WHY SHOULD I PRAY.. PART 1

A lot of people would have loved to pray if only they knew that there is God in heaven who still gives answer to prayer. How will you even pray if you don’t know what prayer is. This will lead me to ask the question of WHAT IS PRAYER? I have heard people saying prayer is ‘communication’ between God and man. Well this would have been accepted by me if they can explain what they mean by the word COMMUNICATION. True communication gets RESPONSE. One person doesn’t communicate. If you say you have been praying (communicating) to God without getting His response then you are not communicating. What you have really been doing is MAKING REPORT. In report making, you don’t expect response because you are just making AWARENESS.

PRAYER IS FELLOWSHIP

I love what Jesus says in the book of Luke 18:1 ‘...men ought always to pray and not to give up…’ I don’t care what definition dictionary may give to the word FELLOWSHIP, one thing I know in fellowship is that there is no TIME-UP. You can only start prayer; you can never end it as long as fellowship is concerned. Prayer is carrying you in a humble attitude and God bringing Himself in his majesty to that place you are standing or kneeling before him. You said you are praying yet you know ‘what says the time’, you don’t time God during fellowship. Your time seize to dictate at that moment.

I woke up in the morning of a particular day and I start to fellowship with God in an attitude of prayer, I never knew I was 40 minutes late to an examination that suppose to last for just 60 minutes (1 Hour) ** funny**funny**. When I finally got to school, it was only my department that haven’t starts the paper because the lecturers couldn’t find for us available hall to write. If we set our mind to fellowship with God, He delays the time for our sake. For example, if you decide to fellowship with God either in prayer or worship by 2 a.m, God will put a ‘PAUSE’ to time so that you can have a maximum time with Him. Don’t be afraid if you find out it is now 6 a.m. the very time you stop is when the time actually started.

You can put a delay to a meeting, you can stop the devil from his evil work, you can delay a football match, and you can postpone an examination by your fellowship with God and allow him to put a PAUSE/DELAY in the scheduled time of men for your sake.

PRAYER IS AN ATTITUDE

This is not the question of if I know how to pray but if I have the attitude of prayer. In attitude you cannot deny who you are. If a man could pretend to be who he is not definitely, his attitude will tell. The word of God is a principle that will work if we follow with the right attitude. Studying the scriptures from Genesis to the book of Acts of the Apostles I notice all the men of God have one thing in common THE ATTITUDE OF PRAYER. This is when a man separates himself from every other thing and set his mind on course. Let read from the life of some persons and prophets of odds and see how they exhibited the attitude of prayer.

HANNAH; Hannah was one of the two wives of Elkanah. She was greatly loved by her husband but Hannah had a problem she had no child. From the scripture it was written that God shut her womb. 1st Samuel 1:6 says… But the LORD had shut up her womb. I don’t know what might have gone wrong between her and God but the point is that she was barren. Hannah first felt no problem since the husband is not complaining until her adversary started to make jest of her condition. 1st Samuel 1:6 says... And her adversary also provoked her sore, for to make her fret, because the LORD had shut up her womb. Out of provocation she went to the house of God to pray. It was recorded that ...as she CONTINUED praying before the LORD... (Verse 12). Another translation says Hannah continued to pray for a long time... Even the prophet had to notice her.

Sometimes in life, we wait until conditions deliver to us an Attitude of prayer. Don’t wait to get into trouble before you built in you the attitude of prayer. HANNAH PRAYED CONTINUALY well finally she got a miracle.

DAVID: I wish I can just read a scripture that said it all about David's attitude of prayer and fellowship with God. David relationship with God didn’t start when he become a king in Israel, he started as a Shepard while he was on the field watching over his father flocks. During evangelism I have come across those who believed they can’t serve God as he should be served until they are rich or until they have money in their bank account. David was not like that. David wrote in one of his Psalms...  As the hart pant after the water brooks, so pant my soul after thee, O God. My soul thirst for God, for the living God: when shall I come and appear before God? Psalms 42:1-2. It was as a Shepard that God actually remembered him if you read from 1st Samuel 13:14... But now thy kingdom shall not continue: the LORD hath sought him a man after his own heart, and the LORD hath commanded him to be captain over his people...