Prayer is the means that God has provided to help His people and it is an essential element to the Christian life. Prayer has been likened to breathing. If we struggle to breathe it will limit us in what we can do. Take for example somebody who is keen in sports but struggles with their breathing. They will find limitations in their performance, and so it is with Christian living. It is essential that the people of God are taking those spiritual breaths of dependence on the Lord so that they may be enabled for His service.
What about the issue of prayerlessness?
Prayerlessness in the life of a Christian is actually an issue of pride. Think about it, an aspect of praying is asking God for help. So if you are not asking God for help, you are relying on your own abilities and are showing by your actions that you don’t need His help. Even though we may create excuses of busyness or forgetfulness, in the final analysis, prayerlessness is ultimately an issue of personal pride. We ought to be rebuked for our neglect of prayer.
The Scripture calls for God’s people to “pray without ceasing” (1 Thess. 5:17) and to “continue steadfastly in prayer” (Col. 4:2). The idea behind the word “steadfastly” is devotion, earnestness and perseverance. It is to start something and to keep on doing it. If we neglect prayer, we are ignoring the only One who can supply our needs (John 15:5) and we are engaging in direct disobedience to the Lord.
We need to be a people of prayer because we need our Lord’s enablement.
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