The Bible is clear that the people of God ought to gather together to pray. Why then do so few of God’s people gather for prayer? I have some thoughts that may be real reasons why many don’t gather for prayer anymore, but none of them are excusable.
Here may be some reasons that people give…
- They pray for the same things all the time.
- They use the prayer time to gather and disperse gossip.
- People will think less of me if they hear me pray for forgiveness of sins.
- They pray with flowery words to impress others.
- The prayer time is at a bad time.
- My children think prayer is boring.
- I keep falling asleep while others pray.
What they might as well be saying is…
- I don’t think it’s that important.
- I know better than God.
- It doesn’t really matter if I pray or not, God is going to do whatever He wants to do.
- I’m more righteous than those who gossip in their prayer.
- The best T.V. of the week is on when the prayer time is scheduled.
- I’m really not interested in the holy things of God.
I want to encourage the reader today to reconsider the corporate prayer gathering of God’s people. At Eastside Baptist Church in Twin Falls, we devote the entire Wednesday evening gathering to prayer (6:30 p.m.). We strive to be a disciplined people, using careful words.
We read Scripture, which is God speaking to us. We pray under the influence of the Holy Spirit directing our time in the Scripture.
You often hear people saying that if we put prayer back in school we would see a change in the nation. I’m not opposed to prayer taking place at the schoolhouse, but until the churchhouse becomes a house of prayer again one can’t expect much to shift in our nation. A church that doesn’t pray together has little interest in the holy things of God and really doesn’t care about Godly things.
May the church repent of making the prayer gathering more about information sharing and humble herself and seek the face of God again for the glory of God.
*Edited for grammar and spelling.
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