"They devoted themselves to the apostles teaching, and to the fellowship, to the breaking of bread and to prayer..." (Acts 2:42)
Among the many things the early church was devoted to, primary among them was prayer! The church was born during a prayer meeting, they responded to persecution with a prayer gathering, the Word of God was spoken boldly by the believers after having been enabled through prayer!
There are 4 stages of entering a prayer relationship with God and they mirror the stages we go through when establishing relationships with other people as well:
1. Love
The initiative of love is always first with God! There must be a basic, foundational love for God before you can move into deeper relationship with Him. John 3:16 tells us that God already has this love for us, "For God so loved..."!2. Intimacy
True prayer is not a stream of eloquent words, it is the expression of a deep, intimate longing for God that is born out of love! Charles Spurgeon said, "The best style of prayer is that which cannot be called anything else but a cry." And we won't cry out to a God or to anyone that we haven't developed intimacy with.3. Privilege
Out of the atmosphere of intimacy, trust is born. Where there is trust, there is the granting of privilege: The privilege of knowing God's heart, His mind and His will. And you grant God the privilege of freely exploring all the areas of your life that you've previously guarded from Him.
4. Responsibility
When this privilege has been granted between you and God, then both have a responsibility to the other (of course God has always been responsible for us). God is responsible to lead, guide, speak and provide. You are responsible to accomplish His will in the world!
Once this prayer relationship is established we then begin to labor in prayer. Not out of obligation, but out of a deep desire for relationship and communion with God! We labor on behalf of those we love, of those who don't know Jesus, of those who are sick or in turmoil in their lives. And as a church we labor to see our congregation become and carry out all that God intended when He called us into existence!
If the Acts 2 church happened once...it can happen again! And the first step is for us to be devoted to prayer! Let's agree together to labor in prayer for God to use us in a powerful way in our world!
In His Grip,
Pastor John
3 comments:
The greatest thing I've been burdened with this last week is the need to accomplish level 4 for my fellow brothers and sisters in Christ as well as the lost. It's during this level that God blesses me with empathy and I’m broken for others. These times cause me to walk closer to God. It's there that I see the Lord's compassion and desire for all to be saved.
Starting with the basic Love concept for God, which would that be? Familial,agape,(doubt it's eros)
It would be the love of a child for a Father. So familial would probably catch it. I didn't communicate that well in the message. Good clarification. Thanks!
Post a Comment