03/20/2024
"The Synergy of Devotion and Prayer" is more than a wonderful title for our devotional message this morning, it highlights how either one of them alone is only half the story. Just as our spirit of devotion reacts to prayer, prayer also reacts to our spiritual devotion. One feeds on the other as we delve deeper into God’s Word.
“But ye, beloved, building up yourselves on your most holy faith, praying in the Holy Ghost, Keep yourselves in the love of God, looking for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ unto eternal life.”
Jude 1:20-21
In thinking about this I am reminded of my children when they were toddlers and just beginning to speak. At first their sentences were simple as they used the few words they had learned, but as their vocabulary increased the thoughts they conveyed became more descriptive and complex. Then, as they began using the thoughts they already knew how to express, they learned new words, and communicate even more complex ideas. Over the years their vocabulary grew, and eventually we found that we were able to discuss life, faith, and the other important ideas they needed to understand as they became mature men and women.
Devotion and prayer are very similar. We begin with simple prayers and a shallow faith, but as our understanding of God increases through studying His Word, our prayers become full and rich, and our devotion to God becomes deeper and its spirituality more fragrant. The devotional I read this morningexpressed this mutually beneficial relationship between prayer and devotion in this way:
"Prayer promotes the spirit of devotion while devotion is an important aspect of effective prayer. It is easy to pray when you are in a spirit of devotion. God dwells where the spirit of devotion resides." - E.M. Bounds
Eventually our devotion to God reaches maturity and our communication with the Lord (prayer) takes on attributes similar to those of Jesus. We are at last ready to walk in the garden with Him, and talk comfortably with God; our advanced righteousness and holiness having made us look and behave more and more like Jesus.
“And Jesus answered them, “Truly, I say to you, if you have faith and do not doubt, you will not only do what has been done to the fig tree, but even if you say to this mountain, ‘Be taken up and thrown into the sea,’ it will happen. And whatever you ask in prayer, you will receive, if you have faith.””
Matthew 21:21-22 ESV
So we begin to pray easily in the Word as we come to know and understand it, and we devote ourselves to God more and more as He communicates with us. Prayer and devotion serve to enrich each other as they perfect our walk to not only Calvary and Emmaus, but onward towards the New Jerusalem and perhaps into the Garden of Eden and beyond. Is our faith growing? What about our prayer life? Is our daily conversation with God walking stride for stride with it?
Prayer:
Father, thank you for the synergy between prayer and faith. Thank you for giving us your Holy Spirit and Word which teaches us and increases us in each of these two by joining them together to make something more powerful than either one of them could ever be alone. Hold us close Father as we mature in our faith and our vocabulary of praise, and take pleasure in us as our worship grows. Help us to speak with good heavenly diction, and feel the power of our faith increasing as we do so. Give us song, and poetry to become the spice, and scent of soulful incense with which we lift up our prayers, and glorify you in praise and worship. Holy, Holy, Holy, are you our God who patiently waits for us to mature in our faith and to grow in our ability to pray. Good and faithful are you who answers both the prayers of children and mature adults alike, and who takes great pleasure in the faithful conversation and love that each brings. This is the day that you have made, and we will rejoice, and be glad in it. This is the day of the children, and the mature saints alike, and in it you take loving pleasure in both our prayers, and the faith that weaves them into our lives with you. Feel the heart of our souls as they beat ever stronger in faith, and hear the sound of our voices as we lift up our prayers in praise, thanksgiving, worship, and to ask you for every need in our lives. We learn these things from your Word, and how to walk in them from the gospel of our Lord Jesus; we are then made to understand and remember them with the help of your Holy Spirit. Increase us daily in both our faith and prayers, so that together they will magnify our relationship with you, and lead us into an eternal walk with you in Heaven.
Amen
Rich Forbes