Today’s devotional: Prayer is critical!
Despite their close association with Jesus, the twelve disciples were not models of spiritual maturity. On the contrary—it’s hard to read many New Testament passages without rolling our eyes at their short-sightedness or wondering how they could possibly have failed to grasp Jesus’ teachings.
It is, of course, unfair to judge the disciples from our vantage point two thousand years later. If we were in their position, following a radical teacher whose teachings routinely overturned their long-held religious beliefs, we’d make the same mistakes they did. But it’s still instructive to examine the disciples’ weaknesses, and to ask ourselves if we are doing any better today. That’s what this devotional from Today does:
Perhaps more than anything, the disciples were lacking in prayer. They often were not able to act wisely when there was a crisis. When Jesus needed them to keep watch and pray while he searched out the Father’s will that night on the Mount of Olives, he found them asleep. How frustrating this must have been for Jesus when he was in anguish!
Jesus has shown us how important a life of prayer is. In prayer he connected with his Father in heaven, finding renewed energy and courage to keep on with his mission. And on this night, as Jesus prayed before his arrest and crucifixion, he needed the Father’s assurance that his death on the cross was the only way to save us from our sins. We needed Jesus to do this for us, and he found the strength and the will to do it by connecting with God through prayer.
Many of the disciples’ stumbling points can be traced back to this one thing: a lack of prayer. How about you—is prayer a central part of your everyday life, informing your decisions and guiding your actions? If you had been on the Mount of Olives that night, would Jesus have found you deep in prayer… or dozing off with the disciples?
I forget t pray alot of the time and then I feel like I dont know what to pray for. I know thaqt God loves me because he died for me and I want to feel the sae way I would rather die that to forget a bout Jesus I just need to learn to pray better
I have a very buisy schedual raising six kids, now that I know that the devil is using this to distract me I will make more time for prayer.
Prayer is vital to our spiritual lives. People tend to pray only in time of trouble. Oftem we forget to thank GOD and praise him. I feel sorry for myself for neglecting GOD for a quiet period of time. Since I gave birth, i wa fully occupied of raising my son. I forgot to pray and encountered so much troubles.
Prayer is definitely key.
In many ways we are just like the disciples, yet 2000 years later we are very judgemental when reading about a culture we don’t even grasp. We think of Peter being a blabbermouth, because of his spontanous character when responding to Jesus, but we do not stand still and judge our selves for actions we have done and having NO government on our shoulder. They had it really hard since they had to do all the walking during the day traveling from town to town and basically waiting on Jesus to minister unto the people. Try to pray after a long day like that, or try to pray after you had a nice meaty dinner, which was what the disciples did before going into Gethsamani. I am pretty sure we would all fall asleep.
We should make a daily appointment in our Blackberry or agenda to meet with God, He is the way the truth and life, He has your answer if you just seek first His kingdom and His righteousness and every thing else shall be added to you. If you start work at 7:00 make a comitment to wake up at 5:00 every day, I have it set on my Blackberry everyday at 5 and spend half hour to an hour with Him and you will see great changes in your life. You will start hearing His voice and know His will everyday, and walk in that authority He gave us. AMEN
The practice I have tried to develop is to talk with God throughout the day, no formal kneeling or even quiet time, although i try to do that too in the mornings as soon as i awake, but just a conversation seeking direction in things i am doing giving thanks is what i try to practice. H
Honestly cannot say if i were with Him in the garden what would happen on that night…i am happy though that God is so understanding of our frailty. Prayer is the means through which we access power, I pray that I can be consistent in prayer because we really need the power to live in these times.
I just came back to christ.Now i make time to pray morning,noon,and nite.Cause even though god can see the hardship and troubles that we are going through.It is ultimately up to us to ask for help no matter how small the problem maybe.for me there are times wen i just want to talk with god ever minute of the day cause I wanted to.I think anyone of us would have fallen asleep in the garden.But because of what they did we now know.
Prayer is the key to our father and i think that Jesus was and is our example. Is funny how people make time for the most littlest things like playing a game or watching a movie but have not one minute to seek our father, to atleast say thank you for this new day. When i don’t do it i feel bad because knowing the truth or knowing whats right we do wrong. This is why it is so important to maintain in communication with God, he has the answers to everything! he is the key to life! what we are living know is nothing to what is waiting for us up there. He is so real and so is Hell and we have to fight agaisnt the attacks of the enemy with prayer with the help of the Holy spirit!
Prayer is the language of the children of God. We fail to pray because we don’t know the language of God. If one doesn’t understand french and I speak to them in french they will hear me but they will not understand me. The same thing applies to God, if I speak a language that He doesn’t understand (things that are not in His Word) He hears me but doesn’t understand me. We give up on prayer because of our record of unanswered prayer. I’ll ask you this question Christian, what language do you speak to God? Some of us even run out of things to say to God because our vocabulary is limited – We lack the Word of God. Why don’t we run out of things to say to each other?
I strive to keep Christ at the forefront of my mind and thus I have a “running dialog” with Him. Since God is always with us, why not talk to Him (silently, if necessary) as you go about your daily business?
Prayer is, after all, just communicating with God. I don’t feel God cares as much about what position your body is in, or where your hands are, or what time of day it is, as much as He cares that you believe in Him and share your life with Him.