SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 11/1/2020 8:17 PM
My Worship Time Focus: PT-2 “God’s
Purpose”
Bible Reading & Meditation Reference: Matthew
6:9-15
Message of the verses: “9 "Pray,
then, in this way: ’Our Father who art in heaven, Hallowed be Thy name. 10 ’Thy
kingdom come. Thy will be done, On earth as it is in heaven. 11 ’Give us this
day our daily bread. 12 ’And forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our
debtors. 13 ’And do not lead us into temptation, but deliver us from evil. For
Thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory, forever. Amen.’ 14 “For
if you forgive men for their transgressions, your heavenly Father will also
forgive you. 15 “But if you do not forgive men, then your Father will not
forgive your transgressions.”
In
earlier Spiritual Diaries we talked about where people should be praying,
however Jesus does not make any mention of where people are to be to pray as he
begins what has been called “The Lord’s Prayer.” Now we did talk earlier about what was said
in Matthew 6:6 which states “6 "But
you, when you pray, go into your inner room, and when you have shut your door,
pray to your Father who is in secret, and your Father who sees in secret will
repay you.” We mentioned that this verse
stressed the single-mindedness of prayer, the need to block out every concern
but God. As we look at the life of Jesus
we know that Jesus certainly did not have an inner room to go to as he many
times prayed all night when He was outside.
Paul tells Timothy in 1Timothy 2:8 “Therefore I want the men in every place to pray,
lifting up holy hands, without wrath and dissension.”
We
don’t see a time period when people should be praying. In both the Old Testament we find that people
prayed at every hour of every day, and they could be seen praying at regular,
habitual times, on special occasions, when in special danger, when specially
blessed, before meals, after meals, when arriving at the destination and when leaving
for a destination, and also in very other conceivable circumstance and for
every other conceivable good purpose.
Paul stated “pray without ceasing” as there certainly was not time
period or place in that statement.
Another thing we cannot see in this
section is Jesus saying what to wear when one prays as He mentioned in
6:5-8. The thing that is always
important is the attitude and content of prayer. Notice the highlighted portion above.
John
MacArthur writes “In any
posture, in any attire, at any time, in any place, and under any circumstance
prayer is appropriate. Prayer is to be a
total way of life, an open and constant communion with God (Eph. 6:18; 1 Thess.
5:17). Because it is to be a way of
life, we need to understand how to pray; and that is precisely why Jesus gave
His followers this model prayer.”
That
is all we will do for today as it is now Sunday evening and I have just
returned from teaching our Sunday school class that I believe God truly
blessed. It seemed to me that the Lord
certainly directed me to different things that we talked about and the time
went by fast as we even stayed over by about a half hour. To God be the glory.
11/1/2020 8:36 PM
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