The importance of prayer
Prayer is a vital part of the experience of every Christian, God builds our faith through prayer. When we decide to talk to God, we are building and nurturing our relationship with Him. We are getting to know Him-who He is and how He operates. He wants you to know him. And you can know more about God and his power, through prayer. While it is true that we know him by his word, it is necessary that together with reading the Bible we have the ingredient called prayer. Both elements must be combined so that we can have a full relationship with our Lord. Prayer is an inheritance that belongs to every child of God, it is a potential that is above human understanding.
Ephesians 6: 18-20 "Praying always with all prayer and supplication in the Spirit, and watching over it with all perseverance and supplication for all the saints; and for me, so that when I open my mouth a word may be given to me to make known with boldness the mystery of the gospel, for which I am an ambassador in chains; that boldly speak of him, as I must speak. "
Let's focus on the prayer, taking the part of this text that says "praying at all times", and that is that the bible is very clear in what is perseverance in prayer, in perseverance, this we also see in the Gospel of Mark.
Mark 14:32 "So they came to a place called Gethsemane, and said to his disciples, Sit here, while I pray."
Jesus led a life of prayer. If we make an exegesis of the life of Jesus, of what he did, we see that the action of prayer is of the first order, that is, he prayed and did it early in the morning, he went to desert places, also He prayed throughout the day, throughout the night, during the vigils of the night, our Lord retired in fasting and prayer for forty days in the desert and also taught his disciples to pray.
Verse 34 "And he said to them, My soul is very sad, even unto death; stay here and watch. "
When he says here that they watch, he also refers to praying, He was about to go to the cross, they were going to take him prisoner, he was in a struggle or spiritual struggle with the purpose and will of the Father in his life, and in obedience he was on the way to his victory here on earth, but it was a very strong and traumatic moment, not only because of the physical, the nails, the whips that lacerated him or the crown of thorns, because of humiliation or because he was leaving to be left alone or because of the cross on which he was going to be hanged, if not for the most important thing for him and that was that the Father's presence was going to be withdrawn and that communion that he had with Him was not going to be possible at that moment, something that had never happened in the life of Jesus, that is why He was sad and anguished, that is why he tells his disciples to watch, and the word watch here has a meaning of prayer.
Verse 35 "Leaving a little ahead, he prostrated himself on the ground, and prayed that if it were possible, that hour would pass from him. And he said: Abba, Father, all things are possible for you; put this cup away from me; but not what I want, but what you.
He came later and found them sleeping; and said to Peter: Simon, do you sleep? Have not you been able to watch one hour? Watch and pray, lest you enter into temptation; the spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak. "
When we pray we are watching. There is a kind of prayer in which while we pray we are watching, watching in this sense means being attentive, alert, aware of something and that helps us in prayer so that God does not hold us asleep as Jesus did at that moment. He took Pedro. And we see that there it says "an hour", and this is very important because I believe that every believer should take a time of intimacy with the Lord, I believe that an hour of daily prayer is at least necessary, this should be something continuous and constant , praying at all times, from the 24 hours of the day we can take an hour for the Lord.
You need to pray, you need to pray for the building of your house, your family, your future, your spiritual life, your marriage, there are marriages that do not go well because they do not pray, there is youth that is not focused because it does not have that persistence of prayer, women also need to pray to be strengthened, single mothers, married women, young women, all need prayer. Jesus prayed continually and his disciples also see that they asked the Lord to teach us to pray, the bible speaks of prayer over and over again and the ministry of Jesus was based and based on what prayer was, communion with the Father, communion with God and with the Holy Spirit and we see in this passage that He is praying and calling His disciples to pray, to Peter, James and John who were considered the closest to Him, their inner circle and we are the ones we see in the mount of the transfiguration and are the ones that we see precisely that He calls at this moment to pray with Him and tells them that their soul is distressed, that is, Jesus was in need at that time a coalition of prayer of which at that time they were around him, and in this we can see the condition of the leader to be able to do the work of God, Paul in Ephesians says also pray for me so that when I open my mouth I will be given boldness to impart the word of God, or be, the ask for the prayer It is necessary for the leadership to have a prayer coalition around them, to make sure that the people around them are people of prayer, the pastor needs people by their side to pray, the Apostles need people to pray, the evangelists, teachers, prophets, all need prayer people at their side. The leaders of the church also need prayer from their disciples, sometimes we are expected to pray for the flock, for the people, but we see in this case that Jesus withdrew and said "pray," Paul asked for prayer also, prayer is extremely important to carry forward ministry, your family is also a ministry and needs to be sprinkled with prayer, every ministry within the congregation needs prayer, that each column pray, that each member of the network is praying, interceding, seeking the face of God, for that reason we are giving a guideline in the sense of prayer because I know that it produces a lot of blessing, produces spiritual strength and makes us correct, focused and with a clear vision. If we get into prayer and use all the areas of prayer, classes and types of prayer such as intercession, spiritual warfare, prayer for one another, prayer by laying on of hands, prayer effective, prayer with labor pains, we see that prayer is extremely diverse, and it opens windows in the heavens, it is extremely important and we can not lead this ministry without prayer, so we can not bring an effective marriage without prayer, we can not can lead a life of youth or adolescence Christianity walking in holiness and separated if there is no prayer, can not be united if there is no prayer, the perfect link of peace is love and that love we only receive when we pray for each other others. I have always said that a person who is praying, in the breach, never comes out criticizing, murmuring or with a spirit of division and strife. The morning intercession classes are for us to learn to pray, there are people who do not know how to intercede, what to say in prayer, do not know how to enter a spiritual warfare, if you can not come buy the audios of the teachings not for business, if not for your growth so that you immerse yourself in prayer and your life is strengthened, move your people to attend and be involved in prayer.