Daily Reading for Saturday, Jan. 19: Prayer

“Grace to you and peace, from Him who is and who was and who is to come, and from the seven Spirits who are before His throne, and from Jesus Christ, the faithful witness, the firstborn of the dead, and the ruler of the kings of the earth. To Him who loves us and released us from our sins by His blood-- and He has made us to be a kingdom, priests to His God and Father--to Him be the glory and the dominion forever and ever. Amen. BEHOLD, HE IS COMING WITH THE CLOUDS, and every eye will see Him, even those who pierced Him; and all the tribes of the earth will mourn over Him. So it is to be. Amen." Revelation 1:4-7 The New American Standard Bible

“...a preacher needs must to be a man of prayer. For every hour spent in his study-chair, he will have to spend two upon his knees. For every hour he devotes to wrestling with an obscure passage of Scripture, he must have two in which to be found wrestling with God. Prayer and preaching; preaching and prayer! They cannot be separated The ancient cry was: ‘To your tents, O Israel!’ The modern cry should be: ‘To your knees, O preacher, to your knees!’” E.M. Bounds

We are a kingdom of priests to our God and Father. We are preachers of the word in a very real sense to the world that is perishing. As E.M. Bounds exhorts, we must have preaching and prayer, prayer and preaching! We must lead a life that we cannot undertake any task, any conversation, any witnessing moment, without prayer. We need to be “prayed up” and praying in all seasons. And as we do, we fulfill the call of God on our lives. We walk in the destiny of God for our lives. We become what he has already proclaimed—priests of God almighty, standing before God on behalf of men so that we may proclaim the risen Christ and the hope he gives.