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?

Romans 10:1

Dear brothers and sisters, the longing of my heart and my prayer to God is for the people of Israel to be saved.

What is the longing of your heart, what are you broken and burdened over? For Paul the longing of his heart was the salvation of his kinsmen, he was burdened for the unsaved. So what did he do about it, he shared his heart with his Father in prayer. Where do the unsaved rank in your heart, are you burdened for the salvation of others or bothered? Many of us hear the word witnessing and we slip into guilt mode because we know we should be doing more and we are not. But Paul teaches us a foundational truth about witnessing, it doesn’t start with doing or our outside actions, it starts in the heart. Caring is the connecting point, what we yearn for we tend to live for. When it comes to praying for the salvation of others the book of James teaches us many truths:

• Praying with Faith and Faithfulness

Faith always focuses on the Father and Paul’s faith directed him toward the Father in prayerful petition.

James :6-7 “But when you ask him, be sure that your faith is in God alone. Do not waver, for a person with divided loyalty is as unsettled as a wave of the sea that is blown and tossed by the wind. 7 Such people should not expect to receive anything from the Lord.”

The first question is a faith question: “Do I trust God’s Ability, His Affection and His Awareness and His Answer?” The second question is a faithful one: “Am I committed to pray or do I give up?” Paul was consistant, he was faithful in prayer, Colossians 1:3 “We always pray for you”; 1 Thessalonians 5:17 “Pray without ceasing”

Is it time to prepare your heart and practice a habit of prayer?

• Praying with Fervency

James 5:16 “The effective, fervent prayer of a righteous man avails much.”

This has to do with intensity and zeal, which are driven by the longing of our heart. When I think of fervent prayer I picture Jesus in the garden sweating blood before the Father. The longing of His heart was faithful obedience and it fueled His intensity in prayer, the disciples longed for fleshly fulfillment and that fueled their slumber. Often our intensity in prayer is like that of the disciples, sleeping on the job; instead we are to Watch in Prayer, Wait in Prayer and Work in Prayer.

Colossians 4:12 “Epaphras, who is one of you, a bondservant of Christ, greets you, always laboring fervently for you in prayers, that you may stand perfect and complete in all the will of God.”

What motivates you Faith or Flesh?

• Praying with Focus

James 4:3 “You ask and do not receive, because you ask amiss, that you may spend it on your pleasures.”

The focus of witnessing is “for the people” in other words it’s not about us and how we will feel it’s about others. So much of our prayer lives revolves around us and until the focus shifts and we start to really see others we will keep asking amiss. Because the focus is still on us instead of others when it comes to witnessing the motivation is either fear or a feel good. We fear failure and how we will feel or we seek success through a feel good. Paul saw people not projects, he saw people not problems, salvation is about people but we have turned it into a process and in so doing we have dehumanized the very ones Jesus died for.  Praying with focus means praying without selfishness or sloppiness, it means focusing on people not pleasure.

Groaning on our knees in prayer leads to going on our feet in person. Who will you meet today that needs to meet Christ? Will you turn in prayer to the one who can save?

Isaiah 59:1 Listen! The Lord’s arm is not too weak to save you, nor is his ear too deaf to hear you call.