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training Timothy for the ministry, Paul wanted him to understand how
the church works. So he began with the important stuff like prayer. In
essence, Paul was saying, 'Before you do anything else, pray. Before you
teach anything else, teach your people to pray.' Why? Because if God's
not on your side, you won't succeed! Most of us understand this
intellectually. We say a quick prayer as we're running out of the door.
We say grace before a meal. We open our church services with prayer. But
few of us grasp the real importance of prayer, and Paul didn't want
Timothy to be misled or misinformed about the place of prayer in the
church. We dare not fool ourselves into thinking we can 'make things
happen' without prayer. If a church isn't a praying church, it doesn't
matter how well the pastor preaches or the choir sings, or how nice the
building is. For it to succeed, Jesus said, '...My house shall be a
house of prayer...' (Luke 19:46 NAS). Oswald Chambers said, 'We look
upon prayer as a means of getting things for ourselves: the Bible's idea
of prayer is that we may get to know God Himself.' You aren't coming to
church just to hear a lively sermon or a good song, you're coming to
meet with God. The pastor and the choir are vehicles through which He
can speak, but there's no substitute for prayer. It's not merely a nice
sentiment; your spiritual growth and survival depend on it. So if you've
got out of the habit of praying--right now get back into it!
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