Things to Think About – Sunday, October 6, 2024

Brothers & Sisters,
I share with you a few thoughts on prayer. The wonderful thing about prayer is that it is a ministry that can be carried out by every one of us, from the least to the greatest, from the youngest to the oldest, and from the strongest to the weakest. The children in our Sunday School can pray, our young people in the Youth Fellowship and in the Junior Choir, members of the Boys Brigade, our Young Adults and the members of the Praise Choir, our more mature adults in the Mothers’ Union, the Women’s Auxiliary and the Action Group, the Men’s Group, the members of the Senior Choir and the members of the Fellowship
Groups, those who serve on the Church Committee and its many sub-committees, everyone can pray.

How absolutely wonderful it is that we have all been given the gracious invitation to come before God’s Throne of Grace, that we might obtain mercy, and find grace to help in time of need. Can you imagine what would happen if we all learnt the secret of effective prayer, and in a concerted effort cried to God for the coming of his Kingdom among us, with all the blessings that come with it? It would affect every feature of our common life. It would breathe new life into our worship, our fellowship, our finances, our spiritual growth, our numerical growth, our community outreach and all our service in the cause of the
Kingdom. Let us remember the words of James in his letter, “You do not have, because you do not ask. You ask and do not receive because you ask wrongly…..” We must begin by improving our effectiveness in praying alone. There can be no substitute for our daily devotional exercise when we meet alone with God in prayer.

Three activities should take place in that encounter. We begin with a period of reading and meditation on God’s Word. It is very helpful to have some guide for our bible reading, rather than simply opening the bible at random and reading what comes before us. Then there will be a period of verbalized prayer, which may well follow the pattern of adoration, confession, thanksgiving and supplication. We worship, we bless, we thank God, and we bring all our concerns before him. We end our exercise with a time of silence, for we must allow time for God to talk to us, to provide us with directions for the way forward.
Contributed