DAY STAR, “Shine”
January 11, 2011
Today’s ‘Shine’…. Prayer … Always Causeth me to Triumph in Christ Jesus
I Cor. 2:14 reminds us that we have nothing to fear for ” God always causeth us to triumph in Christ”..
Prayer … Getting the tough job done!
Have you ever said to yourself or perhaps to your children, ” Just get tough on yourself and get the tough job done.” I can remember hearing those words from teachers and many others.
As we head into the new year, those tough appointments, and new year commitments that we have delayed until now are looming in our face. We hear the echo,” Get tough and get these tough things done.” Yet, have we considered the tough job of what we need to do first, and that is daily prayer. Fight the good fight of faith, lay hold on eternal life, whereunto thou art also called and hast professed a good profession before many witnesses. ((Timothy 6:12)
Since prayer is the first essential to our daily walk with Jesus, let us start here in our “Day Star, ‘Light’ “.
I asked an elder who had continued in prayer for over 40 years and didn’t give up,” How is it that you can come to the same spot for over all these years and continue to be faithful in your prayer time. His answer though simple, was clear.
“It is just like you get up and brush your teeth. You get down on your knees and ask God to brushyour heart. Brush away the chaff and leave the good. ” How many of us daily do not question when it is time to brush our teeth or take care of physical essentials? We just do it. Likewise, the elder above continued in his spiritual need by just doing it.
It may appear it is more difficult to pray than to brush our teeth. Perhaps the reason is that the flesh and spirit always war against each other. If we do not realize we are in a warfare, it may be easy for us to lay down our sword and give into the many things around us..
But, we know we should pray, we know we should study God’s word. Yet, when it is time to do these simple acts of commitment for our spiritual growth, there are many times a phone call interrupts that seems pressing, or other things that crowd into our limited devotion. Sometimes the mundane or the routine of it even gets to be monotonous and the unanswered prayers seems more than the answered ones and our faith can sink into a passive state. It is at these times I find myself struggling with my flesh. Eventually, our adversary tries to reduce our prayer time to a common routine and it can seem to be’ just me and the walls.’
It is at these times our prayer journey truly turns into the good fight of faith and we readily agree with II Tim, that we must fight our minds and realize it is more than just a battle of “my thoughts”… but when it comes to doing anything spiritual. it becomes a spiritual warfare. Then we point our adversary to those scriptures of God’s word. “God causeth me to always triumph in Christ.”
(II Cor. 2:14)
We realize we are weak, but God working in us can help us to try and as someone pointed out the little words… tri and umph … makes up triumph. It takes a little trying and a lot of umphing to fight the good fight of faith! But, we already know we can win… so let’s march forward this 2011 into our prayer and devotion triumphantly,
“…for God always causeth us to triumph in Christ Jesus!”
written by: Glenda Andrus