Day 12: Praying Church

Daily Devotional

Luke 5:15-16

15 “But now even more the report about him went abroad, and great crowds gathered to hear him and to be healed of their infirmities. 16 But he would withdraw to desolate places and pray.”

One of the realities of life we all understand is life gets busy. We get busy with work, school assignments, taking care of chores and errands, raising children, serving at church and more. Finding things to get busy with never seems to be a problem because it always seems to find us first. In today’s passage, we see that Jesus’ life was no exception. Jesus was busy too. Luke tells us as the news began to spread about Jesus, crowds of people started following Him wherever He went to hear Him speak and be healed of sickness. This meant Jesus was always busy ministering to people. But Luke points out that no matter how busy Jesus was doing ministry, He would often withdraw and isolate Himself to go pray. The key word that needs to be highlighted here is “often.” Jesus made prayer a priority in His daily life not only to be in communion with His Father. But also, because Jesus was fully human like us too. So Jesus modeled for us a life of trust and dependence upon God through prayer. If this is the case, how much more so should we prioritize and see the need of prayer in our own life. Spend time to reflect on your daily life to see where prayer stands on your list of priorities and make the necessary changes to center your life schedule around prayer.

Weekly Application

Make a decision to set aside time each day that is dedicated to prayer. Let us pray that the time we spend praying may not just be out of duty, but a life-giving time of fellowship with God. Lift up your requests and confess your sins before God with the assurance of forgiveness. Intercede for your leaders, your church, and your community - standing in the gap for those who are in need. And invite Jesus to be in the midst of your circumstances with the expectation of supernatural joy and thanksgiving. Let us experience the power and the presence of God in our lives as we seek to become a praying church.