Week 22 “Why Pray?” Day 2
Pray:
Ask God to reorient you to Himself. Confess any known sin. Thank Him for His forgiveness. Be still and reflect on Jesus and His sacrifice for you. Ask the Holy Spirit to open your heart and mind to God’s Word. Pray for others in your life that they, too, would know and love God today.
Read:
Mark 1:35 Very early in the morning, while it was still dark, Jesus got up, left the house and went off to a solitary place, where he prayed.
Deut. 29:29 The secret things belong to the LORD our God, but the things revealed belong to us and to our children forever, that we may follow all the words of this law.
Reflect:
Jesus prayed. From eternity past God the Father, Son, and Spirit have lived in loving relationship. God is three persons in one being. This is not hard to understand; it is impossible to fully understand. But this inability to fully understand is fully understandable. We understand by analogy, “This is like that.” There is no analogy to God. He is completely unique. But the fact that we cannot fully understand does not mean we cannot have adequate and accurate understanding of God. We know that because God exists as the Trinity he does not need us in order to express and experience love and relationship. Within the uniqueness of who he is there has always been friendship, relationship, and love. This fact helps us understand why Jesus prayed. His existence had always been one of intimate friendship. Now as he dwelt among us as the “Word made flesh” (John 1:14), he continued to live in that friendship. He got up early in the morning, at the beginning of his day, and left his new friends to spend time with his old friends. Why pray? It’s because you were made for relationship with God. Relationships require regular communication in order to flourish and grow. Your relationship with God is no different in this regard than the ones you have with other people in your life. There are many forms that prayer can take, just as there are many forms that communication between any two people can take. In all relationships there is asking, and listening, and confessing, and thanking, and on and on. You should pray because Jesus did. But you should also pray because you understand why Jesus did. He was in a friendship and so he prayed because he wanted to. He liked to pray. It may have been hard for him to get up early in the morning just like it can be for us, but he did it because he wanted to pray and not because he had to pray. Do you “want” to “want” to pray? You can learn to “want to” pray if you begin by seeing prayer as a conversation in a very important relationship.
Pray:
(Personalize this prayer today; make it specific to the circumstances that face you.)
Ask God to lead you through His Spirit as you go through your day. Ask Him to bring to mind the truth of the gospel and its implications for what you will encounter today. Tell Him “Yes” to His will and ask Him for His power and protection to live this “yes.” Ask God to create and reveal opportunities to proclaim the good news today.