Are you praying?

Are you praying?

I think that one of the big marks of a genuine conversion is that we begin to pray. I mean more than just saying a prayer or doing a religious ritual action. I mean connecting with God in personal communion. 

The apostle Paul was raised as a strict Pharisee (Philippians 3:5) and he must have said a lot of ritual prayers. But after meeting the Risen Jesus on the Damascus Road, the Lord identified that Paul had changed and become a follower of Jesus by simply saying that he “is praying” (Acts 9:11). This was the sign of the big change. Having met the Risen Christ, Paul, for the first time in his life, was truly communing with God in intimate prayer.

Humanity was made for a personal prayer intimacy with God. 

It is built into what we are and what we are meant to be. 

Without a personal relationship with God, our lives have something huge missing. 

In his quest for the meaning of life, the writer of Ecclesiastes describes this need for God. In Ecclesiastes 3:11 he says that God “has put eternity into man's heart”. Our hearts are designed for something more than what this temporal life can offer. 

King David found this more in God. This greatest of Israel’s kings, who had the best that this life can offer, confessed in Psalms 63:1-3; “O God, you are my God; earnestly I seek you; my soul thirsts for you; my flesh faints for you, as in a dry and weary land where there is no water. 2 So I have looked upon you in the sanctuary, beholding your power and glory. 3 Because your steadfast love is better than life, my lips will praise you.” 

To know God as “my God”, to “thirst” for Him personally, to behold his “power and glory” and to find that his “love is better than life”; this is the gift and blessing of intimacy with God for which humanity was created.

This prayer intimacy began for Paul when he encountered the Risen Jesus Christ (Acts 9). 

It can begin for us as we allow the Word of God to lead us to put our faith in this Crucified and Risen Jesus Christ.

'Jesus said, ...... "Blessed are those who have not seen (a post-resurrection appearance) and yet have believed.” 30 Now Jesus did many other signs in the presence of the disciples, which are not written in this book (John' Gospel); 31 but these are written so that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name.' (John 20:29-31 ESV )

Start reading the Gospel of John and may this testimony lead you to "believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name."