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Intro:
Last week, I introduced [Vision365].
God is calling us to ask ourselves the same four questions every day:
Have I prayed today?
Have I read my Bible today?
Do I need to fast today?
Have I lived for Jesus today?
We’re going to take the next few weeks and look at the need to: pray, read, fast, and live for Jesus.
Then, toward the end of April we will dedicate 365 days to Jesus as a congregation.
Today, let’s focus on the need to pray everyday.
Why is it important to pray EVERYDAY?
I could ask, why should we commit to do ANYTHING every day?
For some reason, when I thought of this question, my mind went back to when I began piano lessons in the fifth grade.
My teacher was strict about reading the notes and playing precisely what was on the page.
That was good to get me started, but I did not have aspirations to play Bach, Mozart, or Beethoven.
I wanted to play in church.
But I went along with the books and I practiced.
I quit after two years and took the limited knowledge I had and taught myself to play chords for church.
I joined the youth worship team and eventually began playing the organ.
I would practice, over and over and over.
Then in the ninth grade, I started lessons with a new teacher, Mr. Staton.
He asked, what do you want to learn?
He tailor made the lessons for me.
I picked the songs and we worked on them at my own pace.
I played Southern Gospel, Hymns, Jazz, and Classical Arrangements.
Sometimes we would get stuck on a song for a long time, not because of my teacher, but because of me.
There were weeks when I would practice everyday and then there were weeks when I had not practiced at all between lessons.
There was always a difference between those weeks and the teacher could tell.
It was not until I lived in Salem that I was on the other side of that equation.
I gave lessons to one of the youth for a few months, which I do not do, because I am not a patient or nice teacher.
We worked on the lesson and the next week I could tell she hadn’t practiced.
I said, Alex, you have natural talent, but you did not practice this week.
She looked at me wondering how I could tell.
I explained, I wasted a lot of time faking it and trying to get along.
If you will take time EVERY DAY, you will get amazed at how you will grow.
As I have thought about dedicating EVERY DAY to God in prayer, my mind went to practicing the piano.
I have noticed a difference in my life when I make time to pray everyday, throughout the day and when my week has got busy.
Prayer is similar to developing a skill in that it takes daily effort, but prayer is vastly different in that prayer is our life source, our direct connection to God.
I still get amazed that when we pray, God Almighty, the One who sits on the throne in heaven, actually cares to listen to us.
He longs to speak to us.
Prayer is our source of strength.
Let’s think of what happens through prayer:
prayer saves the lost
prayer heals the sick
prayer empowers the believer
prayer encourages the discouraged
prayer changes situations
prayer connects us to God
I am thankful that we make prayer a priority in our church.
We experience the presence of God in our services because of our commitment to pray.
But this message is not designed to explain the power of prayer, we know all about that.
Instead, I want us to look at the importance of CONSISTENCY in prayer.
We know prayer works.
How often do we pray?
Is there a day that goes by that we do not pray?
Do we take time to pray throughout the day?
Are there moments in our day when we find ourselves praying just to be closer to Him?
Jesus modeled this type of lifestyle on earth.
Over and over, we find Him praying.
Jesus prayed every day and He prayed throughout the day.
Let’s look at a conversation Jesus had with His disciples and look at the importance of praying EVERY DAY.
I have three points, [Request about Praying], [Requirements of Praying], and [Results of Praying].
Let’s begin
1.
Request about Praying
By this point, the disciples had followed Jesus for nearly two years.
Once again, they found Jesus praying.
One of them decided to ask Him, Lord, teach us how to pray, just as John taught his disciples.
In the first-century, it was normal for a rabbi to teach his disciples a prayer that they would memorize and repeat.
It is likely that is what Jesus’s disciples wanted.
To their surprise, Jesus was less interested in them learning a written prayer and more interested in them knowing HOW to actually pray.
What led them to even ask Jesus to teach them to pray?
Jesus modeled a consistent prayer life.
They knew He prayed for a number of reasons.
One of those is they SAW and HEARD Him prayer.
Another reason was the effects of His prayer life.
Even if they never saw Him bow to His knees, raise His hands, or lift His voice in prayer— the evidence of His prayer life was obvious.
Everything He accomplished was a result of His diligence in prayer.
He prayed, and God anointed Him with the Holy Spirit and with power.
They saw Jesus’s knew how to pray and they wanted to learn.
Luke’s description of Jesus’s words are very similar to Matthew 6:9-13.
We call this the Lord’s Prayer.
Should we read both passages side-by-side, we would see a little difference in the wording.
One of the differences is Matthew probably recorded Jesus speaking to a large crowd while Luke wrote what Jesus said to His disciples.
This prayer was never to be something we just memorize and repeat.
Instead, Jesus outlined pattern on HOW to pray: praise, intercession, and request.
In our prayer life, we should take time to PRAISE our Father in heaven.
I try to discipline myself to spend much of my “prayer” time in praising and thanking God.
If praise and worship consumed most of my time with God, that is okay.
He deserves ALL of our praise.
After praising, we intercede, Your Kingdom come, Your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.
After we’ve praised God, the Holy Spirit is present.
The Spirit will intercede through us, praying on our behalf to the Father.
Paul explains it this way:
My asking God for His will to be done, we’re aligning our lives with what God desires for us.
After praising and interceding, then we can bring our requests:
provision— our daily bread
forgiveness— our sins
forgiving— those who’ve hurt us
help in temptation
There is so much more to the Lord’s Prayer, but I want us to see that it came as a result of a request.
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