Sunday Highlights
What does this have to do with Sunday Highlights? Well, I’ll get to that in a minute…
Pete started with a question today:
What is the first word that comes to mind when you think of prayer?
How would you answer that? Nervous, unsure, boring, God, church, weird…
1 Thessalonians 5:17 says “Pray without ceasing”
- How do you do this?
- Can you pray without ceasing in the real world?
- We can’t comprehend this because we’ve reduced our relationship with God to a vending machine, a transaction. We approach God when we need something and then when we get what we need we walk away. (Pete made this point while purchasing a bag of Peanut M&M’s from a vending machine displayed on stage – pretty vivid analogy!)
More key points and scriptures:
- Matthew 6:5-13
- You know how to pray, but you don’t know how to listen (OUCH!)
- Prayer is more than a transaction, it’s a mystery.
- God wants you to pray. He wants to commune with you.
- Luke 18:1-8
- We often think praying is giving God our list of things we need or want, but we have no idea what to do with God after we give him our list.
- We forget that God breathed life into us and he wants to have a relationship with us. He’ll do whatever he has to do to have a relationship with you.
If you remember nothing else today, remember this:
God created you, he breathed life into you to have a relationship with you.
What will you do to make a point to listen to God this week?
Jenni
God has taught me not to pray for my list cause He already knows what my needs are. What God is teaching me about prayer is to pray all the time about things that I must pray for like the staff at UC and Crosspoint and Crossroads. Because he is teaching to pray His churches cause the churches are being attack by the evil one cause these churches that I mentioned p;us others are doing what God wants them to do and the pastors of those churches are following the vision that god gave each one of them. God and I are talking all the time and I can hear him talking to me. Has my blog is called the Prayer Warrior and i know God’s calling for me is prayer and this is since this is what my Heavenly Dad wants me to do I will do it with passion. I love to pray. So at any time you have a request let me know and I will place it at the feet of God and he will take care of it in His time cause when you pray it is His time to spend just with him
I have been reading a lot about prayer this week from Oswald Chambers. I have intentionally been trying my hardest to shift the focus of prayer for myself to prayer on behalf of others. I have discovered one thing this week – this is hard because I am naturally self absorbed. I think I will come back to your blog in the morning to look over these highlights when I have time to look up the scriptures and focus on some of the main points Pete was making – Thanks for posting it!
“You know how to pray, but you don’t know how to listen.”
That is me. My prayer life is often a one-way street.
Thanks for the great reminder about listening to God.
Also, thanks for adding me to your Blogroll.
Great post! And thanks for your comment on my blog.
Not only do we have the same name… but same initials as Jesus Christ. Aren’t we cool 😉
Great Weekend, God really pulled it all together!!!
Wow – the analogy is so powerful. Thank you for sharing it. THis month I have committed with a whole group of people to pray for a specific country in Africa every day. I am going to pray every time my mind & heart is quickened – that may be 100 times in a day. I am also going to set aside specific quiet time each day – just like I schedule a date night with my husband.
I love hearing all of your stories about how God is working in your lives in the area of prayer. Thank you for sharing… it’s so encouraging!