The Frequency of Prayer (Eph. 6:18)

SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 11/10/2019 11:15 AM

My Worship Time                                                                  Focus:  The Frequency of Prayer

Bible Reading & Meditation                                                 Reference:  Eph. 6:18

            Message of the verse:  “18 Pray in the Spirit at all times and on every occasion. Stay alert and be persistent in your prayers for all believers everywhere.”

            When we talk about prayer in the OT times we can see that there are specific times that the people of Israel would pray.  I can’t help but think about Daniel chapter, I think six, when the enemies of Daniel were trying to get him killed that the caused the king of the Medes and Persians to sign a law that if anyone prayed to another god than the king that they would be put to death.  This did not stop Daniel to pray towards Jerusalem as Solomon had said one should when they were not living in Jerusalem.  As the church began to take over what the Jews were doing things got different, as it was a process that would take a while to change.  We can see evidence of prayer at different times in the NT.  “They were continually devoting themselves to the apostles’ teaching and to fellowship, to the breaking of bread and to prayer” (Acts 2:42).  Cornelius “a devout man and one who feared God with all his household, and gave many alms to the Jewish people and prayed to God continually” (Acts 10:2).  Paul also writes about this subject in Rom. 12:12; Phil. 4:6; Col. 4:2; 1 Thess. 5:17 “pray without ceasing.”

            There is much to say about praying during different parts of the day and night in the book of Psalms (Ps. 55:17, 19).  John MacArthur writes “There is no time when we do not need to pray and no time when God will not hear our prayers.  In many ways prayer is even more important than knowledge about God.  In fact, only though a regular and sincere prayer life can God’s Holy Spirit add spiritual wisdom to our knowledge.  D.  Martyn Lloyd-Jones wrote, ‘our ultimate position as Christians is tested by the character of our prayer life.’  A deep knowledge of and relationship to God are measured by his prayer life.  If knowledge about God and the things of God do not drive us to know Him more personally, we can be sure that our true motivation and commitment are centered in ourselves rather than Him.  Jesus’ deepest prayer for His disciples was not that they simply know the truth about God but ‘they may know Thee, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom Thou has sent’ (John 17:3).  Studying and learning God’s Word in the right spirit will always drive the believer to know Him more intimately and to commune with Him more faithfully in prayer.”

            When I was studying the books of 1 & 2 Thessalonians I remember that Warren Wiersbe stated about 1 Thess. 5:17 “Pray without ceasing” that we as believers are never to hang up the phone we have with God, be ready to pray at all times about all kinds of different things at a moment’s notice.   Now Jesus in Matthew 6:7 has this to say about prayer “"And when you are praying, do not use meaningless repetition as the Gentiles do, for they suppose that they will be heard for their many words.”  This kind of makes me think about when Elijah was on the mountain dealing with those who worshiped Baal, and how they worked themselves up in frenzy and even began to cut themselves trying to get Baal to respond to their prayers.

            John MacArthur writes “To pray at all times is to live in continual God consciousness, where everything we see and experience becomes a kind of prayer, lived in deep awareness of and surrender to our heavenly Father.”  To obey this exhortation means that, when we are tempted, we hold the temptation before God and ask for His help.  When we experience something good and beautiful, we immediately thank the Lord for it.  When we see evil around us, we pray that God will make it right and be willing to be used of Him to that end.  When we meet someone who does not know Christ, we pray for God to draw that person to Himself and to use us to be a faithful witness.  When we encounter trouble, we turn to God as our Deliverer.  In other words, our life becomes a continually ascending prayer, a perpetual communing with our heavenly Father.  To pray at all times is to constantly set our minds ‘on the things above, not on the things that are on earth’ (Col. 3:2).

            We have written about what the chief end of man is in earlier SD’s, which is to glorify God and to bring us into intimate, rich fellowship with Him.  And if we fail to come to God in prayer is to deny that purpose.  1 John 1:3 tells us “what we have seen and heard we proclaim to you also, so that you too may have fellowship with us; and indeed our fellowship is with the Father, and with His Son Jesus Christ.”  I realize that we will have wonderful fellowship with the Lord when we get to heaven, but God’s greatest desire, and our greatest need, is to be in constant fellowship with Him at this time now, and there is no greater expression or experience of fellowship than prayer.

            David’s comments on Job 4:7-8 is our quotation from “Love in Action” for today:

“Eliphaz said, ‘Job, let me tell you something.  Nobody who is upright ever goes through trouble like this.  Job, God never punishes the righteous.  Whatever a man sows by way of iniquity he always reaps.  So, Job, here’s the real issue:  What exactly have you done which caused this suffering in your life?’  One of the most painful things that can be inflicted on troubled people is the false guilt often heaped on them by well-meaning Christians.  I come from a strong fundamentalist background and we’re experts at all this.  We are very good at helping guilt on people even when we don’t know the whole story.  We know Job didn’t suffer because he was bad, but because he was good!  Eliphaz was totally mistaken.”

11/10/2019 11:59 AM