Pray Without Ceasing

I Thessalonians 5:17 ‘Pray without ceasing.’

The first question most Christians ask after reading this verse is ‘is God really serious when he asks us to pray without ceasing?’ To better understand what God expects of us, we have to examine why we should pray, just what qualifies as prayer, and how we can be in constant communion with God. Probably the best reason we can give for praying incessantly is that God commands it. And if He commands it He will make a way by which it can be done. But there are other good reasons why we should be constantly in prayer. Prayer is about getting to know God better, trusting him more, being more obedient to Him and developing a closer love relationship with Him. The real purpose of prayer is not to get God’s help in accomplishing our agenda, but discovering God’s will and allowing Him to fulfil that will through us. Which is why He assures us of answers to prayer when we pray according to His will. 1 John 14,15 says that ‘if we ask anything according to His will, He hears us, and…we have the petitions we desired of Him.’

Although we usually think of prayer in terms of words or sentences that we communicate to God either orally or silently, there are also times when God reads our minds and discerns even the desires of our hearts. In such cases, Romans 8:26,27 tells us that the Holy Spirit makes intercession for us when we don’t know how to pray. However this is no doubt dependent on our being in close communion with God or in a spirit of prayer. Praying without ceasing is not a matter of continuous unbroken prayer, but a determination to persist and persevere in prayer, in confident expectation that God will answer in His time, and according to His good, acceptable and perfect will.

Is prayer a priority in your Christian walk?
Do you pray without ceasing?
Are you in constant communication with God daily?

Simply Trusting