After a young couple brought their first baby home from the hospital, the wife suggested to her husband that he try his hand at changing diapers. “I’m busy,” he said. “I’ll do the next one.”
The next time the baby was wet, she asked if he was ready to learn how to change diapers. He gave her a puzzled look, then finally said, “I didn’t mean the next diaper; I meant the next baby!” A moment of frustrated silence passed slowly through the room, but the husband remained oblivious to the damage left in his wake. After a few moments, he looked up from his cell phone and warmly asked what was for dinner. His wife replied, “I’m busy with the baby. I’ll work on dinner after the next one.” Source: Unknown
This young couple’s communication methods are a demolition pathway of destruction! We will not peel apart the layers right now; however, how they chose procrastination to avoid responsibilities is definitely a glaring roadblock. Procrastination can cause a lot of grief for us, but it will also cause turmoil for others close to us! We put off many things in daily life because we are comfortable with how life is right now. However, we often want the end outcomes of our life to be different. For example:
We want to be thin, but we don’t want to change our diet…
We want more friends, but we refuse to be vulnerable and refuse to invest even when we don’t get what we want...
We want to know more about Jesus, but we don’t study the Bible and church attendance is kept at a minimal…
What we need is to embrace biblical transforming habits and ask God to do a work in our lives! Our study began with the transforming habit of “the attitude of gratitude.” This week will consider the transforming habit of persistent prayer as we look at the apostle Paul’s prayer life.
Prayer was Paul’s Purposeful Practice.
Many of Paul’s epistles speak of his personal intercession.
Take a moment to look them over – Ephesians 1:16; Philippians 1:4; Colossians 1:3; I Thessalonians 1:2; II Thessalonians 1:11; Philemon1:4.
Many years ago, my 36-year-old brother went through a significant battle with colon cancer. After the tumor was removed and it grew back within a couple months, we all realized just how serious his case of cancer would truly be. His doctor told him he had a very aggressive form of cancer, and more drastic steps would need to be taken to win this battle. Eventually, after radical surgery and chemo treatments, my brother’s oncologists urged him to tell his siblings to get checked right away. Do you know what I did? I understood the urgency. I saw the devastating challenges of the disease. I embraced the reality of the urgency, and I purposely made an appointment for a colonoscopy … in my early thirties. During my first scope the doctor found two or three precancerous polyps! I became a regular customer (every two years). This has been a powerful purposeful practice!
Think about the challenges you and I face on a daily basis – and sometimes, it is more like “moment-to-moment” challenges! These challenges reveal something about us. Among other things, they reveal we NEED the help of someone greater. We need the help of someone with greater powerful, greater knowledge, greater presence, and greater wisdom…we need Jesus…and we have access to greater power, knowledge, presence, and wisdom through Jesus!! But also think of the incredible blessings that surround our lives. From what source did your blessings come? Some say they have their origin in the people they know, and some say they have their origin in their own hard work and skills. Eventually, all of mankind will come to know the blessings of finances, positions, possessions, and even the warmth of the sun or the beauty of rural landscape are all from one source: God. Church of God, go to the only source of your blessings and the only source of help in your challenges…go to God in prayer!
Come Boldly – Heb. 4:16
Come with Relationship – John 15:7
Come in Jesus’ Name – John 14:14
Prayer was also Paul’s need!
Romans 15:30 speaks of his request for prayer.
David Livingstone’s wife died early in his ministry and his peers often opposed him. It’s in this context that he prayed, “Send me anywhere, only go with me. Lay any burden on me, only sustain me. Sever any ties but the tie that binds me to Your service and to Your heart.” Source: The Grand Weaver, Ravi Zacharias
Jim Elliott prayed, “Father, make of me a crisis man. Bring those I contact to decision. Let me not be a milepost on a single road; make me a fork, that men must turn one way or another on facing Christ in me.” His impact continues on even though he died over fifty years ago at the age of twenty-nine. Source: Shadow of the Almighty, Elisabeth Elliot
E. M. Bounds wrote, “What the Church needs today is not more machinery or better, not new organizations or more novel methods, but men whom the Holy Ghost can use—men of prayer, men mighty in prayer.”
What prayers have you brought to the Lord recently? What answers of prayer have you experienced recently? As we close, consider these 4 foundational truths on prayer:
1. Beware of hindrances to prayer. Ps. 66:18; Is. 59:2; Prov. 21:13; James 4:3; I Peter 3:7.
2. Be Aware of promises to answered prayer. Psalm 91:15; Jeremiah 33:3; John 14:14; 15:7; I John 5:14.
3. Be relationship conscious in your prayer life. Praise. Repent. Ask. Yield. (PRAY)
4. Be ever mindful of your holy God. An acrostic my wife came across in study recently says it this way, “prayer releases all your eternal resources.” (source unknown)
Do you purposefully practice prayer? May we make 2024 the year we fill our place of worship for times of prayer!