Posted: December 31st, 2003 | Author: trudat | Filed under: Prayer | Comments
“For the wedding of the Lamb has come, and His bride has made herself ready. Fine linen, bright and clean, was given her to wear.” (Fine linen stands for the righteous acts of the saints.) (Revelation 19:8
).
Christ’s blood makes us clean. But the bride can also make herself ready. Jesus alludes to this when he told the story of the 10 virgins. Five were wise because they prepared enough oil to last until the bridegroom came. Five were foolish because they neglected to prepare. The oil signifies the Holy Spirit who is the fuel and source of light and all that is good. These acts of preparations are probably the righteous acts or the fine linen by which the bride makes herself ready for the Lamb.
I should do my best each day to prepare for the coming of the Lamb. By sowing to the Spirit and submitting to His leading, I do righteous acts which fill me with the Spirit. This makes me ready for testing. This makes me ready for when the Lord comes again. Jesus said that his disciple should pray because the spirit is willing but the flesh is weak. Somehow the prayer times fills the disciple with enough spiritual strength to overcome when the flesh is tempted. I think this same in-filling process gives the disciple enough spiritual strength to hold on until the Lord returns. This strength, this essence of life is what makes the bride ready.
Lord, teach me to be faithful to You in prayer and in continual submission to Your Spirit. Help me not to neglect preparation in prayer as the five foolish virgins and as the disciples did on the night of Gesthseme. Instead, help me to be faithful in prayer and righteous acts. Fill me with Your Spirit and teach me to overcome the world as You did. Praise the Lord.
Posted: October 9th, 2002 | Author: trudat | Filed under: Prayer | Comments
“He prayed more fervently, and he was in such agony of spirit that his sweat fell to the ground like great drops of blood” (Luke 22:44).
Lots of people probably consider prayer to be a boring activity. They think of prayer as a religious ritual, some incantation to be chanted once a day. They remember their mother reminding them to “say their prayers” before bed. But prayer is more than simply empty words. And it’s not like casting Christians spells at God. Prayer is calling out to God with faith and then something powerful happens. Jesus taught his disciples, “Get up and pray, otherwise temptation will overpower you” (Luke 22:46).
On the night Jesus was betrayed, He had the most powerful time of prayer recorded in the Bible. In the spirit, He was preparing for the most crucial moment in all of history. His death and resurrection would pay the way for our salvation. A huge part of winning that battle was accomplished in private the night before. He was about to take upon Himself the full brunt of God’s wrath for every sin every committed and would be committed by humanity. And the huge struggle of that was decided while he was praying. The prayer burden was so difficult that He had deep agony in the spirit … so much so that he sweated profusely and his sweat may have been mixed with blood. Obviously something powerful happened that night as He prayed. He was successful in obeying God the next day because of that prayer.
If Jesus needed to pray fervently so that He would be able to accomplish God’s will, how much more so do we also need to pray to do His will. Jesus taught his disciples that unless they pray, temptation would overcome them. Unfortunately, that’s just what happened. They slept instead of praying and the next day virtually all of them failed Jesus and abandoned or denied Him. It is so easy to be overcome by temptation unless we pray. The reason that happens is because we can do nothing of real spiritual value on our own strength. It all must come from God’s strength. And that only happens through prayer.
Thank You, Lord, for reminding me of how vital it is to pray. Help me to be more diligent to pray through everything You have assigned me to do so that I may be successful and You may receive the glory.
