Call to Worship:
Let the favor of the Lord our God be upon us,
and establish the work of our hands upon us;
yes, establish the work of our hands!
Salutation: Pastor: In the Name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit!
People: Amen!
The Lord be with you! Ruth 2:4
And also with you!
Our help is in the Name of Yahweh, Psalm 124:8
Who made heaven and earth!
Exhortation:
In our exhortation last week I spoke that God takes joy in engaging His people in prayer. We saw that Moses boldly came to God in prayer and He told God that He should remember His love for his elect people, remember His glory among the nations, and finally remember His promises in His word.
On this Lord’s Day, I would like to speak briefly on the attitude of prayer. We know that prayer is significant. The New Covenant calls us to come boldly with our petitions to the throne of grace and James says that the prayers of the righteous are effective.
My exhortation this morning is to bathe our petitions in thanksgiving for what God has done. We do not simply pray because God tells us to. This is one reason, but it is hardly the main source of encouragement for prayer. We pray because God hears us, engages us and delights in our thanksgiving.
We need to turn our prayers into a time of engagement with God. We need to let God know the depths of our thoughts and sometimes it is very effective to write it down…God calls us to be specific.
Briefly, let me draw our attention to Psalm 34 because it illustrates exactly this idea of bathing our petitions in thanksgiving. We all know this morning that being thankful is not something that comes naturally. We need to train ourselves, just as we need to train our little ones to be thankful. Psalm 34 says that we are to continually make thanksgiving unto God a part of our speech. Think about it, when you find out something wonderful has happened in your life, what is your first reaction? Is it to keep it to yourself or is it to pick up your phone and share it with family and friends? Of course, we desire to share the good news with others, but when it comes to religious matters, we all think it is pious to tell anyone the goodness of God lest anyone think we are a fanatic. Continue reading “Exhortation: Providence Church, Pray with Your Eyes Open, Part II”