I think I have acknowledged this before...I have never felt extremely confident in my prayer life.
Even as I type that, I recognize a glaring error...it doesn't matter whether I feel confident in my prayer life or not...it matters whether I feel confident in the God I am praying to.
Having said that, let's look at this passage.
The context is that the disciples of Christ (about 120 of them) were following Jesus instructions about waiting for the coming of the Holy Spirit that Jesus had promised them. They didn't know what to do. They didn't know when He would show up. They just knew that Jesus had told them to go to Jerusalem and to wait.
And they obeyed.
I think I mentioned in a previous post that I read at least one commentator who referred to the book of Acts as the Gospel of the Holy Spirit. It is very telling to me as we look forward to how the Holy Spirit was going to fall on this group of disciples so powerfully in chapter 2, that they were "with one mind continually devoting themselves to prayer."
What are things we are unsure about? What are things we can't quite see what the next step is? What decisions are facing you personally, or facing your family, or facing your church body as a whole? When the disciples knew absolutely nothing about what God's plans for them were and how they were supposed to proceed, they simply prayed together. I think about the disagreements that would arise later in the church about the entrance of the gentiles. I think about Paul and Barnabas's disagreement about John Mark. I think about all of the other "discussions" that have been had in churches down through the centuries. I am convinced that the seeds of those differences of opinions were at least already there on those days when the 120 were gathered to pray. And yet they were of "one mind"...and in that "one mind" they were praying.
And what was their "one mind"? I am convinced it was that they were all devoted to the Christ they had put absolute faith in. They were all absolutely devoted to following Him and His Spirit that would come soon no matter what the costs. And they were devoted to depending utterly and completely on the God who had the power to raise Jesus from the dead. So they prayed.
I feel like I would give anything to have been a part of that room. I wish I could learn from those who asked Jesus directly "Lord, teach us to pray." I wish I could see the group and individual dynamics of prayer that existed in this body of believers. But maybe, it's all the same that I cannot. Maybe God intended it that way so we would have to depend on Him for how to pray now just as I'm sure they did then.
As we seek to follow the Holy Spirit of Jesus Christ almost 2,000 years later, may we recognize that the Spirit they were waiting on is still here with us today. May we be united, not in all of the details of the "hows" and the methods and the opinions- because we can never be united in all of those things this side of eternity. But may we be united in our commitment to follow the guidance of the Spirit through the Word and through prayer. May we re-learn how to pray together in ways that bring the power of the Spirit forcefully into our congregations and into our cities.
May we once again be a people of power...only because we are a humble people of prayer. What will you pray today? How will you encourage someone else who is a fellow believer to pray? Who will lead our churches once again to "with one mind, continually devote ourselves to prayer?"
Amen X 7 !!!
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