✝️Text: Dan. 9: 2-4
Daniel had a prayer life🛐 based on God's word.
He allowed the word of God to stir His heart to pray according to the covenant that God had made with the nation of Israel.
📌The first thing to notice in our text is that Daniel was given to personal bible study. This should challenge us today considering the fact that many of us have allowed our worldly schedule to push personal bible study time out of our lives.
Daniel was also busy, he occupied a high position in the government of Babylon, and no doubt so much will be desired from him, but he never compromised on his personal study time.
📌Secondly, he did not just engage in bible study for the fun of it, he allowed the word of God to impact his life so much that prayer burden becomes part of the expected outcome of his study of God's word, this is another learning point for us.
We should not just engage in personal bible study to settle some ungodly agenda rather we should take advantage of the constant and regular study of God's word to grow and develop our prayer life as well.
These we can do by allowing the word of God as we study it to develop prayer burden in us.
As you study the word and come across scenarios and examples that you find challenging, don't just gloss over them but take note of them and turn them to prayer points.
Pray them into your life and don't stop the prayer until you see the desired manifestation of the answer to the prayer in your life.
The advantage of building your prayer life through this method is that it ensures that you will always and only engage scripture based prayers in your personal prayer life.
Many people pray today, but only few are praying scripture based prayers.
👉🏾Do you have a consistent personal study time?
👉🏾Do you allow the word of God to stir your heart to prayers?
👉🏾What stirs your heart to prayer? When we speak His word in prayer, allowing the Spirit to keep our hearts in line with His word, then we have greater connection with Him and we can be assured of greater answers to prayer in our lives also (John 15: 5-7).
🗒️It is also very important to note that prayer is not only necessary in moments of crisis.
Rather we should be praying with a biblical mindset with persistence and passion on a regular basis.
God loves ❤️us enough to connect with us in that moment of crisis when we call on Him but loves ❤️us too much to allow us to remain satisfied with only communicating in a time of crisis.
An healthy biblical based prayer life is proof of this.
Shalom
🛐Prayer Points
🎯Father, thank you that I can turn to You and find forgiveness.
🎯Father, please give me the grace to continue to pursue You whether the times are good or bad such that You would always be glorified in my life. In Jesus' name.
🎯Father, please grant grace also to be committed to feeding on your word regularly so as to grow and mature in faith.
🎯Father, may the regular study of your word help me to establish and grow an effective prayer life in Jesus name.
🎯Father, through the consistent study of your word, may my heart be stirred to prayers in Jesus name.
Second Text: 2 Chro. 27: 2
"I don't need to always be present in the church to be a Christian." This statement has been uttered by many people throughout the years and often is the sign of a struggling believer. The statement itself is correct. Yet, God created the church to be a crucial tool for spiritual growth. The scriptures admonishes us not to forsake the assembling of ourselves together, especially as we draw closer and closer to the end (Heb. 10: 24-25).
Now it is clear that we are at the end times and unfortunately rather than become more committed than ever to assembling together with other believers as admonished by scriptures, believers seems to have found comfort in isolating themselves and hooking up to various online platforms to attend church and bible studies. This is really unfortunate indeed because locking ourselves up in our homes and hooking up to online sources for church service and other spiritual programs can never be an effective replacement for physical assembly and fellowship. When it is necessary for us to exploit online mediums we do so, not because it is the best but because it was better than no fellowship at all, for example during the period when church was on lockdown due to the COVID pandemic, hooking up to services via online platforms became necessary but now that the lockdown is over and gathering is allowed, online platforms should no longer become a worthy alternative to assembling together for fellowship.
Like a burning ember that's been pulled out of the fire, Christians who are not connected to a church or who are not actively in fellowship often struggle to burn brightly in this dark world. This is one of the many benefits of fellowship. When we meet together under the banner of Christ, we stir each other up to good works. We are able to connect with each other in a way which can never be possible if we choose to continue to join services through online platforms.
While there may be times of transition when a believer finds himself alone, our goal should be to find other like-minded Christians who can encourage us in our walk with Christ. Needing other believers is not a weakness; it's how God designed it so that we could mutually encourage and strengthen one another thereby developing the needed power to take our stand for God in this world and to run successfully the race set before us. Shalom.
Prayer Points
1. Thank you Father for all the endowments and the gifts you have bestowed on the church for the spiritual upliftment and edification of your children.
2. Father assembly of believers for fellowship is designed by you and it has a lot of benefits, may I not deprive myself of such gathering in Jesus name
3. Father I rise against every force assigned to disconnect me from the Assembly of God’s children, they will not succeed in Jesus name.
4. Father the assembly of the believer is the fire you have kindled to keep everyone of us your children burning for you, I will not allow myself to be pulled out of the fire in Jesus name
5. Father thank you for surrounding me with other like-minded believer who can encourage me in my walk with you, help me to take full advantage of this privilege in Jesus name.
See you in my next article. Bye for now....
The article is very interesting, prayer is fundamental to everything that is done in life and must have a purpose. Prayer must be complemented by reading the Bible and other books for our growth as Christians ...