Rise UP
And
PRAY

What is the most important thing that you can do in your life?

There are many noble things for certain like living a good life, treating others well, being a productive member of society and a variety of other principled things - however prayer rarely if ever is included in this list.

Today’s verse tells us to 'pray continually' and while it may encourage and teach us to live a good life, it instructs us to always be praying, but what does that mean exactly?

It means to include God in everything we do. For many - even for believers in God - it is hard to pray to an unseen, infinite, omniscient holy being, so we go about life often in a quandary trying to figure out everything on own. Even when we pray and then don’t receive answers we wonder... did He hear me? Do my prayers just go up and hit the ceiling and disappear into thin air? Then if or when there are no answers or results, we wonder “why should I keep praying?”

In a world so bathed in materialism and self-absorption where 'it’s all about me' we forget the most important thing about HOW to pray and that is to always pray not according to our own will or wishes but to pray according to His good and perfect will:

“And this is the confidence that we have in him,
that, if we ask any thing according to his will, he heareth us:
And if we know that he hear us, whatsoever we ask,
we know that we have the petitions that we desired of him.”
1 John 5:14-15

Jesus taught us in 'The Lord’s Prayer' that God’s will is to be “as it is it in heaven to also be on earth.” His prayers were based on a deep personal relationship with His Father which were always consistent with His Father. At the very end He even prayed the hardest of all prayers saying “...if this cup could pass from me...but not my will, but YOUR WILL be done.”

Friend, let us all follow this pattern - Connect with God, Honor Him, Put Him First, and act like Christ did and always pray according to His will and just as He raised Jesus up, watch Him also raise you up when you RISE UP AND PRAY!

God Bless Your Day
Jesus Loves You

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