"It is taken for granted that all who are disciples of Christ pray. You may as soon find a living man that does not breathe, as a living Christian that does not pray. If prayerless, then graceless." (Matthew Henry Concise Commentary Matthew 6:5-8)
Jesus made it clear, prayer was a ministry it was that which we were to do, not for our own vanity, not so that we would be glorified but instead so that God would be glorified. It is amazing to me that we pray this prayer every week in our worship service, we call it the Lord’s Prayer, and yet so many of us don’t understand this prayer. This was given to the disciples and to you and I, who are the disciples of this age, so that we would learn to pray. To show us how to be in conversation with our God, and so we would experience God’s grace in our lives, and be able to extend that grace to others. "Enter his gates with thanksgiving and his courts with praise; give thanks to him and praise his name." (Psalm 100:4)
The psalmist says we are to enter into the place of prayer with thanksgiving and praise, thanking God and praising Him for all that he has done in our lives. Of course, the instruction that Jesus has for his disciples here is that they are not to be like the religious leaders of his day, their prayer was to show proper deference to God, and was not to be done so as to glorify themselves. I have to wonder, what if we were to suddenly be attacked inside our walls here. What if masked men invaded our place, told us that if we were Christians we would be killed. How many of us would confess Christ? How many of us would be on our knees in prayer, and how many of us would leave without a whimper, glad to be alive. The first century church faced that possibility all the time. Their leaders were killed, and tortured all the time, yet the church grew, because they prayed, and because they were not ashamed of the gospel.
Looking back on that first century church we find that those folks knew one thing before all others except that Jesus was Lord. They knew that prayer was the answer, not a last ditch attempt to salvage something, it was the first thing they did. After Jesus ascended and they were back in the upper room waiting, they were found to be in one accord and in prayer. Acts 1:13-14 " And when they had entered, they went up to the upper room, where they were staying, Peter and John and James and Andrew, Philip and Thomas, Bartholomew and Matthew, James the son of Alphaeus and Simon the Zealot and Judas the son of James. All these with one accord were devoting themselves to prayer, together with the women and Mary the mother of Jesus, and his brothers." (English Standard Version). They decided that they needed to replace Judas Iscariot and so they cast lots, in prayer, and came up with his replacement: Acts 1:24 "And they prayed and said, "You, Lord, who know the hearts of all, show which one of these two you have chosen" (ESV). The lot fell to Matthias and he was placed in the stead of Judas as the 12th apostle.
What is most interesting to me is that we see that these apostles and disciples, were in one accord and in prayer. It was while they were in prayer, in one place together, the day of Pentecost came and the Spirit of God came upon them and the church was born on that day in the fire and the wind of the Spirit. The power of God comes upon His people when they pray, and it is in prayer that things happen. I would hazard a guess and say that without prayer, nothing will happen, because without prayer there is no communication with God, the one who hears and answers prayer.
E. M. Bounds writes in "The Possibilities of Prayer" : "THE ministry of prayer has been the peculiar distinction of all of God’s saints. This has been the secret of their power. The energy and the soul of their work has been the closet. The need of help outside of man being so great, man’s natural inability to always judge kindly, justly, and truly, and to act the Golden Rule, so prayer is enjoined by Christ to enable man to act in all these things according to the Divine will. By prayer, the ability is secured to feel the law of love, to speak according to the law of love, and to do everything in harmony with the law of love." (Chapter 1, The Ministry of Prayer).
Max Lucado has written a book titled "It Isn’t About Me" and he is 100% correct, it is not about you or me, it is about God, we pray because God hears and God acts. We pray because God told us we were to do so. It is not that we are forcing God to act for us, it is that we are coming into a knowledge of His will for us and for the situations around us. Remember that scripture says to us, whatever we ask in his name he will do it. So by prayer we receive that promise from Jesus. In prayer we enter into communion directly with God, there are no middle men or women, each believer has the ear of God directly. We also are drawn into a closer relationship with our God, thereby becoming more in tune with that which He has willed to be so in our lives and in the world around us. It is really hard to know what someone wants for you, if you never talk to them, but if you enter into that conversation with God, you will learn and you will grow in grace.
Note too that when we as the church begin to lift our voices in prayer, things begin to happen. We see that when Peter is arrested and thrown in jail by Herod. The church immediately went to prayer, and God sent his angel to free Peter from the prison. We find this story in Acts 12,
Peter himself didn’t realize that this was other than a dream, until he found himself alone outside of the prison. Prayer is what releases the power of God to work in this world of ours. Note too that they prayed for James, who Herod had already killed. They did not pray because they knew that everything was going to be as they wanted, but rather because they wanted be in God’s will. God would decide what was the best course of action. That too is a lesson for us, not all prayers are answered the way we might want them to be, but God is the one who works, it is we who are His instruments. He has instructed us to come and ask, the choice as to the answer, is His.
We find the church in all kinds of situations going to prayer, it was the ministry of prayer that caused the church to grow, and to prosper, even in the midst of horrible persecutions. So let us understand that if we want growth in spiritual gifts in our church, or we want healing for our family or friends, it is to prayer that we must go first of all. That is the ministry that all of us have, no Christian is without power, for all of us have access to the throne of God. All of us have access to the will of God, the heart of God, for we are all part of the family of God and the Kingdom of God through Jesus who died that we might be reconciled to Almighty God.
By the way, do you want your pastor to preach well? Then pray for him or her every week, prefer every day, do you want your Sunday School teacher to bring great lessons, with fire and vigor? Pray for them that this might be so. Do you want your leaders in the church to be wise stewards? Pray for them daily. Do you want our nation to be the great nation it can be, and has been in the past? Beloved, pray for the nation and for the leadership of our nation. Nothing happens when good people do nothing, things only happen when the people of God get on their knees and pray.
In Colossians, the apostle Paul tells the folks there to Col. 4:2-4 "Continue steadfastly in prayer, being watchful in it with thanksgiving. At the same time, pray also for us, that God may open to us a door for the word, to declare the mystery of Christ, on account of which I am in prison --
that I may make it clear, which is how I ought to speak." (ESV).
Our ministry is to pray for workers to enter the fields for they are ready to be harvested. There are many who are in need of salvation, in need of the presence of Jesus in their hearts and in their lives, it is our place to be in prayer and to be prepared to be the solution to this problem. We are told also to shoulder one another’s burdens, we do this by being in prayer for one another. Is one of you suffering, let him pray. James 5:13-16 says this about prayer: "Is anyone among you suffering? Let him pray. Is anyone cheerful? Let him sing praise. Is anyone among you sick? Let him call for the elders of the church, and let them pray over him, anointing him with oil in the name of the Lord. And the prayer of faith will save the one who is sick, and the Lord will raise him up. And if he has committed sins, he will be forgiven. Therefore, confess your sins to one another and pray for one another, that you may be healed. The prayer of a righteous person has great power as it is working."
So, prayer is your place, your duty, your ministry to each other and for each other. Prayer, is what will bring the church to the realization of who it is, and prayer will bring the power of God into the world around us, that healing might happen. So beloved, go before the throne of your Father in Heaven and be in ministry to those who have need, lift your prayers as a sacrifice of praise to the one who hears and who acts.
In the precious name of Jesus. Amen.
