SPIRITUAL
DIARY FOR 9/19/2012 7:45:04 AM
My Worship Time
Focus: A Primer on Prayer
Bible Reading & Meditation Reference:
Psalm 119:145-152
Message
of the verses: “145 Qoph.
I cried with all my heart; answer me, O LORD! I will observe Your statutes. 146
I cried to You; save me And I shall keep Your testimonies. 147 I rise before
dawn and cry for help; I wait for Your words. 148 My eyes anticipate the night
watches, That I may meditate on Your word.
149 Hear my voice according to Your lovingkindness; Revive me, O LORD,
according to Your ordinances. 150 Those who follow after wickedness draw near;
They are far from Your law. 151 You are near, O LORD, And all Your commandments
are truth. 152 Of old I have known from Your testimonies That You have founded
them forever. “
In his introduction to this section
Dr. Wiersbe writes “The writer prayed throughout this entire psalm, but in
these verses he concentrated on prayer and cried out to God day and night. From his experience, we receive some basic introductions about
successful prayer.
Pray
wholeheartedly (vv. 145-146): “I
cried with all my heart; answer me, O LORD! I will observe Your statutes. 146 I
cried to You; save me And I shall keep Your testimonies.”
From verses 2, 10, & 58 of this
psalm we learn that we must seek God with our whole heart, and in verses 34
& 69 we learn that we must obey the Lord with a whole heart. John Bunyan wrote “In prayer, it is better to have a heart without
words, than words without a heart.”
The golden altar of incense that was
in the temple represents prayer, and it is also spoken of in Revelations 8:3-4,
“3 Another angel came and stood at the altar, holding a golden censer; and
much incense was given to him, so that he might add it to the prayers of all
the saints on the golden altar which was before the throne. 4 And the smoke of
the incense, with the prayers of the saints, went up before God out of the
angel’s hand.” This can teach us
that the devotion of the heart is what ignites our prayers, and this enables us
to present our requests to the Lord; we are praying wholeheartedly.
We see at the end of verse 146 that
the psalmist states what seems to be a bargain with the Lord when he states, “save
me and I will keep Your testimonies.”
Dr. Wiersbe points out that the psalmist was “dedicating himself to God
to obey Him no matter how He answers his prayers.” He then writes, “Before we can pray as we ought, we must pray for
ourselves that God will give us a heart ignited by the fire of the Spirit.”
Pray
without ceasing according to the Word (vv. 147-148): “147 I rise before dawn and cry for help;
I wait for Your words. 148 My eyes anticipate the night watches, That I may
meditate on Your word.”
We see two important elements of
successful prayer in this section. When
we read 1Thes. 5:17 sometimes we wonder how we can “pray without ceasing,”
but that is the first element of successful prayer that we find here. Dr. Wiersbe states to ‘pray without ceasing
does not mean to walk around muttering prayers.
It means to ‘keep
the receiver off the hook,’ so that nothing comes between the Father and us.”
We see from this section that the second element of
successful prayer is the Word of God, and this should not surprise us at
all, for apart from the
Word of God we have no idea of knowing God’s will. We have mentioned that there may be only
three verses in this entire psalm of 176 verses that do not mention the Word of
God and so we must conclude that the writer was devoted to the Word of God and
prayer for as you read this psalm it reminds us of a very long prayer. Dr Wiersbe points out that “we must balance the Word and
prayer in our devotional life and ministry, for all Bible and no prayer means
light without heat, but all prayer and no Bible could result in zeal without
knowledge.” "If you abide in Me,
and My words abide in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be done for you
(John 15:7).”
It was evident from Acts 6:4 that
the early church leaders dedicated themselves to prayer and the study of the
Word, and they kept this in balance. Dr.
Wiersbe points out that “when we meditate on the Word, the Father speaks to us,
and when we pray, we speak to the Father. We need both instruction and
intercession if we are to be balanced children of God.”
Pray
as an act of Love (v. 149): “149
Hear my voice according to Your lovingkindness; Revive me, O LORD, according to
Your ordinances.”
Jesus told His disciples that if
you love Me you will keep my commandments and from this, we learn that love and
law do go together. I think that
sometimes we think that our prayers are only like the prayer that Peter prayed “Lord
save me” when he was sinking into the water, but as parents we would not
only want our children to speak to us if they want something or if they have some
sort of crisis, and so does our heavenly Father want this. In this we learn that prayer is more than
asking, but loving as we can see from this psalm that the psalmist had a great
love for the Word of God and the God of the Word. I have spoken many times about the 15th
chapter of John and abiding or remaining in the Lord in order to get our
marching orders from the Lord, but we also will love the Lord more and more
when we abide or remain in His Word and in Him, for we cannot help but love the
Lord more as we study His Word, for by doing this we will better see who He is.
Pray
with your eyes open (vv. 150-152): “150 Those who follow after wickedness draw
near; They are far from Your law. 151 You are near, O LORD, And all Your
commandments are truth. 152 Of old I have known from Your testimonies That You
have founded them forever.”
We see in this section that the
enemies of the psalmist were drawing near and so he wanted the Lord to draw
near to him. An example of this is found
in the book of Nehemiah when he and the people of Jerusalem were rebuilding the
wall and the gates of the city. Daniel
had prophesied that this would be a time of trouble in the ninth chapter of his
book, and Nehemiah instructed the worker to watch out for the enemies along
with working on the wall. They were to
watch and pray. We also see this when
Jesus was praying in the garden and His disciples were falling asleep because
they were not watching and praying. Dr.
Wiersbe writes “We are soldiers in a battle and we dare not go to sleep while
on duty.” We are to watch and pray.
Spiritual
meaning for my life today: I see
from this section that the psalmist seems to be praying without ceasing, and we
have discussed what this means. This is
something that I desire to practice for I know that I am in a battle and in
order to win the battle I need to be, at all times, in touch with my Commander.
My Steps of Faith for Today: Watch
and pray with my eyes open.
Memory
verses for the week: 1Cor. 13:1-7
1 If I speak with the tongues of men
and of angels, but do not have love, I have become a noisy gong or a clanging
cymbal. 2 If I have the gift of prophecy
and know all mysteries and all knowledge; and if I have all faith, so as to
remove mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing. 3 And if I give all my possessions to feed the
poor, and if I surrender my body to be burned, but do not have love, it profits
me nothing.
4 Love is patient, love is kind and is not
jealous; love does not brag and is not arrogant, 5 does not act unbecomingly; it does not seek
its own, is not provoked, does not take into account a wrong suffered, 6 does not rejoice in unrighteousness, but
rejoices with the truth; 7 bears all
things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.
9/19/2012
8:44:37 AM
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