The Posture of Prayer

Monday, October 4th, 2010

Today's Passage: Matthew 6: 5-13
Memory Verse: Matt. 6:9

There are quite a few things we all take for granted that we couldn't live without.  Breathing is one of those things.  I couldn't tell you how many breaths I take in one minute, let alone in a day's time.  And yet, the second that breath becomes no longer available to me, my entire existence would go on alert.  Everything else that I thought was so necessary would pale in comparison.

Yesterday's message at The Life reminded me of another thing that is just as important as breathing, if not more so.  It's prayer.  Pastor Nette described it as the posture through which we position ourselves to recieve everything we need from God.  If He holds everything we need, you can begin to see why many of us don't receive it: because we don't pray.  Prayer is one of those words you'll find often in Scripture, because our Father wants us to know how important it is to Him.  And if He thinks it's important, so should we.

One reason prayer is not as precious to us as it ought to be is our attitude towards it.  For many of us, it's only a means of communicating our needs to God.  We don't see it as a time when He also wants to communicate with us.  He desires to reveal Himself -- give us wisdom for confusion, infuse us with His peace in times of storm, and answer the millions of questions we have about day-to-day issues.  Let's start this week with a basic definition of prayer in an attempt to fully understand and devote ourselves to it.

The "P" in prayer stands for Praise and worship.  You can't have prayer without it. Actually, you could go the entire length of your prayer time just giving God words of adoration.  When you think about how awesome and faithful He is in the big and the small things, isn't it worth taking the time to tell Him so?  How do you feel when your own children take the time to tell you how special they think you are?  If you're like me, you want to give them nice things just because they did that.  How much more our Heavenly Father?  Let's determine to make more of our prayer time about Him and not us.

Prayer: Father, let me start right off praising You today.  You are my King, the most powerful and awesome God Who ever existed.  And the fact that You love me never ceases to amaze me.  I will spend the rest of my days worshipping You for Who You are to me.  Thank You for just allowing me to breathe Your air.  May my life make You famous today.  In Jesus' Name, Amen.