Word from The WORD: What is PRAYER?

Thursday, June 14, 2012

What is PRAYER?

This post on prayer is based on Mark 14:32-42 (NRSV & NKJV). Have a Bible in hand and read the verses side-by-side, along with the post.

Prayer is to be with Jesus. (vs. 32, 33)

- Prayer is to follow Jesus and to stay closer with Him. To go where He wants us to go and not to go where He does not want to us to go.

Prayer is to understand His distress, agitation and sorrow. (vs. 33, 34)

- There are so many things that are happening in this world that breaks God’s heart. A prayerful person will cry with God seeing the filthiness, lostness, the world is filled with. Like Jeremiah he will desire to be filled with tears and weep for the people. (Jeremiah 9:1)

Prayer is total surrender. (vs. 35)

- Where there is total surrender, self and pride ceases to exist. It is like to say with Paul, “I have been crucified with Christ, and it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me…” (Galatians 2:20a)

Prayer is to submit to God’s will. (vs. 36)

- It is not what I desire, but what God desires. Being in the centre of God’s will is the safest and the best place in the world and prayer is the vehicle that takes us there.

Prayer is to safeguard from falling into temptation. (vs. 38)

- ‘He who fails to plan, plans to fail’, they say. He who fails to pray, prepares to fall!

Prayer is to increase the strength of the spirit and to decrease and nullify the weakness of the flesh. (vs. 38)

- As Galatians 5:17 says, “or the flesh desires what is contrary to the Spirit, and the Spirit what is contrary to the flesh. They are in conflict with each other, so that you are not to do whatever you want.” Through prayer we need to strengthen the spirit, the inner man so that our desires become divine and holy.

Prayer is to persist. (vs. 39)

- We need to pray until we understand God’s heart, till we totally surrender our ego, submit to God’s will, every time to beat temptation. P.U.S.H – Pray Until Something (Specific) Happens!