This week I have been thinking a lot about PRAYER and doing some honest soul searching and looking at ways to be more disciplined. I have to admit that last year was a bit hit and miss and I know that is not what it should be.

It has been suggested that prayer prepares us for ministry but I’m starting to think that prayer is ministry. In prayer Jesus fought the battles. How many times do we read that he spent the night alone in prayer?

Where was it that Jesus’ sweat was like drops of blood? Not in Pilot’s hall, nor on his way to Golgotha. It was in the Garden of Gethsemane. There he “offered up prayers and petitions, with loud cries and tears to Him who is able to save him from death” (Hebrews, 5:7)

If we had witnessed his struggle that night, we might have misinterpreted the situation and said, “If he is so broken up when all he is doing is praying, what will he do when he faces a real crisis? Why can’t he approach this ordeal with the calm confidence of his three friends? Yet when the test came, Jesus walked to the cross with courage, and his three friends fell apart and ran away.

Something happens when we pray so let us approach God’s throne of grace with confidence.