P.R.A.Y
PAUSE
REJOICE & REFLECT
ASK
YIELD
Connect Relationally
We continue today with our second core value: Connect. We connect out of our passion to know God and to do what he calls us to do.
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
I wait for you, Lord! I will be strong and let my heart take courage as I wait for you. (Psalm 27:14) I believe that my waiting will not be in vain, for you will come to meet me in my need!
We choose to rejoice in the faithfulness and care of our God today, with all his people, in the words of Psalm 18…
This God—his way is perfect; the word of the Lord proves true; he is a shield for all those who take refuge in him.
Psalm 18:30
Today we are reflecting on the first things we are told about the activities of the first church after Pentecost:
They devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and to fellowship, to the breaking of bread and to prayer. And awe came upon every soul, and many wonders and signs were being done through the apostles.
Acts 2:42-43
Life had instantly changed for these disciples! Before Pentecost, 120 gathered and prayed in an upper room. Now, over 3,000 people, including Jews that had gathered from every corner of the Roman world, had been added to the body of Christ. The bulk of them knew no more about Jesus and Christianity than what they had picked up from Peter’s sermon on the day of Pentecost. Those words, coupled with the amazing display of God’s power, changed their hearts and minds and led them to a real faith in Christ. And they were eager to learn more about Jesus, their Messiah, and the Holy Spirit, who had been poured out upon them! They had no gospels or written record of the life and ministry of Jesus; so, they devoted themselves to the teaching of the apostles, who told them what they had witnessed and recounted what they had heard.
Their shared faith and experience of the Spirit, as well as the persecution that came their way for becoming followers of Jesus, drove them together in deep fellowship with one another, where they joyfully practiced what the apostles’ directed, as Jesus had taught them: the breaking of bread (or the Lord’s supper and probably regular meals) and prayer, which both precedes (remember, they prayed for 10 days straight before the Spirit fell at Pentecost) and flows out of revival!
Father God, I remember how excited I was to understand who you were when I was first saved! So, it’s easy for me to understand why these people, too, were bound together in their zeal to learn about you and your direction for them. Has my passion for your word and direction to me waned? I think about how they clung together because no one else understood and believed like they did!
Certainly, there are not many around me that understand and believe like I do. Does that drive me to be with my brothers and sisters in Christ? Does it reveal my need for Christian fellowship? Why or why not? What can I do to promote an atmosphere at Rio in which we encourage each other in our faith, and practice these things you have called us to do?
Dear Jesus, I pray for my brothers and sisters at Rio. Would you remind us again of the miracle that you have worked in all of our lives! Would you give us a passion and zeal to understand more of what you have revealed through your word, and a renewed commitment to follow you wherever you lead. Bind us together as the family of God; which is a family that transcends even flesh and bone. May you receive the glory as we look more and more like the church you designed us to be!
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…
They devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and to fellowship, to the breaking of bread and to prayer.
Acts 2:42-43
Yielding Prayer
Lord, these people fell into this rhythm of activity out of a passion to follow you. What does my activity say about my passions? My Jesus, I ask you to give me this heart of passion for you again! Help me to find like-minded people at Rio to chase after you with. I yield to this calling on my life.
Yielding Promise
And now, as I move into the day ahead, the Lord who loves me reminds me in Philippians 3…
Indeed, I count everything as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake I have suffered the loss of all things and count them as rubbish, in order that I may gain Christ and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which comes through faith in Christ, the righteousness from God that depends on faith— that I may know him and the power of his resurrection, and may share his sufferings, becoming like him in his death, that by any means possible I may attain the resurrection from the dead.
Philippians 3:8-11
Closing Prayer
Grant to me, Lord I pray, the Spirit to think and do always those things that are right, that I, who cannot exist without you, may by you be enabled to live according to your will; through Jesus Christ my Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.1
1Phyllis Tickle, Divine Hours, Prayers for Summertime, (Doubleday: Random House), The Prayer Appointed for the Week, pg 367.