PT-3 "The Speech of Prayer" (Col. 4:2)

 

SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 6/2/2017 10:36 PM

My Worship Time                                                                 Focus:  PT-3 “The Speech of Prayer”

Bible Reading & Meditation                                     Reference:  Colossians 4:2

            Message of the verse: “2 Devote yourselves to prayer, keeping alert in it with an attitude of thanksgiving;”

            In our last SD we looked at a fairly long quote from Virginia Stem as this person spoke about prayer and the difficulty of prayer as we struggle with prayer and sometimes even answers to prayer.  What this person wrote, and it can be seen on the last SD from Colossians speaks of a greatly marked contrast to some of the glib, self-centered prayers of our day, and perhaps that is one of the reasons that our churches are in so much trouble today.  When one looks at the contemporary churches of today we see that many, if not all have lost their reverence for God. People look at God as the man upstairs who is suppose to do whatever people ask Him to do, and yet that is not how it is suppose to work.  Believers are to seek God’s will for their lives and then through Bible study, and prayer have ones will aligned with Gods so that one knows how to pray.  Malachi had similar problems in his day as he wrote “"’A son honors his father, and a servant his master. Then if I am a father, where is My honor? And if I am a master, where is My respect?’ says the LORD of hosts to you, O priests who despise My name. But you say, ’How have we despised Your name?’ (Mal. 1:6).”

            I can remember this year and also last year when I was sure after praying that it was God’s will for my life to teach Sunday school.  I have trouble with what is called IBS (Google it to see what it is if you like).  I would literally scream at the Lord on my way to church because of the difficulties that IBS presented to me as I taught Sunday school.  I would pray to the Lord that since He was the One who called me to do this that I needed to trust Him to get me through it.  God is faithful, and God is good, all the time.

            John MacArthur writes a story about being bold in our prayers to the Lord which I will share in closing.

“In 1540 Luther’s great friend and assistant, Friedrich Myconius, became sick and was expected to die within a short time.  On his bed he wrote a loving farewell note to Luther with a trembling hand.  Luther received the letter and sent back a reply:  ‘I command thee in the name of God to live because I still have need of thee in the work of reforming the church…The Lord will never let me hear that thou art dead, but will permit thee to survive me.  For this I am praying, this is my will, and may my will be done, because I seek only to glorify the name of God.’

“Those words are shocking to us, but they were certainly heartfelt.  Although Myconius had already lost the ability to speak when Luther’s letter came, he recovered completely and lived six more years to survive Luther himself by two months.

“There is a tension between boldness and waiting on God’s will.  That tension is resolved by being persistent, yet accepting God’s answer when it finally comes.”

6/2/2017 10:57 PM