"We live in days of abounding religious profession. There are more places of public worship than there ever was before. There are more people attending them than there ever was before. And yet in spite of all this public religion, I believe there is a vast neglect of private prayer. It is one of those private transcripts between God and our souls which no eye sees, and therefore one which people are tempted to pass over and leave undone.
I believe that hundreds of thousands never utter a word of prayer at all. They eat. They drink. They sleep. They rise. They go forth to their work. They return to their homes. They breathe God’s air. They travel on God’s earth. They enjoy God’s mercies. They have dying bodies. They have judgment and eternity before them. But they never speak to God. They live like the animals that perish. They behave like creatures without souls. They have not one word to say to Him in whose hand are their life and breath, and all things, and from whose mouth they must one day receive their everlasting sentence. How dreadful this seems; but if the secrets of people, were daily known, how common."
The above quote was written by J.C. Ryle over 100 years ago, and it is, I believe, more true today than ever before. I hope that it will encourage us to pray more and pray harder for God’s Will to be accomplished. After all isn’t that the ultimate aim of prayer, to make God’s Will a reality in our lives here on Earth.
8/26/2008
A Call to Prayer
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If you go to ten churches chosen randomly you would find at least eighty percent of those with something in common. The eighty percentile of churches will be preaching a message aimed at the desires of mans heart. On the surface one might think that is noble, to stir the heart of man. When believers enter the church we should come desiring to know God's will. That is the opposite of asking God to understand what we want and attempting to convince Him to give us our desires. He already knows what we need before we ask. Rather than soliciting the emotions of church goers men of God must stand and preach the word of God as it is, Revealing the Holiness of the one true Sovereign God. When we do this we have truly accomplished worship. Whether we teach, sing, preach or pray we must do it to the glory of God recognizing Jesus Christ as the Son of God. God is not our genie in a bottle. He is the Heavenly Father.
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