Devoted to Prayer (Acts 1:14)

All these with one accord were devoting themselves to prayer…
– Acts 1:14

Oh, I love this verse, especially when you understand the context. Jesus has just commissioned His followers. “You’ll receive power from the Holy Spirit. You’re going to be My witnesses to the ends of the Earth.” And then He takes the flight of all flights up to Heaven, just ascends in front of their eyes, and they’re dumbfounded. They’re like, “What just happened?” Jesus just lifted up to the sky, and He is gone. And these angels tell them, “He’s coming back”. Like what a reminder!

One day, it could be today, Jesus is coming back for all who trust in Him. So keep your eyes on the sky today.

Acts 1:14 tells us the secret to obeying God’s Mission.

But now here they are. They’ve got this commission to go to the ends of the Earth spreading the good news of His love, knowing it’s going to cost them, knowing it’s going to be hard, like they’ve just seen Jesus be killed.

He’s to hold them over, and ove,r and over again. That to follow Him means to deny themselves, take up their cross themselves, and follow him. So what do they do? They get together and devote themselves to whiteboarding a plan. They devote themselves to strategizing. No, they don’t do that. They devote themselves to prayer. They devote their lives to seeking God because they know there is no way they can do what Jesus has called them to do without God’s help, without God’s power, without God’s wisdom, without God’s strength, without God’s protection, without God’s provision could go on, and on, and on. The disciples knew they needed God.

And so I would just ask you today, even as I ask myself this question in a fresh way. Is your life devoted to prayer like we see here? Are you devoted to prayer?

Acts 1:14 challenges us to depend on God through prayer.

Would that be a description of your life in such a way that if someone were to observe your life, they would see you are devoted to seeking God all the time for everything because you know you can’t do anything apart from His help, His wisdom, His strength, His love, His Spirit, His power at work in you.

And if people were to look at your family, would they say that it is a family devoted to prayer? If people were to look at your church, would they say that’s a church devoted to prayer? They don’t just kind of do perfunctory prayers at the beginning of meetings, or worship gatherings, or here and there kind of as a transition from one thing to the next. They are devoted to praying, to seeking God, to desperately saying, “God, we can’t do anything without you. We need you in all these different ways”.

Oh God, I fear that for many of us in our lives and our families in our churches, we’re not devoted to prayer. And we confess that this is a picture of pride in us because we think we can do life and all You’re calling us to do in life on our own, apart from praying for Your power, and Your provision, and Your protection, and Your leadership, and Your wisdom, and Your strength, and Your love and Your Spirit at work in us.

So God, we repent of this. We pray You make us people, make us families, make us churches that are devoted to prayer. God, we pray that You would teach us to pray like we see here in the Book of Acts, that we might see what they saw in the Book of Acts. God, we want to see You moving in power and through our lives. We want to see the gospel spreading like wildfire. God, we want to see the church growing and thriving. So God, we pray, teach us to devote ourselves to prayer, cause us, lead us, and guide us to devote ourselves to prayer, starting in each of our lives, spreading to our families, and becoming the story of our churches. That we are a people who are devoting ourselves with one accord to prayer.

Prayer for the Rashaida People

God, we pray right now, we devote ourselves to prayer for the spread of the gospel to the ends of the Earth. We pray specifically today for the Rashaida people of Sudan, for 200,000 of this Arabic-speaking Sudanese people group, where there are no known followers of Jesus. God, for the Rashaida people of Sudan, we pray for their salvation. We pray that the good news of Your love would spread to the ends of the Earth, including the Rashaida people of Sudan. Please God, may it be so. And make us a people who are devoted to praying like this all the time. In Jesus’ Name we pray. Amen.