Ephesians 6:18 Praying always with all prayer and supplication in the SpiritIn this verse Paul exhorts Christians to pray always. Really? To pray the same prayers over and over again? What prayers could he be talking about? Habitual, customary prayers are not usually considered to be from the heart as prayer should be, but here are 4 habitual prayers that every believer needs to always pray every day of his life. The words need not always be the same, but the heart attitude must be consistent always lest the blessings slip away from us.
The most important and most often neglected prayer is grace before eating. We would quickly starve and die of poor health if the Creator held back His sun and His rain on the land. He is definitely worthy of our thanks for food. Are we thankful in prayer before eating each meal?
When we were young we learned to pray before going to sleep asking the Lord to keep us, nor do we need His watchcare over us any less when we are grown up. Do we thank God for the day and do we commit ourselves to Him for the night in prayer? We should always do this.
The songwriter wrote, “When morning gilds the skies, my heart awakening cries, ‘May Jesus Christ be praised’”. Each morning we should be thankful that He has refreshed us with sleep and brought us to a new day. Now that it is morning we always thank Him and ask Him to lead us.
Bible reading is another regular opportunity to always thank God that he has given us His Book and to ask Him to help us understand the written word, for we will not understand much of it unless the Holy Spirit helps us to understand it. “Help me, O Lord to understand what I am reading in the Bible” must be another one of those always prayers.
But you say that these are only personal and almost selfish prayers so that I can be healthy and enjoy a good life every day and they are not as important as other less selfish prayers! But no, if our attitudes and hearts are not right for these things and we do not pray about them, then neither will they be right when we pray about other people and other things. Listen to what Jesus said in the parable about the good Samaritan, that we must love others as we love ourselves. So if we never learn how to love ourselves we will never love others. God in His relation to me is more concerned about me than about anybody else. Yes, He is. He cares for you and for me first before what He cares about what we do for Him or for others.
So let us practice the daily habit of praying always using these 4 little prayers so that He can teach us the effectual fervent prayer that accomplishes much.
James 5:16 (c) The effective prayer of a righteous man can accomplish much.