Day 7
Acts 3:1
1 Now Peter and John went up together to the temple at the hour of prayer, the ninth hour.
It is fitting for this to be our text for the 7th day of our prayer together. The day and time that we typically go to Church. In our text Peter and John are also going up to the temple at the hour of prayer... the evening hour of prayer. This was a time that was set aside daily for dedicated Jews to remember the importance of their relationship with God. Actually there were 3 times. The first was at the 3 hour of the day or around 9am. The second at noon and the third was at the 9th hour or around 3pm. It was around the 3rd and the 9th hours at which were kept the morning and evening sacrifices commanded in the law. The people would go to the temple to pray. They would gather in the outer courts and pray to God because it was only allowed for the priest to offer these sacrifices. It is interesting to note that it was around the 9th hour that Christ cried out on the cross “my God my God why have you forsaken me”. Shortly after that He died completing the sacrifice for our sins. It is not at all strange then that we see Peter and John making use of this time to go up to the temple to pray.
We have already mentioned the importance of praying together because of our common purpose and hope as well as the encouragement that we can give one another (not to mention that it is commanded of us for our own good). However, we must also be aware of the necessity of the discipline required for regular prayer. God has called us into a relationship with Him and He wants to spend time with us. We need to set aside regular time for and with Him. The 9th hour was an hour of prayer. It was not a required hour. The people didn’t have to go up according to the law. The day did not come to a screeching halt at those particular times. The hours of prayer were a reminder of a relationship that God had instituted with Israel under the Law to seek Him, to love Him, to obey Him and to know Him.
When God calls us to an hour of prayer it is not so that we can spend some period of time in “religious activity” but so that we can know Him better. It is not so that we can get some requests answered for us but so that He can do something in us and perhaps also in others through us. When God calls us to an hour of prayer He calls us to a time of blessing. As Peter and John went to their hour of prayer they and many other were blessed in a variety of ways brought about by faithfulness. What does God want to accomplish in us and others in our hour of prayer?
Prayer Requests Day 7
1) Calvary Chapel in Celje - for continued spiritual and numerical growth, Sunday worship, weekly ladies and men's Bible studies, outreach to "Old-Folks" Home, wisdom in moving to a new meeting place (need more room for children's ministry), continued contact with teens from this summer's English Camp.
2) Salem Bible Church, Faith Evangelical Free, Davidsville Community Church, Mt. Aetna Bible Church, Morning Star Fellowship, New Passions, Roxbury United Methodist, Calvary Bible Church - continued faithful preaching of the word and outreach in their communities (and extended around the world)
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5 comments:
Jim pointed out a small, but important point in this first verse of Chapter 3. One I must have skipped over time and time again, to get to the story of the lame man’s healing miracle. The point being, John and Peter went to the temple to pray at a specific time, the 9th hour. There were other designated times for prayer back then, but the point being…prayer as a spiritual discipline was not only done in private or when prompted by the Spirit, but it was also organized and planned, with a designated time and place. Many churches today have abandoned this organized spiritual discipline, leaving prayer to our own individual devices & responsibility. Gone are the days when churches were built with a prominent steeple and bell tower, which often was used to call the community to their scheduled prayer meetings. I came across an old quote the other day: “Prayer is the rope in the belfry; we pull it, and it rings the bell up in heaven.”(author unknown). What a beautiful, descriptive analogy for prayer. Regardless of the obvious absence of the belfry in today’s church architecture, we should be mindful to keep the bell ringing…pulling the rope well and raising our prayers boldly before the throne of God! God bless the ministry of Jim and Olya and may their prayers be boldly raised and answered! On the journey together…Kathy
We want nothing more than to be faithful to God. We know that we fall far short but are thankful for any way that God might choose to use us. We hope that this blog will be an encouragement to those who visit its pages. May God alone be praised! -- Jim
I have found the past few days to be so inspirational. It has been such a blessing, to connect with Jim and Olya while we study God's word together in the book of Acts and...sharing the Lord's inspiration that is placed upon our hearts. I have enjoyed sharing this journey with my dear friends and the insightful correspondence that it has prompted. Thank you Jim and Olya for doing this study in Acts. I would love to continue this journey and study even past the 30 days.... May the Lord reveal Himself in His word and may we reveal ourselves to Him in the prayers we lift to heaven. Let us keep ringing those bells! Kathy
"When God calls us to an hour of prayer it is not so that we can spend some period of time in “religious activity” but so that we can know Him better. It is not so that we can get some requests answered for us but so that He can do something in us and perhaps also in others through us. When God calls us to an hour of prayer He calls us to a time of blessing. As Peter and John went to their hour of prayer they and many other were blessed in a variety of ways brought about by faithfulness. What does God want to accomplish in us and others in our hour of prayer?"
That last paragraph was really powerful and the concept that I keep coming back to. It is not about what we do, but about who God is and about us becoming more Christ-like because we spend time together. I spend a lot of time with my niece who is a year and a half and she mimics those closest to her and calls their names constantly. Hmmm. What would happen if we spent lots of time with God, called His name constantly and mimicked Him? It's certainly a goal worth having!
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