The Bible offers this intriguing description of prayer:
Psalm 141:2 (ERV)
Accept my prayer like a gift of burning incense.
Picture your prayers as burning incense, gently wafting up to heaven.
When you’re praying with others — whether you’re the one speaking or the one listening — tend the spark. Don’t let your fire go cold. Keep the incense burning.
It’s a prayer meeting.
Someone else is praying aloud.
And all too often, my mind wanders.
I’m not praying.
James 5:16 (NIV)
The prayer of a righteous person
is powerful and effective.
Not praying? It lacks power and accomplishes next to nothing.
When someone is praying in public, i sometimes listen and add my mental “Amen” to their words.
Other times, their words send me down a different line of thought. It’s like I step into my private prayer closet and have a personal conversation with God.
That’s OK — as long as my heart’s in the right place. God can listen to more than one conversation at the same time.
Psalm 34:15 (ERV)
The Lord watches over those
who do what is right,
and he hears their prayers.
Jesus said to pray in private.
Matthew 6:6 (TLB)
Go away by yourself, all alone,
and shut the door behind you
and pray to your Father secretly.
Godly prayer starts in private. It doesn’t end there.
“Corporate prayer does not dispense us from personal prayer.
The one sustains the other.”
Brother Roger (1915-2005)
It’s a big event. You’re asked to say grace for the meal. What happens?
If praying in public puts you in a panic, your focus is on the people around you and not God. You’re turning it into a performance, not a prayer.
Matthew 6:5 (CEV)
When you pray, don’t be like those show-offs who love to stand up and pray in the synagogues and on the street corners. They do this just to look good.
It’s not about looking good. It’s about God.
Acts 12 shows the power of corporate prayer (if you don’t know the story, take a few minutes and read it for yourself). Christians were being persecuted. James was killed, Peter put in jail.
Acts 12:5 (NIV)
Peter was kept in prison, but the church was earnestly praying to God for him.
God sent an angel to walk Peter past the guards and out the door. Peter went to the home where his friends were praying. The answer to their prayer knocked at their door, and they were astonished.
Pray expectantly. Don’t be astonished if God answers in a way you don’t expect.
What’s a prayer meeting?
Are you thinking of a weekly gathering at church, where folks pray for one another, for their family and friends, for their community and the world?
Yep, that’s a prayer meeting. As is a quick prayer with a friend when you cross paths in a parking lot, a comforting prayer with a family member over the phone, the blessing over a shared meal, the bedside prayer with a hospital patient. You meet, you pray.
James 5:16
Pray for one another.
Pray for — and with — one another.
Jesus said,
Matthew 18:20 (EXV)
For where two or three
are gathered in my name,
there am I among them.
Last week, I prayed with a friend on the other side of the country — sweet fellowship across the miles. God was with us.
Where two or three are gathered on Zoom in Jesus’ name, He is there with them.
After Jesus ascended to heaven, the disciples returned to Jerusalem.
Acts 1:4 (ESV)
All these with one accord were devoting themselves to prayer, together with the women and Mary the mother of Jesus, and his brothers.
11 disciples + Mary +more women + the brothers.
How do you picture it? Each in their own corner, praying? Twenty people in a circle, taking turns?
Maybe. But I picture folks coming and going, doing chores and catching some rest. Sometimes two or three praying quietly. Sometimes the whole group eating and praying. Many or few, praying together — in one accord.
Let us do likewise.
