The Importance of Prayer

We are starting off the new year tonight with our first corporate prayer meeting.  This is the first, in what I'm sure will be many articles on prayer.  Why, you may ask, do we need to concern ourselves with corporate prayer?  Can't we just do prayer at home?  How important is prayer to the Christian life?

I'm sure I'm not the only one in church who struggles with a consistent prayer life.  Prayer takes discipline and focussed attention.  On the night of Jesus' betrayal, when the center of all redemptive history was at its climax, Jesus asked just a simple request of his disciples. That they sit and watch with him.  Then he began to pray until his sweat became like great drops of blood falling to the ground.  Catching his disciples asleep he asked them, "So, could you not watch with me one hour?  Watch and pray that you may not enter into temptation. The spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak."  The disciples wanted to pray, they just allowed their flesh to get the best of them.  Rest was more important than watching and praying with their Savior and Lord.  We too struggle with the same thing the disciples did.  We may be willing on the inside to pray but the things of life distract us. Television, Facebook, you name it.  The list could go on and on.  We oftentimes wonder why it is that we so easily fall into various sorts of temptation.  We are to PRAY that we may not enter into temptation.  Isn't it true beloved reader, that you don't pray as often as you should?

One thing we can observe from this passage I just quoted in Matthew 26:40-41 is that even Jesus needed to pray.  He once said that a servant is not above his master.  If we call Christ our master and yet don't make prayer central to our Christian walk we are denying the lordship of Christ in our lives.  Sure, we don't have to attend tonight's meeting in order to prove that he is our Lord.  The main issue is, how central is prayer in your life?  Without prayer, all we become is legalists when we try to live out the Christian life.  Our power comes from on high and God grants it when we pray.

We are starting the year off with prayer because as elders we want prayer to be central in the life of this church.  We struggle along with everybody else, but nonetheless, we are attempting to fight the good fight of faith.  How are you coming along in your fight of faith?  Do you need prayer?  We want to hear from you.  Your comments are always welcome.