Am I Really Supposed to Pray All the Time?

"Rejoice always; pray without ceasing; in everything give thanks; for this is God's will for you in Christ Jesus" (1 Thessalonians 5:16-18)

I want to take you back to that same passage we were considering the week before last, beloved ("Does God Want Me to be Happy?"), and ask the question often posed: "Does God really expect me to pray all the time?" Here the Greek verb proseuchomai is very general, referring to all forms of prayer into which we as believers may enter at any time. The apostle's focus is clearly more upon the reverential "attitude" of the believer in prayer than the type or details of any particular prayer. Very simply, it must become our prevailing attitude toward and approach to God in prayer that is to be our continual practice.

Furthermore, the Greek adverb adialeiptos means literally "without ceasing" and is what makes Paul's command to pray so compelling for us as Christians. The command, however, is not that we should prevail in the practice of prayer every moment of every day. The apostle is not calling us to enter into a perpetual prayer meeting! Rather he is exhorting every believer to seize every opportunity to pray as it might be presented to us by the indwelling Spirit of God. Dr. Spiros Zodhiates agreed when he wrote:

"In 1 Thess. 5:17, we find Paul's injunction to incessantly pray, which means to pray every time an opportunity presents itself and to be in a constant attitude of dependence upon God" (The Complete Word Study Dictionary, p.82)

Thus, it is clearly more toward the believer's attitude of prayer that the apostle here turns our attention, beloved. As D. Edmond Hiebert put it:

"In the Christian life the act of prayer is intermittent but the spirit of prayer should be incessant" (The Thessalonian Epistles, p.241)

Prayer is the one resource, then, to which we can and should turn immediately whenever the need arises. It should be the atmosphere of our living, the battleground of our spiritual warfare. So closely to the act of prayer should we walk every moment that we are never any farther from it than the effort it takes to call upon the Lord. We should remove from it any and all religious vestiges that might cause us to think of it as solely or even primarily belonging to the church sanctuary or to the structured service of worship as it appears in the church bulletin. Prayer is at its most basic level communication with God, beloved, such communication as is natural and flowing and the healthy response of the human spirit to the moment by moment prompting of the Spirit within.

Am I really supposed to pray all the time? No. Am I ever to be in the spirit and attitude of prayer? Absolutely! Don't make God have to "chase you down" and bring back to your mind the need for prayer, beloved. Stay close to it! Breathe it in as you walk in fellowship with the Lord Jesus Christ. As you do, the promise of the Apostle James to the first century church will become a living reality in your life as well:

"The effective prayer of a righteous man can accomplish much" (James 5:16b)

Ron