Spiritual Rest Through Fasting and Praying | Let us P-R-A-Y

 

Devotional: “Let us P.R.A.Y.”    (By Dannet Mitchell)

 Fasting and praying can bring about more than just personal transformation. When God’s people practice biblical fasting and prayer, God hears from heaven and can heal our lives, our church, our communities, our nations, and our world. Fasting and prayer can bring about revival—a change in direction and the fulfillment of the Great Commission.  It is my hope that over the next week, our intentional focus and practice of fasting and praying will bring about great transformation for individuals, families, and our Risen Hope community.

 As we begin our week, I want to share with you four simple points developed from the acronym: P-R-A-Y.  I have found that while most Christians know that we are to pray, there are many barriers that hinder us from praying. One barrier is that we don't know where to begin, or simply put, we feel overwhelmed by the many things we want to take into the presence of God, seeking his help, comfort, grace, and mercy.

The P-R-A-Y model can be a very helpful pattern used to jumpstart our praying, keep us focused, and guide our hearts into the throne room of God. While I didn't invent this tool; learning of it has provided another means to refresh and anchor my Prayer Life. The prayer acronym can be used as an accessible pattern or format to guide our prayers and make our prayer life more effective. So, let us begin P-R-A-Y ing!

 P- praise  

Psalm 100:1-4

¹“Make a joyful shout to the LORD, all you land! ²Serve the LORD with gladness; come before His presence with singing. ³Know that the LORD, He is God; it is He who has made us, and not we ourselves; we are His people and the sheep of His pasture. ⁴Enter into His gates with thanksgiving, and into His courts with praise. Be thankful to Him and bless His name.”

 This Psalm of giving thanks has two clue phrases on how we should enter into God’s presence: 

1. Verse 2b: “Come into his presence with singing”.
2. Verse 4: “Enter his gates with thanksgiving, and into his courts with praise”

^12"Who can understand his errors? Cleanse me from secret faults. ¹³Keep back Your servant also from presumptuous sins; let them not have dominion over me. Then I shall be blameless, and I shall be innocent of great transgression."

 Brothers and sisters, our access into the presence of God begins with thankful and praising hearts. These verses also convey a joyfulness that is focused primarily on the LORD, and not ourselves. Often, we can tend to believe prayer is first… and only about us---our cares and fears, and it is… however, these verses reorient our posture at the onset to sing, and laud praises on the Almighty to whom we will eventually cast our cares upon as we persist in prayer.

 R-repent

Psalm 19:12-13

Again, we find great inspiration and guidance through the Psalms as to how to approach our loving, merciful, and patient God.  The second letter in our acronym- R, represents repentance in prayer.  While this is straightforward, here we are purposely and intentionally taking the time before God to search our hearts and repent of anything that has come between us and Him. Our text, Psalm 19:12-13 depicts the heart of our repenting succinctly, 

 What a humbling posture to assume right after praising and thanking God! It continues the line of conversation that acknowledges his holiness and our need for his grace minute by minute, and hour by hour, to be more like his precious Son Jesus- blameless and innocent of all transgression.  Standing in front of a holy and righteous God, we become very aware of how unholy and unrighteous we are...have been. Yet, even in that very moment of seeing ourselves, by God’s grace before we are gripped with condemnation and shame, we see and can feel his goodness and forgiveness. Therefore, our response is repentance- bended knees and continued praise.

 In the last two steps of the P-R-A Y acronym, we highlighted that praise and repentance are two key components of effective prayer. As we move through this model of praying, let me show you the very important third step of asking.

A-ask 

1 John 3:21-22

 Each step builds upon the next.  As we repent -searching our own heart and asking God to put the spotlight on any known or unknown issue that deviates from his character and attributes; then repenting of what he shows you--our hearts become clean.  Acknowledging sins and repenting of those sins sets us up for receiving God’s faithful promise to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. I John 1:9. We then can have confidence before God when we ask anything according to 1 John 3:21-22,

 

²¹“Beloved, if our heart does not condemn us, we have confidence toward God. ²²And whatever we ask we receive from Him because we keep His commandments and do those things that are pleasing in His sight.”

 Furthermore, Jesus tells us in Matthew 7:7-11, ⁷“Ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you. ⁸For everyone who asks receives and he who seeks finds, and to him who knocks it will be opened. ⁹Or what man is there among you who, if his son asks for bread, will give him a stone? ¹⁰Or if he asks for a fish, will he give him a serpent? ¹¹If you then, being evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father who is in heaven give good things to those who ask Him!”

 For Further Reading:

●       John 14:13

●       John 15:7

●       John 16:23-24

 Beloved, our heavenly Father loves us and desires to bless us when we ask, seek, and knock. He promises to give us the desires of our hearts, to be found when we seek him diligently, and to open the doors of heaven and let his kingdom come to earth.  So, ask in confidence and according to his will.

 Y-yield

Psalm 37:4

⁴“Delight yourself also in the LORD, and He shall give you the desires of your heart.”

 We’ve come to our fourth and last letter in our P-R-A-Y acronym, and it is very appropriate, that the “Y” in P-R-A-Y stands for yield. Our prayer journey began with PRAISING, which lead us to REPENTANCE, then launched us in ASKING, to now conclude with YIELDING.  Let’s look at this well-quoted verse of scripture for some help in understanding our “yield” in the presence of God.  A quick word study reveals the keyword in this text- “Delight”- which takes on its Hebrew meaning - ānaḡ, to be soft and pliable in this verse. Hence for the purposes of this step in Prayer, we will interpret “Delighting” in the Lord to mean being yielded, that is, soft and pliable to his will.  In simple terms, Yielding is when you stop talking, wait, listen, and seek to hear from God.  As we do, he reveals the desires of our hearts, now in right alignment brought about by the guiding steps of praise, repentance, and asking -which is really his original will and purposes for us being reflected into our hearts as we draw near and nearer still to him.

 So, yield, silently wait for the Lord and he will indeed speak into your heart.