Did you ever notice that prayer is NOT optional for a believer?  While you won’t find the mandate explicitly laid out in the Ten Commandments, Jesus very clearly told us to pray.  As part of Jesus’ most famous teaching, the Sermon on the Mount, He provides specific guidance on how believers are to  live  their  lives.  In Matthew 6:5, He turns His attention to prayer and begins His instruction on the subject  with these words, “And WHEN you pray….”  Notice here the operative word, “When.”  Jesus didn’t say, “If you pray,” but rather “When you pray.”  This presumes that prayer will happen and, coming from our Lord being directed to us, we should take this as directive in nature.  As we discussed in yesterday’s sermon, God expects us to practice immediate obedience to Him.  We owe nothing less to our Creator and Redeemer.

I suppose you could pull the “Pharisee card” and posit that God didn’t tell us how often to pray…but then you run into Paul’s admonition in 1 Thessalonians 5 to “Rejoice always and pray without ceasing….”

So, WHEN you pray this week, please remember to lift up the family of God as we continue our journey.

-Pastor Dave Jones