FRIDAY January 17, 2020
A Lack of Prayer
You ask and do not receive, because you ask amiss, that you may spend it on your pleasures. Adulterers and adulteresses! Do you not know that friendship with the world is enmity with God? Whoever therefore wants to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God.
James 4:3-4
James revealed a key problem in the lives of believers that had caused carnality and strife to thrive among them. It was due to a lack of sincere prayer––their prayers had selfish motives. James was known to be a man of prayer. In fact, it has been said that James had callouses on his knees because he spent so much time in prayer. As a leader in the Church, he had to rebuke Christians. I believe James endured a time of difficultly by being a man of prayer.
Prayer is vitality important; it is as oxygen is to our lungs––we cannot survive without it. I believe with all my heart that every Christian needs to cultivate a personal devotional life with God. We may find ourselves easily ensnared in our trials and temptations because we do not pray. Every day we need to get up early and do our devotions and pray, otherwise we will find ourselves walking in the flesh and not in the Spirit.
It is important to examine the motivation of our prayers. Prayer should not have selfish motives. Every day we need to have the mind of God. We depend on the wisdom and knowledge of God. We should never trust in ourselves, thinking we can solve our own problems. Prayer works and we shall see the evidence. Listen, God rewards those who seek Him. He wants to bless us!
We depend on prayer every day of our lives. Check your own knees. Do they have callouses because of time alone with God in prayer? Honestly, I believe people survive more on getting a cup of coffee than on prayer––think about that!
To clasp the hands in prayer is the beginning of an uprising against the spirit of the world.
~Karl Barth~
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