I KNEEL BEFORE THE FATHER

Ephesians 3:14
Our true strength comes from God and our brothers and sisters in the first century knew this. Awesome prayer transforms. The weak become strong, the faithless become faithful, the timid become bold and the proud become humble. This is why we kneel. Normally one only kneels before royalty. God is the king of the universe; surely we should kneel before Him! As we begin today let us kneel in prayer at this time.

1. PRAY IN THE SPIRIT ON ALL OCCASIONS
Ephesians 6:18
Paul encourages the church to pray all kinds of prayers, to be alert and to keep on praying for all the saints specifically. He also says that we should pray in the Spirit. If you are a true Christian, then the Spirit of God lives in you and assists in your prayers (Romans 8:26,27)! In fact the Spirit intercedes for us before the Father!

Sometimes we feel inadequate in our prayers. We don't know what to say or how to say it. Let us not worry about sounding "spiritual". God is not concerned with "displays of prayer", he wants heart-felt prayer instead. This is where the Spirit comes in, knowing our hearts and our inmost thoughts, and can express them to God for us as we pray!

The Spirit not only knows our hearts, but knows the mind of God as well. (1 Corinthians 2:10-12). Because of this, the Spirit is able to bring the two - our hearts and the mind of God - together through prayer. Thus, only through prayer can we truly know God. We cannot know someone we never speak to and never listen to, ex. Jesus early in the morning in Mark 1:35 - he knew what God's will was for him and what direction to take because he relied on prayer. So, pray and God will show you too the way to go.

No matter what is going on, pray about it. All occasions are right for prayer. Pray all kinds of prayer - long, short; happy, sad, thankful, questioning, asking, praising; for others, for yourself; with others, by yourself; before work, after work, at work, in parks, before class; whenever and wherever. And do it all remembering Mark 11:24. So, we can pray all kinds of prayers. But they all must have one common aspect - humility.

2. PRAY WITH HUMILITY
1 Peter 5:5-7
Of all the ways we can pray, kneeling probably requires the most humility. See, God wants us to humble ourselves. Like any good father he wants us to know on our own what we should do. He will humble us when needed, but we need to get to the point where we do it ourselves also.

Philippians 4:6,7 Let us kneel and cast all our anxiety on Him, so that His peace will guard our hearts. Remember Jesus in the boat during the storm. While others were fearful he had peace. That is the kid of prayer we can be praying , so let us kneel before the Father as much as we can in the month of March! God bless as we strive to get closer to Him in prayer!