P.R.A.Y
PAUSE
REJOICE & REFLECT
ASK
YIELD
Personal Worship
Yesterday, Will opened our new series, Next Gen, by talking about some of the unique challenges facing this latest generation. As we begin week one of our 21 days of Pray First, we will explore one of those unique challenges: the challenge that technology brings to our ability to guard and keep our hearts with all vigilance, which the Bible makes clear, is of the utmost importance. (Prov. 4:23) We will use these truths to pray over ourselves and others in the ASK section below. We start this week by looking at what the Bible says about our hearts…
Together we will pray (P.R.A.Y.) each day – ‘P’: Pausing to be still as we come into the presence of the Lord. ‘R’: Rejoicing as we remember who our God is and what He has done, and Reflecting on His word. ‘A’: Asking God to help us and others. And ‘Y’: yielding to His will in accordance with His word.
As I come before you to pray, I still my thoughts and quiet my mind. I seek to make you the center of my focus.
Prayer of Approach
Please consider fasting with us these three weeks. You might choose to fast from some aspect of technology this week as we focus on how it impacts our hearts. Allow these words to shape your prayer of approach to God as you enter into this week:
Father, we set aside these three weeks as a time of prayer and fasting, that we might humble ourselves before you and seek from you: a safe journey for ourselves, our children, all our possessions, and for the world around us. You are our mighty God who holds all of us in your hands! (Based on Ezra 8:21)
We choose to rejoice in the power of God’s Word, with all his people in Psalm 37:
Trust in the Lord, and do good;
dwell in the land and befriend faithfulness.
Delight yourself in the Lord,
and he will give you the desires of your heart.
Commit your way to the Lord;
trust in him, and he will act.
He will bring forth your righteousness as the light,
and your justice as the noonday.
Psalm 37:3-6
Today we are reflecting on the words of Scripture in Proverbs 4, where we read:
Keep your heart with all vigilance, for from it flow the springs of life.
Proverbs 4:23
Our hearts are the most important part of our being. Just as our physical heart supplies blood to our physical bodies, so also our spiritual heart supplies passion, purpose, thoughts, motivations, words (and so much more) to our lives. It is the very center of our being! Our true self. The Lord urges us in this passage to be committed to the keeping, or the guarding of our heart, because everything in our life proceeds out of it. The heart is the man.
Charles Spurgeon likens our hearts to a reservoir that supplies water through different pipes to the “outlets” of our mouth, eyes, and hands. If the water in the reservoir is clean and pure, then what flows out of us will be life-giving both to ourselves and others. If the water is defiled or polluted, switching out the pipes or putting in a stronger engine to pump the water will not help at all. Likewise, simply understanding what God requires of us, or trying harder to conquer our will does not make clean water flow from an impure heart.
Our hearts must be made clean and we can not do it. Jeremiah 17:9 tells us the heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately sick. Only Jesus can take our impurity and give us his purity. And only he can guard our hearts, as we continually (daily) surrender it to his control. This week we will dig deeper into what the Bible says about guarding our hearts.
In this season of PrayFirst, we ask the Lord to help us personally and corporately:
Personal:
Pray for the Lord to reveal the true condition of your heart. Ask for him to show you attitudes, words and actions which would reveal the purity level of the “water” of your heart from which the “streams” of your life are presently flowing. Ask him to help you see any ways you have been letting your guard down and confess any impurity.
Corporate:
Pray that Rio Vista Church would become a church committed to guarding our hearts for Jesus sake and for his glory. Pray for the unbelievers around us to have their hearts awakened to their need for the transforming power of Jesus in their lives. Pray that we would love them and be humble before them, knowing that their actions come from hearts that have not yet been changed by Jesus (remembering that we were once them).
As I read the passage again slowly, I listen for anything that You would say to me in it. Help me see how to position my life in order to yield to your word.
Keep your heart with all vigilance, for from it flow the springs of life.
Proverbs 4:23
Yielding Prayer
Father, I offer my heart to you. Help me to surrender all that is impure within it, together with all of the ways those impurities have flowed out of my life in thoughts, words and actions that have not been life-giving to me or the people around me. Thank you that you stand ready to help me do this. And ready to forgive!
Yielding Promise
And now, as I move into the day ahead, the Lord who loves me reminds me in 1 Peter 1:5:
That I, “by God’s power (am) being guarded through faith for a salvation ready to be revealed in the last time.” (adapted from 1 Peter 1:5)
Closing Prayer
Lord, enable me, by the power of the Holy Spirit, to love you today with all of my heart, soul, mind, and strength; and to serve you today, by loving and caring for others as I do my own self; and, to exalt you today, by telling the people in my world about the abundant and eternal life found only through faith in Jesus.
*The P.R.A.Y. acronym has been adapted from the Lectio 365 app.