This study is from an on going online Daily Bible Study at:
DailyBibleStudy.Org | Daily Bible Study Index Page | Daily Bible Study Online E-Book Library
Blog postings occur at 6 P.M. each day following the day they have been written. The Daily Studies are available a full day earlier by signing up on the Daily Bible Study Mailing List (optional of course).
To allow the Daily Bible Study to come to you via e-mail every day, and also offer your support for the study, then please consider signing up on the:
Bible Study Mailing List
Bible Study Public Notebook
1 Thessalonians 5:17
DailyBibleStudy.Org
Bible Study Notebook
17 Pray [proseuchomai] without ceasing. [adialeiptos] KJV-Interlinear
17 pray without ceasing; NASB
To most people, the word ‘pray’ means to ask, plead, implore, to call upon, to urge. It has been given the meaning of making a request to someone who is in a position to grant your petition requests. Requests that you yourself cannot attain.
But prayer is more than just making requests. It is a form of ongoing communication, or engagement, that ties or bonds a relationship together.
Prayer is a proactive act, that brings the thinking of the one who is praying, to the one to whom he is praying. Prayer serves to cause your mind to focus on the recipient of your prayer and the whole purpose for which you are praying in the first place.
But, prayer is also a static state or presence of mind, wherein you may not be making any specific or formal requests, but are simply functioning within the sphere in which prayers are efficacious. And in that respect, prayer is a form of worship, or a linking with God.
So, prayer is more than just asking God for this or that, prayer is also your ongoing state of fellowship, wherein you are to live your moment by moment life.
Where fellowship is the state of righteous perfection, the environment in which your spiritual life functions properly, so too, prayer is the action of conscious thinking, which causes you to think about God, Christ, doctrine and so forth.
When you are thinking doctrine, then you are not thinking evil. When you are in a state of fellowship, then you are not in a state of carnality. When you are making requests of God, then you are not engaged in carnal activities.
In this fashion, prayer is a form of self discipline that helps you to focus on your spiritual state, and remain there, lest you lose ground in your spiritual life by pondering the carnal things of this world.
You are commanded to pray and to pray often. You are commanded to be in fellowship and to be in fellowship all of the time. You are commanded to be alert as to your spiritual state, so that you can correct your errors and recover your spiritual status.
Why?
Because your spiritual life functions only when you are in fellowship. Your spiritual blessings function and your relationship with God exists only while you are in fellowship. And more than that, prayer helps you to circulate the doctrines in your head, so that you can gain even more understanding of them while you use them or consider them during your thinking processes. Prayer helps you to review, evaluate, and to keep in the forefront of your thoughts, the doctrines and things of God.
Prayer gives you a good check and balance system for monitoring your life.
And, prayer is your only mechanism of communication with God, from within your fellowship sphere, in this life.
Prayer includes your confessions to God the Father, your studies and thoughts while in fellowship, that are ongoing in life. It includes your expressions of thanks, as well as your requests for yourself and for others.
Your spiritual life is your most valuable possession. It comes to you courtesy of God. The more that you invest in it, the greater your life now, and especially in eternity, will be.
