People of Prayer Needed!

“You can do more than pray, after you have prayed, but you can never do more than pray until you have prayed.” – A. J. Gordon

When Jesus called the Twelve, he called them so that they might do three things. The first was simply to “be with him.” With that in place, and from that place, he sent them out to do the rest: “to preach and to have authority to drive out demons” (Mark 3:14–15). All the work of the kingdom of God begins with simply being with Jesus. How do we find ourselves simply with Him? Prayer! If it doesn’t start there, it doesn’t start at all.

I would like to spend the next few posts on the subject of prayer. To pray is to engage in radical warfare. Mere human action touches only the surface of things, but prayer gets past the surface, past mere appearances to the root of the matter.

“If Satan can make a covetous minister a lover of praise, of pleasure, of good eating, he has ruined your ministry. Give yourself to prayer, and get your texts, your thoughts, your words from God. Luther spent his best three hours in prayer.” – Robert Murray McCheyne

Our fellowship with God is not meant to wait until we are in heaven. God’s greatest desire, and our greatest need, is to be in constant fellowship with Him now, and there is no greater expression or experience of fellowship than prayer.