It is New Year’s day and so many around the world make a resolution for the new year. A promise they commit to hoping and even vowing to lose weight, stop a habit for just two examples. Let us consider the following for our commitment for 2025. Prayer is a subject that many will admit they have a strong conviction about because they feel that they need to devote more time to their prayer life. We should cherish our time in prayer because it is then that we enjoy quality time in the presence of God. Yes the scriptures tell us we should pray but not just because we have to or are commanded to. It is not just a duty to pray. Prayer is a responsibility to the relationship between ourselves and God. In any relationship communication is the main ingredient. It's the main necessity and without it the relationship weakens and in many cases will fail. How can we in one breath say God is our father, our friend and yet not talk to Him about everything in our life, every day of our life? 

We are also told in 1 Thessalonians 5:17 to "Pray without ceasing" and the reason is so clear when we face a time of discontent, worry, discourse, sadness and trials. Much of those bad situations are a direct result of our disobedience to God's Word. Ephesians 6:18 and Matthew 26:41 and throughout the Bible we are instructed to keep watch in prayer, to confess all to Him, to lay our troubles at His feet, to leave things to God and have faith that He will take care of us. So often we fail to do that and as a result we suffer the consequences. We then worry needlessly and often about things that never happen. We stress over things because we lack the faith in God to provide. Yes we are human and by nature do worry, do get stressed, etc but that doesn't excuse us from striving every day to better follow God's Word. He knows best and He tells us these things because He loves us and wants the best for us so shouldn't we work daily to better our relationship with Him by improving our communication with Him through prayer? We work so much on communication in our earthly relationships so shouldn't we work even harder on our relationship with our Lord and Savior, our Heavenly Father,  our Creator, our loving and almighty God? Let us decide right now and commit to work daily to have a better and closer relationship with Him. Let us develop in our hearts a need to talk to God about anything and everything and to listen for His answer, His instructions, His guidance and enjoy the blessings of His peace, love and comfort.

Priority of prayer. When we notice that we are not spending enough time in prayer we often blame it on "being so busy." However that is not a valid excuse and only means we need to get our priorities in order. Jesus is our example to follow. He made prayer his first priority without fail. Throughout the New Testament we see Jesus placing prayer time with His Father as more important than physical rest Luke 6:12, He placed prayer as priority over social time with others Matthew 14:23; Mark 1:35;?Luke 5:16; and he even made spending time in prayer a greater necessity than his own physical nourishment of food Luke 4:2, Matthew 6:18-31; Hebrews 7:25, How often do we really make prayer a priority in the same way that Jesus did? If we’re honest then we most likely would admit that we don't come close. Yes, we must care for our responsibilities as a spouse, parent,  grandparent, housework and for many people this includes a job but placing prayer as a priority can be done and still find time to fulfill our necessary tasks. Prayer is our primary link to God and every decision and every event in our lives should be discussed with God. If Jesus is to be our example then we all have a lot of room for improvement in our prayer life. There is a quote that says “7 days without prayer makes one Christian weak" it's a play on words but very true nonetheless. Without prayer time, without constant communication with God we will become a weak Christian.

As we continue our study on prayer let’s read 1 Peter 2:9 where it says that "we" meaning those who are children of God are 'a chosen race, a priesthood' and this brought a need for deeper research into what the roles of a Priest were in the Bible. The priest in the Bible first ministered to God and then to the people. That sounded odd, why would we need to minister to God? Ministering to God means we Praise Him, worship Him and spend time with Him in prayer. In comparison when we minister to people we are allowing the blessings and experiences of our time with God to flow over into the lives of others. So this means that by spending more time with God in prayer we are ministering to Him, which means we are pleasing Him and it brings Him Joy and shows Him our love, honor and respect for Him. That gives me a whole new understanding of the importance of prayer, it is pleasing to my God and brings Him great joy. That alone should make us want to spend every moment we possibly can in prayer with our awesome Heavenly Father.

Power of prayer. Have you ever really given thought to how powerful your prayers can be? As we look through scriptures it becomes clear that throughout the Bible in many instances the fate of the people was not in the hands of the governors and Kings but was in the hands of the mighty prayer intercessors. We see Abraham, Daniel, Samuel and so many others in the old testament influence the society they lived in through their prayer. Genesis 18:17-30; Numbers 14:11-23; 1 Samuel 7:8-13; 2 Kings 20:1-11; Daniel 9:2-3. How exciting is it to realize that our prayers may not only have an effect on people we pray for but can help mold our entire country, the entire world even? If there was ever a time our country needs prayer recent events prove it is needed now. Read Exodus 32:11-14 and notice how Moses prayed and God changed His mind based on Moses'prayer. He also will give us revelations, knowledge and show us truths through the Holy Spirit as if it was from the mind of God. God can open our eyes during prayer and allow us to see a problem that needs to be addressed, maybe direct our path in order to fulfill His will. Maybe warn us against something harmful in our path. There are also times that God may reveal things to us during prayers of intercession and we are to guard those secrets of God and only share when God directs us to. See Matthew 11:25-26 and Philippians 3:15. Prayer is our most valuable tool in making life decisions. As we devote ourselves to spend more and more time in prayer we will begin to see much clearer The Kingdom of God.  The miracles that are taking place in our own lives will confirm the power of God and the Power of prayer and will strengthen our own spiritual walk with The Lord. Prayer is a mighty powerful part of our Christian life and it can play a role to influence how God shapes our lives, the lives of others and the world around us.  Most importantly don't forget that God is our best friend and the power of prayer is but one facet of what a blessing it is to be able to go directly to God in prayer through our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. To God belongs all the Glory, all the honor and every single praise. Amen.