“What! Could you not watch with Me one hour? Matthew 6:40 (NKJV)

While visiting a church in Florida, I was involved in intercessory prayer in the sanctuary when I noticed a small plaque on the wall as you exit the front door. I was curious about it, so I got close enough to read it. To my surprise, it was a prayer. The forefathers of this church were thoughtful enough to leave a prayer for the generations to come.

The thing that surprised me the most was, the current parishioners had never noticed it or read it, not even the pastor or the elders.

Prayer is essential to our growth and development in the Christian faith, yet it can be the one aspect of worship that we neglect. We seem to find many excuses not to pray. Sadly, we sometimes use our work for the Lord as a reason to forsake communing with Him.

We, the church and nation (USA), tend to run to our prayer closets when trouble visits our homes and threaten our environment. The last time I can remember this nation bowing its knees in fervent prayer was when the planes struck the Twin Towers in New York and the Pentagon in Washington, DC; 911 (2001). During this time, churches welcomed faces they had never seen before and haven’t seen since that tragedy occurred.

Jesus knew we would struggle with this element of worship. As an object lesson on how to pray, Jesus left a model prayer in Matthew 6.

When He was going through His traumatic moment in the garden of Gethsemane, Jesus was disappointed to find His close friends, Peter, and other disciples, asleep rather than praying. He wanted to know, “Can you not watch one hour?” 

When we think of it, one hour is a short period to pray. When we consider the needs of the country, community, and our personal lives, what is one hour?

Thank God He has ordained and appointed some to the ministry of prayer who has the grace to pray and intercede for the nation and other concerns for hours without ceasing. Faithful intercessors would rather pray than eat. Prayer is their necessary food. 

I want to leave you with the prayer that’s hanging in the church that I visited in Florida.

“O, God, make the door of this house wide enough to receive all who need human love and fellowship: narrow enough to shut out all envy, pride, and strife. Make its threshold smooth enough to be no stumbling-block to the children of this community, not to straying feet, but rugged and smooth enough to turn back the tempter’s power. Our Heavenly Father, make the door of this house a gateway to Thine eternal Kingdom. Amen.”

My beloved, let us not make prayer a monument, but an essential element of worship.

Pray …

Lord, help me to be fervent in prayer? Amen.

Posted by on Wednesday, February 26th, 2020 @ 11:18AM
Categories: Empowering, Encouragement, Inspirational