of things in the Bible that talk about that, but in my opinion I was thinking more around Colossians 4.2, and the term continued in prayer, because basically the word that is the root for continue is a word that simply means to be steadfast. For example, it’s used in Hebrews 11.27 of Moses where it says, he endured. It means to be strong, be strong in prayer. But there the word is not cotero, it is proscotero. As I’ve been telling you all along, when you add a preposition to the beginning of a Greek word, it intensifies.

And what he is saying there is hang in there with endurance in your prayer, be strengthened in your prayer, not just an easy come, easy go God consciousness, but strong, enduring, preserving prayer. Now there’s two parables that Christ gave us in the book of Luke that discusses this, and I think you’ll remember them. One is in chapter 11. When he said unto them, Which of you shall have a friend who shall go to him at midnight and say to him, Friend, lend me three loaves. For a friend of mine is in journey to come to me, and I have nothing to set before him, and he from within shall answer and say, Don’t bother me, the door is now shut, my children now with me in bed.

Well, you know that might be the case, but what happens is his persistence. His persistence of the request requires the guy to rise and give him as much as he needs. If you’re not steadfast in your prayer life, if you’re not going to God boldly and continuously, consistently, unless you’ve got an answer yes or no, you still need to pray. So in other words, this guy won’t get out of bed the first time he speaks, but the guy just keeps counting the door long enough he’s going to give him the bread to get rid of him in a sense.

And then he says, asking it shall be given you. Not that God is finally bugged and gives you what you want, but he says, even if a guy is like this, who doesn’t care that much about you, who is bugged will give you what you want if you’re persistent. Can you imagine what God will give you who loves you if you’re persistent? Give any idea the abundance that’s there. Thank you for joining us in this exploration of our need to pray more. Until next time, remember to keep the faith, stay strong, and continue to shine your light in the world.

To hear these daily devotions of your daily bread, please log on to goddessgovernment.com. Goodbye, and may your faith always lead the way. [tr:trw].