This week I’ve been thinking about two Bible passages on
prayer: Revelation 8:3-5 and Luke 6:12. We’ll look at the passage from
Revelation first.
The Double
Blessing of Prayer
Revelation 8:
3 Another angel, who had a golden censer, came and stood
at the altar. He was given much incense
to offer, with the prayers of all God’s people, on the golden altar in front of
the throne.
4 The smoke of the incense, together with the prayers of
God’s people, went up before God from the angel’s hand.
5 Then the angel took the censer, filled it with fire
from the altar, and hurled it on the earth; and there came peals of thunder,
rumblings, flashes of lightning and an earthquake.
In this passage we see two awesome effects of our
prayers.
First, we see
that our prayers our pleasing to God, our Heavenly Father. In God’s throne room, our prayers feel to him
like a pleasing, fragrant aroma. This is
a beautiful way of showing that our prayers have a pleasant and positive effect
for God!
King David understood this same truth and wrote:
Psalm 141:2 May my prayer be set before you like incense;
may the lifting up of my hands be like the evening sacrifice.
It might seem strange that a simple act of prayer from “normal
people” like you and me could make God feel happy as He sits in His majestic throne
room surrounded by incredible Heavenly creatures and hosts of angels. But remember, you, Christian, are God’s
child.
Yesterday we dropped Joy off at college. I already miss her! Her short text to me early this morning has
made my day a little happier. And that
is how God feels about you. He loves you
even more than you love your children (it’s hard to believe, but it is true!)
and He is delighted to hear from you.
Second, after
God hears our prayer, He returns powerful answers to earth. In Revelation 8,
this is symbolized by the angel filling the censer which holds our prayers with
fire and hurling it down to earth. Prayer is powerful and effective (James
5:16, Exodus 17:11; Matthew 7:7).
The fact that the angel was given “much incense” implies
that there was a lot of prayer. On the
one hand, this refers to the encouraging truth that at any moment all around
our planet, many of our brothers and sisters in Christ are praying to God. On the other hand, this also should encourage
each of us to pray a lot. This brings us
to the passage in Luke and . . .
The Example of
Jesus
Luke 6:12 One of those days Jesus went out to a
mountainside to pray, and spent the night praying to God.
Jesus prayed a lot. In the example above he prayed all
through the night. Our Lord also encouraged
His followers to pray a lot (Luke 18:1, Luke 22:40). His disciples learned to pray and they prayed
a lot (Acts 1:14, Acts 2:42, Acts 4:31, Acts 6:4, Acts 10:9, Acts 16:25).
His disciples in turn encouraged all of us to pray a lot
(Romans 12:12, Ephesians 6:18, Philippians 4:6, Colossians 4:2, 1 Thessalonians
5:17).
Practical Tips to
Help You Really Do It
In our adult Sunday School class, we are studying
James. James emphasizes that we need to
put into action what we believe (James 1:22).
So here are three simple, practical things you can DO to increase your
prayer life.
1. Increase your
daily prayer time by setting a specific goal for focused “closet prayer” and
using a stop watch or clock. I often do
this. Sometimes I think I’ve been
praying for a long time, then I look at my stop watch and it’s only been eight
minutes! Often during the last few
minutes of my “prayer goal”, the Spirit brings to my mind very important things
to pray about that I would have missed if I had gotten up too quickly.
2. Plan a special
extended prayer time, of an hour or more.
We plan for work, vacation, parties, dinner, and all kind of
events. Plan ahead of time to set aside
a morning, an evening, or some other time for extended prayer when you can pray
more than you usually do.
3. Plan and meet
with a friend or several friends for a time of focused prayer. Be intentional about praying first and not
letting your time be all used up with chatting.
If you actually do one or more of these three things, and
you feel it would be appropriate, it would encourage me if you send me a short
note at: MarkCorbett0@gmail.com
So pray! God will
be blessed as your prayers ascend like fragrant incense in His throne room, and
your world will be changed as He sends powerful answers.
I treasure the time we have set aside for prayer, at our church. We have an awesome Prayer Team. We meet once a week on a Thursday morning and pray for each other, our church members and many other things. Thank you Mark, for your leadership and all that you do for the advancement of God’s Kingdom <><
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