Pray without ceasing

My wife and I attended the Global Prayer meeting at Territorial Headquarters. We had missed the last two meetings as we had medical appointments. As believers in Christ, we should seize every opportunity to pray in groups besides having individual prayer times. Pray without ceasing is Paul's instruction to us.

I take comfort in the words of Jesus to His disciples.  “Truly I tell you, if you have faith and do not doubt, not only can you do what was done to the fig tree, but also you can say to this mountain, ‘Go, throw yourself into the sea,’ and it will be done. If you believe, you will receive whatever you ask for in prayer.” Matthew 21: 21-22

We are all busy people. Even those who are not claim to be so! But let us not be too busy to pray. If we are too busy to pray then we are truly TOO BUSY! We are busier than what God wants us to be.

We can pray with conviction that God is able - 'Now to him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us, Ephesians 3: 20,

'Therefore confess your sins to each other and pray for each other so that you may be healed. The prayer of a righteous person is powerful and effective.   James 5: 16.

While Jesus wants us to expand our confidence in the possibilities of prayer, He does not encourage us to manipulate God for God cannot be manipulated. The answers to prayer depend on meeting certain conditions. The word of God tells us that that answers to prayer depend on meeting certain conditions, for example,

'You desire but do not have, so you kill. You covet but you cannot get what you want, so you quarrel and fight. You do not have because you do not ask God. When you ask, you do not receive, because you ask with wrong motives, that you may spend what you get on your pleasure' James 4: 2-3

'This is the confidence we have in approaching God: that if we ask anything according to his will, he hears us. And if we know that he hears us—whatever we ask—we know that we have what we asked of him.' 1 John 5: 14-15

Let us remember God's answer need not always be in the positive. There are times when He has to say No to our request because He has something better planned for us. '“For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways,' declares the Lord. 'As the heavens are higher than the earth,
so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts. Isaiah 55: 8-9

Let us keep praying. The answers may be 'Yes' or 'No' and there are times God tells us to wait for His time. His timing is perfect.