| Good morning everyone, Our theme for this month: “Mighty Prevailing Prayer” Our Bible verse for today: “Don’t worry about anything, but in everything, through prayer and petition with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus.” Philippians 4:6-7 (CSB) Our thought for today: “Need motivates prayers, and prayer enhances our relationship with God” This morning I want to reprint a devotional from a previous series because it illustrates one of the reasons that God may want us to persist in prayer. It’s because He wants us to come to Him in prayer, and we’re most likely to do that when we have a need. But the sooner He answers that prayer and the need is no longer present in our lives, the sooner we’re likely to stop praying. And so, to keep us coming back to Him in prayer He will sometimes delay the answer. George MacDonald, the Scottish pastor, theologian, and Bible scholar from the mid-to-late 1800s had some thoughts about how God uses needs in our lives to draw us to prayer and to keep us praying. He wrote, “What if He knows prayer to be the thing we need first and most? What if the main object in God’s idea of prayer is the supplying of our great, our endless need – the need of Himself? Hunger may drive the runaway child home, and he may or may not be fed at once, but he needs his mother more than his dinner. Communion with God is the one need of the soul beyond all other need: prayer is the beginning of that communion, and some need is the motive of that prayer …” This is insightful and helpful. It provides us with one answer to why we pray. Our unmet needs – whether they concern finances, family, illness, or anything else – those needs drive us to our knees in prayer because we know that God can address those needs for us. That then brings us into communion with God which, it turns out, is what our soul needs more than the answer to the prayer itself. Our soul needs communion with God more than our body needs food or health or finances. The unmet physical needs become the things that lead us into communion with God, which is what we really need more than anything else. This is what Paul was teaching in Philippians 4:6-7 (above). Don’t fret and worry, don’t be unduly anxious about the rent money, the aching back, the rebellious child, or anything else. Bring all of those things to God in prayer, and then allow Him to minister to your soul. The prayer time will bring peace. It might also result in an answer that helps to address the original need, but whether it does or not, it will have accomplished the greater and more important purpose of nourishing the soul through communion with God. The fact is that needs motivate prayers, and prayers enhance our relationship with God. God bless, Pastor Jim (There won’t be a devotional on Tuesday. I’m having a minor surgical procedure this morning and will be in the hospital overnight. I should be released sometime on Tuesday. I plan to be back to work and writing the next devotional on Wednesday. Prayers appreciated!) |
| Copyright © 2021 Oak Hill Baptist Church, All rights reserved. |
-
Follow
Following
Already have a WordPress.com account? Log in now.
Oak Hill Baptist Church 