How seriously do you take your prayer life?  Do you have a regular and intentional time to pray?  I’m not talking about prayer before a meal or prayer at church, or about a quick bedtime prayer, “Now I lay me down to sleep. I pray the Lord my soul to keep. If I should die before I wake, I pray to God my soul to take.”  I’m talking about the kind of prayer life that takes you into your “prayer closet” - your alone time with God, uninterrupted.

Jesus needed that kind of time alone.  We read all through the scriptures of Jesus doing this very thing.  Jesus modeled for us what our prayer life should look like.  Jesus would have you and me at a time like this to “watch and pray.”   Jesus instructed us that, “When you pray, go into your room, and when you have shut your door, pray to your Father (heavenly) who is in the secret place; and your Father who sees in secret will reward you openly.” (cf. Matthew 6:6)  We are living in desperate times, times that not only need desperate measures, but times for Jesus’ followers to make prayer a regular way of life again.  Ezekiel said that the Lord God “sought for a man among them who would make a wall, and stand in the gap before Me on behalf of the land, that I should not destroy it; but I found none.” (cf. Ezekiel 22:30)   This question that Jesus asked His disciples so long ago in the gospel of Mark (cf. 14: 37) would be asked of you and me today -

“Could you not watch one hour?  Watch and pray.” - Jesus

But that all being said what is the ultimate purpose of prayer?  Is it to be rewarded?  Is it to find favor with God?  It it to bend God’s will to our will? Is it a tool to fix other people’s problems?  If it is you will be disappointed.  You and I can’t fix other people or their problems, of course most of us have our hands full fixing ourselves, regardless of others.  But we should and can find comfort in prayer because God’s greater purpose is always accomplished by prayer.  God tells us to pray.  Jesus instructed us to pray.  For me I am the most earnest and fervent in prayer when I can’t fix or mitigate the issue at hand.  Those times when I feel desperate and totally dependent upon God.  Those hopeless and helpless times.  You know what I discovered in those times - God changed me - which is the greater purpose of prayer!  Yes God chooses to work in the though our prayers to accomplish His purposes but at the heart of the purpose of prayer - is the change to you and me!

Pastor Rodney