Lord what do you mean, pray all the time?

What if I told you God wants us to pray all the time. What if I told you it was His will for us. It is true!

1 Thessalonians 5:16-18 tells us to “Rejoice always, pray without ceasing, give thanks in all circumstances; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you.

Well, you can do this and see this right now in our time. I see God and his blessings every day in my life, I hear from him in prayer and his Word every day and through his Holy Spirit he has made himself known to me and talks with me. And he can do that for any one of his children who asks Him. And that is a very important point. If any of you want to know God better and hear from Him then you need to have your prayer time and you need to have your time in his Word. And you need to ask for God’s Holy Spirit to dwell in you. It is that easy. And you will hear from God if you follow those three easy steps.

Pray
Read God’s Word
Receive and listen to the Holy Spirit within you.

Perhaps easy is not the correct word. With all the demands on our lives from home, kids if you have them, pets, work, relationships plus all the demands we add to that, work outs, TV, sports, hobbies to name a few, we just run out of time.

Most people, rightly so, try to spend this alone time with God, first thing in the morning. My wife gets up earlier than our kids or me so she can make a cup of tea and read her Bible and pray. That is usually 5:30 in the morning. That is impossible for me. My clock runs different. I am a night owl. I tried first thing in the morning to read my Bible and pray but I fall asleep. It is just not fair to God that I don’t give him my full attention and I’m not fully awake.

So I find my sweet spot of time where I can spend it with the Lord. That is the time that I can hear from him through His Word, prayer and the “Be still and know I am the Lord” time as it says in in Psalm 46. And that is the most common time that God speaks to me through his Holy Spirit. My sweet spot is first thing when I get to my office desk, I do not use my computer, check emails, read papers, instead this is my prayer time. To be the most effective during this time, you need to also find that sweet spot when you can pray or carve out that time.

But we should not just be praying and talking with our Lord just during that time. We can pray all day, rejoice in the Lord all day and talk and hear from our Lord all day.

I know what you are thinking. Really? Come on I can’t pray all day, I have things I need to do. My boss would fire me if I just prayed all day at work. Or I would not be able to do anything with my kids if I just prayed all day. But again let me remind you praying all the time is God’s will.

1 Thessalonians 5:16-18 tells us to “Rejoice always, pray without ceasing, give thanks in all circumstances; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you.

For years when I would read that I would think and often say, I can’t do that. It’s impossible to pray without ceasing. And if you are thinking in the physical realm you are correct. It is impossible. But through the Holy Spirit it is not impossible. That is why having the Holy Spirit working in us and through us is so important.

Romans 8:26-27 – “In the same way, the Spirit helps us in our weakness. For we do not know how we ought to pray, but the Spirit Himself intercedes for us with groans too deep for words. And He who searches our hearts knows the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for the saints according to the will of God.”

Now you have to trust me on this, it works.   Let’s look at this a different way. First what is prayer? Sometimes, it is verbally spoken prayer such as a written prayer from the Bible, or at certain times an inspired prayer. But it can also be just talking with God because that is all prayer is, talking with our God through Jesus Christ our Lord and Savior and with the help of the Holy Spirit.   And praise is a form of both prayer and worship. I do find myself praising out loud all the time when I see my kids laughing, when I see my beautiful wife, when I see a beautiful moment in nature.

I praise the Lord every time I succeed at anything. Ask any one who plays golf with me, I immediately say “Thank you Lord” if I make a great putt. Or when I thank God for bubbles. I tell you that because being thankful to God is a state mind and once you start you will find, that more often than not, you will be thanking the Lord all day for something.

But let’s get back to the praying unceasingly. Trust me when I tell you this can and will happen through the Holy Spirit if you ask Him into your life. At first I found myself, to achieve this praying unceasingly, thinking “God I praise you or thank you Lord.” I would be trying to think it a lot throughout the day. But again it because impossible.

It is just like you cannot earn your salvation by doing every commandment perfectly all the time. You need our Lord, Jesus Christ for salvation and you need the Holy Spirit to pray unceasingly. Without Him, it was just impossible.

I found that even thinking praises, which is a type of prayer, was impossible. Our minds wander. It takes little journeys all of the time to a vacation I need, something my children or wife did and of course to worries and fears. Although most of the time when your thoughts turn to worries and fears, you immediately start praying and often times it is out loud.

But you can pray unceasingly through the Holy Spirit. Again trust me, it works through the Holy Spirit. It has gotten to a point in my life that I can sometimes hear in a corner of my consciousness praise and prayer to our Lord through the Holy Spirit. And definitely when I am in my alone time and I’m being still, I can really hear the Holy Spirit both praying for me and talking to me.

In closing, remember Philippians 4:13 “ I can do all things through Christ who gives me strength.”

If you have not asked the Holy Spirit into your life, I implore you to. Your life and relationship with the Lord will change dramatically. You will see his deeds, and he will make himself known to you. And if you want more of an incentive, dwell on Romans 8- 14-17.

“For those who are led by the Spirit of God are the children of God. The Spirit you received does not make you slaves, so that you live in fear again; rather, the Spirit you received brought about your adoption to sonship. And by him we cry, “Abba, Father.” The Spirit himself testifies with our spirit that we are God’s children. Now if we are children, then we are heirs—heirs of God and co-heirs with Christ”

Praise you Lord your mercy endures forever.

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