I find that setting aside purposeful times for prayer helps me to pray. If I just go about my day without planning for a specific time to humble myself before my heavenly Father then at the end of the day I feel defeated and deflated. Jesus consistently did this very thing…

“And rising very early in the morning, while it was still dark, he departed and went out to a desolate place, and there he prayed” (Mark 1:35; cf. Matthew 14:23; Luke 6:12; 22:41-44; Hebrews 5:7).

Even a casual reading of the Gospels will leave you with the sense that Jesus was busy. He had places to go and people to see. Add to that the constant interruptions from people clamoring to get His attention to ask Him a question or have Him heal them. And don’t forget the consistent badgering of the religious hierarchy seeking to trip Him up and bring Him down. Jesus was busy, but Jesus planned times of purposeful prayer.

Jesus simply takes it for granted that we would pray. When instructing His disciples about how to pray He began by saying, “When you pray…” (Matthew 6:5, 6, 7). Notice He said when not if. He assumed that His disciples, then and now, would pray.

I am writing this because our society has cultivated a culture of end zone to end zone living with no elbowroom. We are a fast-paced, narcissistic society that has no time for anything that doesn’t feed our egos. We live without margins and once our days get started…well, look out, because there’s no stopping until we collapse on our pillows. This is why we need to plan purposeful times of focused prayer. This is not to say that we should ignore spontaneous, unplanned times of prayer; those happen all the time, at all times of day and night. And when the Spirit moves us to pray we shouldn’t hesitate to pray. But if we don’t plan to pray then I fear that we simply won’t pray.

When do you plan to pray today?

Grace & Peace,

It is mind boggling, amazing, off-the-chain, stupendous, awesome, and every other-over-the-top adjective you can think of to describe the provision God makes when we begin to earnestly pray! I am humbled but not surprised at what God is doing at Calvary Church. He made the greatest investment to secure our future – His Son. Since He was willing to make a sacrifice as great as that, then I am absolutely confident that He will answer prayers that have a concern for His honor and the rescue of those whom He loves.

“Now to him who is able to do far more abundantly that all that we ask or think, according to the power at work within us, to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, forever and ever. Amen!” (Ephesians 3:20-21)

That about sums it up. Paul, who wrote the bulk of the New Testament, beautifully articulated what we need to hear today. Here are a couple of thoughts for you to ponder this week:

First, Paul begins with God’s glory. That is the best place to start with anything. Our prayers need to be saturated with a desire for God to be glorified. This saturation will keep our prayers in check from becoming petitions to fulfill the desires of our own hearts.

Second, we need to stop limiting what God can do. God’s ability is beyond what we can petition (“ask”) and what we can imagine (“think”). Whenever I look at my ability I have every reason to panic, but when I look at God’s ability I have all the reason I need to trust.

Since I have started to urgently pray about the unity of the church, new families becoming a part of the church and the financial needs of the church, I have had a peace about everything and a freedom in the study and in the pulpit. This is what God has done in me in the last few weeks; what has He done in you?

Friends, we don’t need to panic, worry, stress and lose sleep over things that we place in the sovereign hands of God. It’s only when we try to control things that are out of our control that we need to hit the panic button. So let’s roll up our sleeves and get on our knees and fervently pray!

Grace & Peace,