Series preview: Your personal house of prayer
Posted by Rice on Jun 11, '07 5:26 PM
This summer at Bethel, the focus of our Sunday messages will be on us as individuals becoming a “house of prayer”. In one of the most dramatic moments in Jesus ministry, He reacted to the lack of proper focus of His people and proclaimed, “ My house shall be a house of prayer for all nations”. (Mark 11:17) Now it’s difficult to not think of physical buildings when we use the term “house”, but in this case we need to understand the Bible’s use of this metaphor where we are concerned.
One of the great mysteries of the New Covenant is that God promised to live in us. I Corinthians 3: 16 states that “we are the temple of the the Holy Spirit..” It doesn’t mean that buildings aren’t useful and even essential tools or instruments in the work of God. We need lights, cars, pianos, computers, and much more in our service of the Lord in order to facilitate ministry. Yet, we must not lose sight that God dwells in the hearts of His people.
Our primary calling as “temples of the Lord’, is to be devoted to prayer, to in essence be the houses of prayer He spoke of. Many times it is a lack of understanding in how to pray that hinders us from fulfilling this calling. The disciples of Jesus requested of Him, “Lord teach us to pray.”(Luke 11:1) Jesus responded with the words that have become known as the “Lord’s prayer.” This prayer was given as a simple guideline to help us in our call to pray.
As a kid, I would say this prayer really fast and jump into bed at night. Even though I didn’t understand what I was saying or praying, I thought I was really accomplishing something. Later, as I came to faith in Christ, I learned the meaning of each important part of this prayer and how to use it daily to effectively pray for my family, church, nation, world, and of course myself. That is what we are planning to do over the course of the next few weeks at Bethel. Join us as we commit ourselves to light the fires of sincere prayer in every home and in every heart.
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