07/24/2024
Does prayer guide your life and alter you in such ways that others might hear and see you as an image of Christ, or as an embodiment of something divine? This morning my devotional reading once again spoke primarily to pastors, but all saints can benefit from this call to prayer. Our prayer life changes who we are… even if we feel satisfied with our faith, or believe we have achieved a degree of holiness.
"A preacher may preach in an official, or learned way, without praying. But there is an immeasurable distance between this kind of preaching and the sowing of God's precious seed with holy hands and prayerful hearts." - E. M. Bounds
The effect of prayer on a pastor's ability to preach is identical to the effect of prayer on everyone's ability to righteously live their lives. Paul realized this when he called on the Ephesians to pray. He wrote that they should pray in the spirit, fervently, and not just for themselves but for those around them, and for him... at the time he was an imprisoned preacher and missionary to the world.
“In all circumstances take up the shield of faith, with which you can extinguish all the flaming darts of the evil one; and take the helmet of salvation, and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God, praying at all times in the Spirit, with all prayer and supplication. To that end keep alert with all perseverance, making supplication for all the saints, and also for me, that words may be given to me in opening my mouth boldly to proclaim the mystery of the gospel, for which I am an ambassador in chains, that I may declare it boldly, as I ought to speak.”
Ephesians 6:16-20 ESV
Prayer changes our lives and circumstances, and in so doing it presents an aura of holiness to the world. This aura, and the sweet smell of heaven that surrounds it, draws the attention of the spiritually wayward, and those who are lost, to the doorways of faith... It brings them to a place that they find inexplicably familiar and mysteriously comforting, then, it affords the church’s saints an opportunity to restore them to God's loving embrace.
Prayer is more than a simple page of wants, it turns speeches to sermons, and lives into spiritual journeys of faith. Prayer brings us to the juncture of heaven and earth and allows safe passage between them, but as we do this, we leave a bit of ourselves behind; we pick up a bit of the divine, and return with the dust of heaven on us.
“Aaron and all the people of Israel saw Moses, and behold, the skin of his face shone, and they were afraid to come near him.”
Exodus 34:30 ESV
Being close to God has more than some hidden effect known only to us... It shows on our faces and in our lives. It reveals our faith and Jesus Christ to those who come to know us. It can change a life, reclaim a soul, or alter the world… even the world of those who are satisfied with their holiness.
Let's answer Paul's call to prayer this morning. Let's pray with intensity and the expectation of God's attention and longing for His blessed answer. Let's commune with Him and allow His dust to settle over us as we lay prone. Let's bring the effect of His presence into a world that mysteriously feels Him as Déjà vu, and is drawn closer in their curiosity. Let's pray that those who are lost will see Christ in us and the glow of God on our faces. Let's pray that we can return them to that place with the Lord which somehow seems familiar to them, and they faintly imagine that they have been before.
Prayer:
Father, thank you for calling me to prayer each morning, and all through the day. Thank you for humbling my spirit as I commune with you, and when I feel self-assured, and believe I can get no closer to you than I am at any given moment. Pour humility over me like a warm oil Lord as I pray with others, and never let me feel better, or more heard by you in my own prayers than even a small child, or a sinner, feels they are in theirs. Make me a guide to those who are seeking you Abba, but never let me lead others believing I am better, infallible, or know the way perfectly. Let me always have a sense of being lost, and a certain wonder in the journey, as I search for you alongside the seekers I am leading. Holy, Holy, Holy, are you our God who is far above us in all ways, and whom we spend our entire lives, and if so blessed, for all eternity as well, desiring to be with you, and like you. Hear us as we humble ourselves before you, and as we pray in the name of Jesus for you to lead us in the Spirit as we long for a closer walk with you. Pour your grace over us without ceasing, and instill in us a constant longing to praise, honor, and pray to you as Jesus taught us, and with the assurance in Him that His cleansing blood gives us. You sent Him to be born among us… to live, suffer, and die for us so that through His resurrection we too would be resurrected, redeemed, and have ever lasting life… Holy Father let Jesus Christ, your Son, and your Word, not return to you void. We pray that He not lose one of us you have given Him... not one child, no sinner, no wanderer, no saint, and not a single one you have called. This is our prayer today and the spoken and unspoken heart of every prayer we pray. Amen.
“In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.”
John 1:1 ESV
“And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth.”
John 1:14 ESV
““For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him. Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe is condemned already, because he has not believed in the name of the only Son of God.””
John 3:16-18 ESV
Amen! Amen! Amen!
Rich Forbes