Tag Archives: pray

Pray For One Hour 12

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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?

Pray For One Hour 11

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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.”

XI. Pray for one hour – Listening:  Receive spiritual instruction.  Ecclesiasates 5:2, “Be not rash with thy mouth, and let not thine heart be hasty to utter any thing before God:  for God is in heaven, and thou upon earth:  therefore let thy words be few.”

I have noticed a trend in so-called Christianity.  I hear people praying and telling God what to do.  Really?  What gives you and I the right to tell Holy God what to do?  Nothing!  What we need to be doing is keep our mouth shut and our ears tuned into Him.  This is called listening.  It is a lost art today.  I know I am guilty of not listening.  We hear someone tell something and we immediately want to tell them how to fix it.  In the right place there is nothing wrong with this.  When it comes to time with God it is wrong.  We need to be listening for God to give us His orders.   He is our Commander in Chief.  He is our King of kings and LORD of lords.  We take orders from Him.  We need to be silent before Him and listen for Him to speak to us.

So, how are you doing?

Pray For One Hour 10

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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.”

X. Pray for one hour – Meditation:  Ponder spiritual themes.  Joshua 1:8, “This book of the law shall not depart out of thy mouth; but thou shalt meditate therein day and night, that thou mayest observe to do according to all that is written therein:  for then thou shalt make thy way propserous, and then thou shalt have good success.”

The world is seeking for success.  All you have to do is watch television and see all the health, wealth and prosperity people advertising their “thing” whatever it is.  People seem to spend their waking moments thinking about anything but spiritual things.  We suppress them out of our minds.  We don’t want to deal with them.  We need to though.

You and I should be like the cow.  A cow has multiple stomachs and when they chew up the grass or grain it moves through their digestive system from one to the other.  I know this is gross; but, it is an accurate illustration.

We read the Bible; but, we don’t study It.  We seem to glance over It; but, we don’t take time to digest it.  Then when it comes time to pray we don’t have anything in our minds to meditate upon.  If we fill our hearts and minds with God’s Word then there will be plenty to meditate upon.

So, how are you doing?

Pray For One Hour 9

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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.”

IX. Pray for one hour:  Singing – Worship in song.  Psalm 100:2, “Serve the LORD with gladness: come before His presence with singing.”

A dear man and his wife had been married for sixty (60) years and two (2) weeks and this dear wife went to Heaven.  The husband gave account of his wife and her time of prayer.  He told how people from all over would call her with their requests.  He told how his wife would immediate retreat to their bedroom and close the door.  He told how she would begin her prayer time with singing.  He said that was always how he knew she was finished.  I must admit this moves me to tears.

Music has a great part in worship.  We need to sing before the LORD.  He does not care if it is a joyful noise or a glad rackett.  He says to do it and if He commands it He intends us to do it.  The next time you retreat to your closet have a song of worship ready for Him.  He will love it.

So, how are you doing?

Pray For One Hour 8

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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.”

VIII.  Pray for one hour – thanksgiving:  confessing my blessings.  I Thessalonians 5:18, “In everything give thanks:  for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus concerning you.”

Notice what this verse does not say.  It does not say, “For everything give thanks…”  It says, “In everything give thanks:…”  Sometimes this seems very difficult to do.  Since God tells us to do it then it must be possible.

I remember reading about the Bible commentator Matthew Henry.  He was robbed and his money stolen.  He took this verse to heart and started out by saying that he was thankful that he was the one robbed and not the one doing the robbing.  Wow!  That is giving thanks in a very difficult situation.

So, how are you doing?

Pray For One Hour 7

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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.”

VII.  Pray for one hour:  Petition – share personal needs:  Matthew 7:7, “Ask, and it shall be given you; seek, and ye shall find; knock, and is shall be opened unto you:”

I shared with you yesterday that it is difficult for me to share personal needs.  It is my pride.  There have been times that I have felt led of God not to share personal needs with other.  It was as if God did not want me to share them.  Then, what an awesome blessing to see Him provide whatever the need was.

A brother preacher shared with me the acronym A.S.K.  It came from Matthew 7:7.  Let me share that with you now.

A – “ask” means to ask.
S – “seek:” means to seek, to worship
K – “knock” means to knock: rap (not the music either)

I think that we can learn here to persevere in prayer.  Don’t just pray about it once; but, keep praying for it until you receive an answer.  Far too many of us just pray about it once and give up and say that God has not heard or answered our prayers.  Maybe He is trying to teach us something by waiting to answer our prayers.  When it comes to pray we must “A.S.K.”  We have to keep asking, keep seeking and keep knocking until He answers.

So, how are you doing?

Pray For One Hour 6

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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.”

VI. Pray for one hour – Intercession:  remember the works.  I Timothy 2:1-2, “I exhort therefore, that, first of all, supplications, prayers, intercessions, and giving of thanks, be made for all men; For kings, and for all that are in authority; that we may lead a quiet and peaceable life in all godliness and honesty.”

This is one of the greatest things that we can do for one another.  I struggle with pride.  I often will not ask others for prayer because of my pride.  Yet, we need to be praying for others even though they don’t ask us to pray for them.  We need one another to be praying for us and we need to be praying for them.

When someone asks you to pray for them do you pray for them?  It is easy to say that you will pray for someone and then forget it.  I know the older I get the harder it is for me to remember these things.

I remember a former Pastor of mine.  When you asked him to pray for you he prayed right there in order to not forget the request.  I admire that.  I really do.  We all need to be like that in pray for others.

So, how are you doing?

Pray For One Hour 5

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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.”

V. Pray for one hour – Watching:  Develop holy alertness.  Colossians 4:2, “Continue in prayer, and watch in the same with thanksgiving;”

The word “watch” means to keep awake (Strong’s Concordance).  I can remember many times going to prayer and waking up some time later.  This makes me so mad.  I failed the LORD again just like the men in our verses for this study.  I can hear my LORD asking me the same question.

Some might say this is a holy nap or some hog wash like that.  It is failing to watch with my LORD.  So as we continue along the journey to pray one hour each day we need to be in an attitude of watching.

We don’t have to be sitting with our head bowed and our eyes closed to pray as some think.  You can be standing.  You can be laying flat out on the floor with your face down to the floor.  There are many positions to prayer.  I might suggest as you and I are waiting before the LORD that we stand up in order to ward off sleeping..

So, how are you doing?

 

Pray For One Hour 4

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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.”

IV.  Scripture praying – Word enriched prayer.  Jeremiah 23:29, “Is not my word like as a fire? saith the LORD; and like a hammer that breaketh the rock in pieces?”

As we pray we can pray God’s Word back to Him.  I believe He enjoys this very much.  Have you ever tried this?  There are so many passages in God’s Word that you can do this with.

Take Psalm 23 for instance.  You can thank the LORD for being your Shepherd if He is.  You can go down through the chapter and pray for yourself or others that they will yield themselves to God as Shepherd and allow Him to lead them.  The possibilities are endless.

If we do not take advantage of this then what good is it?  None.  So, as you read the Bible pray it back to God.  Use it daily in your efforts to spend one hour in prayer.  You will not be disappointed.

So, how are you doing?

Pray For One Hour 1

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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.”

In order to pray for one hour we need to find a place to start. According to the information I have been given we have such a place.

I. Praise – Recognize God’s Nature.  Psalm 63:3, “Because thy lovingkindness is better than life, my lips shall praise thee.”

The word “praise” in Psalm 63:3 means to address in a loud tone, i.e. (specifically) loud; figuratively, to pacify (as if by words).  Taken from the Strong’s Exhaustive Concordance.  The thing is that most often we don’t know what praise is or what praise looks like.  We listen to “praise and worship” music and we thing that is it.  That is not it.

It is like the song we used to sing, “Let’s just praise the Lord.  Praise the Lord.  Let’s just lift our hearts together and praise the Lord.”  This is not for a show.  It is not to be seen by others.  It should be done privately and publicly.  Let’s praise His Holy Name.

So, how are you doing?