1 Samuel 12:23

Far be it from me that I should sin against the LORD by failing to pray for you.”

1 Samuel 12:23 is personally very challenging, Samuel, the prophet of God, considered prayerlessness a sin against the Lord. If I don’t pray for you, and you don’t pray for me, we can end up sinning against the Lord, because to live a prayer less life is to be disobedient to God. Prayerlessness is a sin against:

• God

To live a life of prayerlessness is to live a life of rebellion against God, it is us saying that we can do life without Him. Prayer is not just an opportunity, it is a responsibility. It is not just a monologue in which we express our wishes and wants to God; it is a dialogue in which we also listen to Him. Through prayer God has designed to give us grace and guidance, correction and instruction where we seek to live according to his will. To live a prayer-less life means we neglect to check into headquarters to find out what the Lord wants us to do. What keeps you from talking to the Father? Do you want a less life or a prayer life?

• Self

We impoverish ourselves when we neglect to pray because prayer is the divinely ordained channel through which we are to receive those things essential to carrying on the work of God. Prayerlessness reveals something tragic about our spiritual heart condition. To neglect prayer reveals a smug spiritual satisfaction, moral laziness, unbelief, and preoccupation with pointless activity. Why do we willingly live in the desert of prayerlessness, empty and impoverished?

• Others

When we spiritually impoverish ourselves by failing to pray, we also rob others of blessings. Have you ever really wanted a vibrant faith? Do you eagerly desire that for others? Do you hunger for them to understand His strength and experience His love? Through prayer I can open a door for you but that requires me to pray selflessly. Is there room in your prayer life for others?

Jeremiah 33:3 “Call to me and I will answer you and tell you great and unsearchable things you do not know.” We are invited to call out to God and His promise is that He will answer us. Moses cried out to God, and God spared Israel from judgment.  Joshua’s prayer made the sun stand still. Hannah’s prayer was answered with a baby boy. Solomon got wisdom in answer to his prayer. Fire came down from Heaven when Elijah prayed and devoured the sacrifice on Mount Carmel. Jonah’s prayer brought him out of the belly of the fish. Elijah had the great power of God upon his life. But when Elisha prayed for a double portion of the Spirit, God did not bat an eye when He gave it to him. Jabez prayed for God to bless him, enlarge his coasts, for God’s hand to be with him, and keep him from evil, and God granted his request! Ten lepers prayed and were instantaneously healed. Peter prayed, and Dorcas arose from the dead. The thief on the cross prayed and was saved immediately. The early church prayed, and the place was shaken where they were gathered together. Peter got out of jail in answer to the early Christians’ prayers. The door of the Philippian jail fell off when Paul and Silas prayed.

So, will you pray? Because even though it is fascinating to read of the accounts of the answered prayers of the saints in the Bible, we serve the same God. He still has the ability to not only hear but to answer. It was Abraham Lincoln who said, “Many times I have been forced to my knees, realizing there was simply no other place to go.”  George Washington met the crisis of Valley Forge on his knees in prayer. In a speech to the Constitutional Convention, Benjamin Franklin reminded the delegates of the daily prayer to God for the guidance and protection that they had offered. Stonewall Jackson said, “I have so fixed the habit in my mind that I never raise a glass of water to my lips without lifting my heart to God in thanks and prayer for the Water of Life.”

Prayer is the Christian’s greatest privilege, it is his greatest tool, his greatest weapon and his greatest opportunity. Prayer is the key to God’s storehouse, the switch to God’s power station and the greatest work in which one can become involved. Know that if you have just read this I have prayed for you. Who will you pray for today?

Psalm 95: 1-3

1 Come, let us sing to the Lord! Let us shout joyfully to the Rock of our salvation. 2 Let us come to him with thanksgiving. Let us sing psalms of praise to him. 3 For the Lord is a great God, a great King above all gods.

What is prayer; after we strip everything else away what are we really left with? Psalm 95 reminds us of the heart of prayer when everything is stripped away we are left a simple word, it’s how Psalm 95 begins: “Come…”  God longs for us to come into His presence; He is not concerned with laying down a list of rules and requirements. Instead, John 4:23 tells us that God is seeking worshippers who will adore Him in spirit and in truth. Prayer is:

• An invitation

What was the last invitation you received? Prayer is an invitation to come into the presence of God, to step into a moment of worship. An invitation is about being included and God sends out an invitation to each of us and He wants us to come without hesitation. You and I are invited into His very presence; it is an invitation to join God, to be with Him. What an amazing thought that the God of the universes has invited us to spend time with Him, to come into His very presence. So often we view prayer as an inconvenience instead of an invitation. We have lost the wonder of His presence in the work.  Where did we go wrong, was it when we traded the relationship for results?  Prayer has become a rush when it was meant to be rest. Are we afraid to relax, to just be instead of to do?

•  A call to respond

Three times in verses 1 and 2 we read, “Let us…” An invitation requires a response and the truth is that we all end up responding. Some of us respond intentionally and some of us by default. “Let us” implies a desire to join God where He is, to say yes. What is holding you back from accepting the invitation to come to Him? Will you intentionally respond to His invitation, will you fall to your knees before the King? Or will you lay aside the invitation to intimacy? What activity could be more pressing than praising the Provider? Why don’t we respond to the invitation to pray, are we too busy, bothered, blind? What is holding you back?

• Worship

Worship can be both private and silent and there are times when we worship God quietly in our hearts. Yet there are times when we need to sing out, when our worship is vibrant and vigorous, God longs for us to sing out to Him. We are invited to participate with joyful, grateful praise and to be exuberant in our worship. When did prayer become so reserved? We have been invited to be with the Almighty and if that doesn’t move you what will, golf? Sometimes we see more excited about sports than the Savior. One characteristic note of Old Testament worship is exhilaration, why were they exhilarated, why are we not? What are we missing that they understood? Is it that the praise is not in the prayer but the person? The terms employed here describe activity which seems more appropriate at a major sporting event than a prayer meeting. We are to shout joyfully to the Rock of our salvation, to “shout aloud” was something the Israelites did when they were anticipating a battle or celebrating a triumph. Have we lost the sheer joy of celebrating our God, the One who has won the battle for our freedom?  This shout is found in Joshua 6:20, when the Israelites were marching around the walls of Jericho: “When the trumpets sounded, the people shouted, and at the sound of the trumpet, when the people gave a loud shout, the wall collapsed…” It’s also found in 1 Samuel 4:5, where we read about what happened when the Ark of the Covenant was brought into the camp, “…All Israel raised such a great shout that the ground shook.” Is there something about your God that you need to celebrate right now, do you need to stop and give Him a shout out right now?

•  God-centered.

Prayer and praise is not to just getting emotional or sing loudly for our own sake, our focus should not be on how worship makes us feel. Our worship must be centered on God alone. Notice these first two verses. We are to “sing to the Lord” we are to “shout joyfully to the Rock of our salvation” we are to “come to him with thanksgiving” we are to “sing psalms of praise to him” Is your prayer about you or Him? David danced and shouted, but he did it “before the Lord.” We have made prayer about God joining us and prayer has become the mirror where we see only ourselves and the reflection of our wants and desires. What does He want, what are His desires, is it time for us to look past the mirror of our own reflection and see our God?

Will you Come?