Pray For One Hour 12

Matthew 26:40-41, “And he cometh unto the disciples, and findeth them asleep, and saith unto Peter, What, could ye not watch with me one hour?  Watch and pray, that ye enter not into temptation: the spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak.”

XII.  Pray for one hour:  Praise – Prayer should begin and conclude with praise.  Psalm 9:1, “I will praise thee, O LORD, with my whole heart; I will shew forth all thy marvellous works.”

The word “praise” in this verse means literally, to use (i.e. hold out) the hand; physically, to throw (as tone, an arrow) at or away; especially, to revere or worship (with extended hands); intensively, to bemoan (by wringing the hands) (Strong’s Concordance).

When we come to praise we need to do it wholeheartedly.  God does not deserve halfhearted worship.  He gave His all for you and I so we need to give our all to Him no matter what we are doing.   I remember hearing the baseball coach yelling at us to “put your heart into it!”  He could see that we were not giving our all to what we were supposed to be doing.

If we are not careful we will just go through the motions of prayer.  It will become just some other thing we check off our list of things to do.  It should not be this way.  We need to go to prayer in a spirit of expectation.  We need to meet our Heavenly Father there each and every time.

So, how are you doing?