Mar13

My Christian Brother and friend, John sent this today, and in place of my devotion, I would like to share this message with you. May God bless you all as you read and make use of this devotion. A special thanks
to John for his love in the Lord and for sharing this. Love in Christ Jesus, Sandy
PRAYER LIFE I SHOULD LIVE BY

Praying is something we all should do. Most of us don't do enough praying and feel guilty about it. We use excuses such as, I don't have the time; when I think about it, it is to late; I can't find a good place to pray. The list goes on and on. We all have our favorites. What is yours? The Bible teaches us to pray without ceasing or always. We can't be in constant prayer! What does this mean? This looks like a good excuse or not praying. What does it mean? To pray without ceasing means that we are to have minds and hearts on the heavenly or right things. When we speak, (what we say), would Jesus approve or want to hear what we say? Our thoughts and speech should be as if God were here listening to us. When someone starts to tell a bad joke, do we listen, or do we walk away? We, as Christians, know what is the right thing to do. When we don't do it because of peer pressure, we sin.

We are to have Christ like minds and thoughts. If we don't, we sin. God knows we are tempted, but not more than we can stand. Here on earth, we are constantly being tempted. The more we watch the wrong programs on television, the more we are tempted. We are to voice our displeasure and not show support. What does this have to do with prayer? I want to show you that prayer is to be in our daily lives. Our lives should be a prayer to God. We should be looking forward to that day we can be with God and His Son, Jesus. There are times we want to be alone to pray. We need to make time for these talks with God. We can use the Lord's prayer as a model. Jesus gave it to use as a guide, as well as a prayer to pray.

"Our Father who art in Heaven, Hallowed be Thy Name." How many times I have said this sentence and not given the holiness it is due. God is my God; He is our God! He saved us because He loves us. He is to be praised. He is our heavenly Father. The father that can supply both spiritual and physical needs. He does supply all our needs (not wants). We think that He does not answer all the time or at the right time; or when we think He should. In both good and difficult times we need to praise and adore Him. Not because He wants to hear it from us but because He is our Father and worthy of praise and adoration.

"Thy kingdom come" This is God's kingdom on earth. It is not to be confused with heaven. The kingdom is where we can worship our Lord free of any temptation. We should be in secret with the Lord. At times, our spirit is willing but our flesh is weak. We need to ask God for help in praying to Him. We are to ask Him to keep the devil's temptations from us while we pray. We should be ready for the Lord's return to take us to be with Him. To me, it will be God's kingdom being set up on the earth without the presence of the devil.

"Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven" I believe Jesus is telling the people that we are to pray for God's will to be fully manifested in our lives as it will be in heaven. Our thoughts and actions are to be here on earth as they will be in heaven.

"Give us this day your daily bread" Some preachers preach that we should ask for material wealth. God wants us to ask Him for the food and other needs for our daily livelihood . As our Father, He will provide and supply all we need to do His will. To those who are providers to many people, He may give more than to a provider of a few. To those that want to do His will, He supplies what is needed. To some that are sick he gives help. Others He gives special abilities to witness to the lost. In any case, we ask God to supply daily our needs to do His will.

"Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us." We are sinners saved by His grace. Do we keep on sinning, by no means! We are to live a life as good as possible. God forgave us for all our sins and we should forgive others that have wronged us. He told us that if we had anything against anyone, we should resolve it before praying. If we treat people of different color less than we do people of our race, then that hinders our prayer. Any known sin that has not been confessed hinders our prayer. If we don't give God honor and worship daily, how can He fully answer our needs. We are to search our hearts and minds to see where we fall short and ask help and forgiveness before asking the prayer to be answered. We must try to live the best we can and ask God to give us the strength and courage to do it. God responds to us as we respond to Him.