Looking at Jesus' life and the history of the Church we find several practices, or spiritual disciplines, which mature us into our faith and spiritual walk. There are many resources available to Christians and assist us towards spiritual growth, and the Bible states that prayer is one of the indispensible spiritual disciplines for the growing Christian. Jesus provides us a model prayer in the Gospel of Luke.
“1 Now it came to pass, as He was praying in a certain place, when He ceased, that one of His disciples said to Him, “Lord, teach us to pray, as John also taught his disciples.”
2 So He said to them, “When you pray, say:
Our Father in heaven,
Hallowed be Your name.
Your kingdom come.
Your will be done
On earth as it is in heaven.
3 Give us day by day our daily bread.
4 And forgive us our sins,
For we also forgive everyone who is indebted to us.
And do not lead us into temptation,
But deliver us from the evil one.” (Luke 11:1-4)
Persistence in Prayer
Perhaps the greatest teaching of Jesus on the gaze of the soul toward the living God, He placed an emphasis upon praying with consistency and confidence. Jesus lets us know that our God is One who answers prayers (Luke 11:9).
A. W. Tozer author of The Pursuit of God: The Human Thirst for the Divine described the act of praying in the following manner:
“We pursue God because, and only because, He has first put an urge within us that spurs us to the pursuit. “No man can come to me,” said our Lord, “except the Father which hath sent me draw him,” and it is by this very prevenient drawing that God takes from us every vestige of credit for the act of coming. The impulse to pursue God originates with God, but the outworking of that impulse is our following hard after Him; and all the time we are pursuing Him we are already in His hand: “Thy right hand upholdeth me.” (Psalms 63:8) (Tozer, p. 11-12).”
Exemplary Ministries
The Bible summons us to emulate the most viable models of ministry namely the ministries of Christ and that of the early Apostles. It is my opinion that their ministries were authentic, genuine and Spirit-led because they based their ministries on prayer. This is important to me as I witness a lot of man-made ministries around the globe; I see a great many of our church ministry models as self-proclaimed piety, self-esteem/feel good program oriented, seeker friendly, unbalanced prosperity and culturally relevant type of churches. Many in the Christian community, are so focused on meeting the felt needs of the people that they ignore the centrality of the gospel, prayer and a message of repentance and the kingdom of God. This is not meant to be an indictment of the models mentioned in the question, it is only a warning that is based on my observation. I believe that God will ask the church and her leaders (us) to give an account for what we did with the message of the Gospel. May God help us all!
This season remember to pray to the God who not only hears our prayers but is also able to answer single one of prayer needs according to His riches in glory by Christ Jesus.
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