URGENCY IN OUR PRAYERS
The end of the world is coming soon. Therefore, be earnest and disciplined in your prayers.
1 Peter 4:7 (NLT)
This verse is very challenging because it flips what most people believe about prayer. Peter reminds us that prayer isn’t the means to the end. Instead, it’s the end to our means. Prayer isn’t preparing us for the greater work. Prayer is the greater work. A significant way God moves His Kingdom to Earth is through prayer.
Read what E.M. Bounds has to say on prayer and urgency.
There is neither encouragement nor room in Bible religion for feeble desires, listless efforts, lazy attitudes. Heaven is too busy to listen to half-hearted prayers or to respond to pop-calls. Our whole being must be in our praying.
In the verse above, Peter realized the greatest threat wasn’t health. It wasn’t an economic threat. It wasn’t a governmental threat. The greatest threat was an eternal one. The greatest threat is that all of us will have a last day on this Earth or that Jesus will return, and we’re unprepared. Then we’ll stand before a Holy God to give an account of our life. Our lives should be different in light of this crisis! As Jonathan Edwards once said, Lord, stamp eternity on my eyeballs.
In Matthew 26, before Jesus was arrested, He prayed in the Garden of Gethsemane. Peter, James and John were the only other disciples with Him. Jesus invites the three of them to pray, but they fall asleep. Jesus drew strength from prayer—strength that none of the other three disciples had. Years later, Peter recalls this experience. He draws power from prayer as he faces persecution from the Roman government for following Jesus. Peter has been awakened to the urgency and power of prayer.
Are you asleep in your prayers? Are you praying with passion? God is inviting each of us to wake up our prayers, to dive deeper into the power and intimacy of prayer that Jesus modeled. If Jesus prayed with urgency, how much more should we, as His followers, pray with a spirit of urgency?
APPLICATION:
Be disciplined today in making time for prayer and remembering its power.
PRAYER:
Ask God to make you aware of the power of prayer. Ask the Spirit how the enemy wants to distract you from prayer. Ask the Spirit to help you become more disciplined in your prayer life!