Prayer—Your Most Christlike Work - By Jim Tharp

The most Godlike life you can live is one of prayer. The most Christlike activity you can share is to pray for others. The heavenly seraphim around God’s throne never cease praising, adoring, and worshiping God (Revelation 4:8). How wonderful that we can join the heavenly host in praise and worship. But angels do not intercede. The ministry of intercession is, above all else, the ministry of Christ and those saved by Christ.

While here on earth Christ seemed to long for prayer time with His disciples. He sent them to preach, to teach, and to heal. But He took them with Him to pray. This was true on the Mount of Transfiguration. The glory of the transfiguration was God’s extra bonus. They were there to pray.

In Gethsemane, also, Christ longed for the prayer fellowship of His disciples. He repeatedly came to awaken them and plead for their prayer help. His request was for them to “watch with” Him, not to watch Him as He prayed. This is where they failed Him most—and where we fail Him today.

Christ wants your prayer more than He wants any other service or gift. You can do much in addition to prayer, but you can never do anything more Christlike or more spiritually significant. Prayer must accompany all you do and take priority over all else. You mean most to Christ when you join Him in prayer.

Preparing for the Second Coming of Christ - by James Thap

Jesus warned: “But take heed to yourselves, lest your hearts be weighed down with carousing, drunkenness, and cares of this life, and that Day come on you unexpectedly. For it will come as a snare on all those who dwell on the face of the whole earth. Watch therefore, and pray always that you may be counted worthy to escape all these things that will come to pass, and to stand before the Son of Man.” (Luke 21:34-36)

The way to prepare for Christ’s Second Coming, is found in John 3:16-19: “For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life. For God did not send His Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world through Him might be saved. He who believes in Him is not condemned; but he who does not believe is condemned already, because he has not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God. And this is the condemnation, that the light has come into the world, and men loved darkness rather than light, because their deeds were evil.”

Our Bible reminds us that getting religious does not prepare us for death or for the Second Coming of Jesus Christ. We also read in chapter 3 of John’s gospel about an especially important religious leader in Jerusalem coming to Jesus one night to question Him about His power to do so many amazing miracles. Jesus sensed the man’s hunger for spiritual truth, so His first words to Nicodemus were, “Most assuredly, I say to you, unless one is born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God” (John 3:3).

Jesus is the only way to God. Jesus said, “I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through Me” (John 14:6). We cannot earn our salvation by our good works; we are all sinners, but Christ died for our sins. To be “born again” we must ask His forgiveness and turn from our sins—that is called repentance. We are saved by God’s grace when we have faith in Jesus and believe that He is the son of God, who died on the cross to pay our debt of sin, and that He was resurrected and is seated at the right hand of our Heavenly Father hearing our prayers. We are now adopted into God’s redeemed family and ready to live the Christian life. Of course, this includes a life of prayer, reading our Bible, taking time to worship God, growing in faith, and finding a body of believers for fellowship.