This is the text for Tuedays devotional on WATH. 012114 Tuesday Good morning! This is Jim Lambert, pastor of the Canaanville and the Stewart United Methodist Churches. It is my pleasure to share some thoughts with you. This week I am concentrating on prayer. It is easy to talk about prayer, but it is harder to do it. It is not unusual, even among ministers, for this to happen. We will have a meeting and want to close with prayer and someone asks for prayer requests for concerns that others may have. And all this is good, but the conversation lasts twenty minutes and the prayer lasts five minutes. So today find some time to pray. Yesterday I shared with you the importance of coming to God humbly and having turned away from sin and turning to God. Today, I want to share with you about being wholehearted in prayer. That means that we are putting all of our heart into whatever it is that God has given us to do. Did you ever do something half-heartedly? We all have, I’m sure. The results are not great and sometimes they can be disastrous. There is a TV show I enjoy called “Restaurant Impossible” where Chef Robert Irvine goes into a failing restaurant and tries to turn it around. What began as a show about remodeling, menus and management to repair a broken restaurant has turned into a show that is as much about restoring relationships among owners and managers and staff, which are usually families or others in close relationships. Frequently the owner invites Robert in to figure out why his or her business is failing only to be confronted with the shocking news that they are the main problem. At some turning point the owner or general manager has become half-hearted in the way he or she sees the business and approaches their job. Dirt and dust begin to accumulate. Details are left undone. Small repairs undone, become big problems. Staff is poorly trained and supervised. Everyone is left to do what they think is right. Confusion sets in. It is a downward spiral. The key to righting all of this begins with the relationships at the top and taking responsibility for what has gone wrong. Wholeheartedness in seeking God and taking responsibility for what is wrong are keys to successful prayer. When it comes to prayer, if you pray because you think you have to, it becomes drudgery and God seems like a taskmaster cracking his whip. But when the realization comes along we have the privilege of speaking to and hearing from God, the Most High, creator of all things, who loves us dearly and wants to restore our relationship with Him. Then prayer becomes a joy. It is time spent with the One who loves you most and delights in your company. God wants us to seek Him with our whole hearts because that is what is best for us. It opens the way for God to respond wholeheartedly. God desires for us to break free from the pattern of half-hearted drudgery once and for all. We are living in a day to stand out and shine for Jesus. God has given His very best, His one and only Son, so that we might be saved and have our relationship with Him restored. Shouldn’t we in turn give Him our very best wholehearted devotion in every way, including prayer? Let’s pray: Loving God, who gave so much for us, we give you thanks today with our whole hearts. We are grateful for the blessing you have poured out and the hope that comes from you for each new day. We ask that you would give strength and healing to those who are sick, and that you would grant peace of mind to those who are troubled. And above all else we pray for those who do not yet know your Son Jesus as their Savior, that they would come to know Him at this time and receive Him into their hearts as Lord. Thank you merciful Father as we ask these things in the name of your Son Jesus. Amen. If you would like to read the transcript of this message go to the Canaanville or Stewart Facebook Pages. This is Pastor Jim Lambert. May God bless you as you seek to follow Him.
Posted on: Tue, 21 Jan 2014 16:53:17 +0000
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