“Rejoice always; pray without ceasing; in everything give thanks; for this is God’s will for you in Christ Jesus.” I Thess 5:16-18
1. Rejoice always. Choose joy. I’ve written about this a lot. I may write about this again at a future date.
2. Pray without ceasing.
3. In everything give thanks.
There you have it. Three simple commands, nine little words to convey God’s will. Easy peasy? I don’t think so.
God has instructed me in an accelerated course on choosing joy the past four years. It must be important as Paul stresses it twice in these three short verses.
These are commands. God doesn’t command us to do something that we cannot do with his assistance. He also doesn’t command us to do things with a “wink”. He expects us to DO what he TELLS US TO DO. ::snort::
I’ve written about choosing joy numerous times on my blog. In an effort to avoid sounding like a broken record (or scratched CD), I’ll post links. Ladies, learning to choose joy is HUGE for your spiritual well-being, for your happiness, for your growth in relationship with Jesus. If you feel you could use a bit of clarity or meditation on joy – read this or this(simply two of numerous links I could have chosen).
Today our focus is “pray without ceasing”. I believe we are to have an attitude of prayer as we go about our day. My first response should be prayer: in times of profound joy, in times of anxiety, in times of loss. I turned to the confession page in my tryst journal today. I realized that I had been anxious and fretting about a character issue in a person I am mentoring. I had NOT prayed about it as much as I should….instead I’d worried and fretted.
This pray without ceasing is big. Pray without ceasing realizes that God is in charge…not me. It adjusts my attitude and perspective.
A pastor about seven years ago preached on this. He gave us all sorts of tips to make prayer a “natural” in our life. The big thing is to find every day things and turn them into reminders for prayer. It really works. I use red lights, improper use of turn signals and improper merging of others to call me to prayer. There may be better triggers for you.
I encourage you to pray about these short verses, to meditate on them and to see what God shows you.
April shared a link to this article with me last week. Go check out the whole article here. The author, Rhonda Maller, shares some fantastic practical tips to unceasing prayer. I was going to post them here, but don’t want to infringe on copyright laws. Please do go read the short article, print it out and put it into practice.
For more devotionals click here!
©2008 DRG
No comments:
Post a Comment