Pray Without Ceasing - Pastor's Pen

 

1 Thessalonians 5:17 is a very short verse.

It simply says, "PRAY WITHOUT CEASING." Paul gives instruction to this in addition to other things that the church ought to be doing. What is he trying to tell us? Well, looking at a few other translations and paraphrases we come up with these descriptions

• "Always keep praying" - Living Bible.
• "Pray continually" - New International Version
• "Pray without ceasing" - Life Application Bible
• "Never give up praying" - Goodspeed Translations
• "Be unceasing in prayer" - Amplified Bible
• "Be praying unceasingly" - Greek New Testament
• "Never stop praying" - Phillips Translation

Praying without ceasing? How do we do that? We can't spend all our

time on our knees praying! That's true, but it is possible to develop a prayerful attitude. This kind of attitude is built upon acknowledging that God's presence is within us and that we can 'communicate' with Him at any time, anywhere. It doesn't have to be a 'formal' prayer, but just simple conversation with God, just like you would talk with me. The child of God should be able to acknowledge God's presence in his life even though he may not 'feel it." Our communication is not dependent upon our feeling, but upon a confidence in knowing He is with us because He said so! Having that kind of confidence will make it natural to converse with God, any time. any place. We develop our 'conversation skill' with God by practicing it!

I think it is pretty clear that God wants to hear from us. Our memory verse from last month confirms this, "CALL upon me and I will ANSWER you and I will SHOW you great and mighty things that you do not know." Can you remember my three points on this verse? There is a PROMPT -There is a PROMISE and then there is a PROVISON. Consider-

• Prayer helps us to trust God
• Prayer helps us worship God
• Prayer draws us closer to God
• Prayer warms the soul to spiritual things
• Prayer is answered by the One we are praying to.

If we are not praying, then we are not communicating with God and we are missing the above points and.... we are missing the blessings of heaven Oswald Cambers has written - "We cannot live spiritually without prayer. Prayer is the refreshing, life giving water for the soul."