Devotional: God’s house of prayer awaits you.
Luke 11:9–10
“So I say to you, ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives, and he who seeks finds, and to him who knocks it will be opened.”
There is within human nature an instinct to seek help from a power greater than ourselves—the Lord God Almighty. People who ridicule prayer in times of prosperity are often the very ones who cry out most earnestly when trouble strikes. No prayer has ever been more honest than the desperate cry of an atheist who suddenly stares death in the face.
On one sailing vessel, a crewman loudly boasted of his atheism. Yet when a violent storm threatened to tear the ship apart, that same man dropped to his knees before the ship’s chaplain and confessed his unbelief. In a moment, his atheism evaporated. In mortal terror he pleaded with God for mercy. As birds flee to their nests and deer run to their hiding places, so men and women in agony instinctively cry out to Someone greater when the storms of life strike.
We remember the thief dying beside our Lord, who at the final moment of his life cried out,
“Lord, remember me when You come into Your kingdom.”
To which Jesus replied,
“Assuredly, I say to you, today you will be with Me in Paradise.” (Luke 23:39–43)
And when Jesus cleansed the temple, He declared,
“It is written, ‘My house shall be called a house of prayer,’ but you have made it a ‘den of thieves.’” (Matthew 21:13)
Do you know that every Wednesday evening, from 6:00 to 8:00 pm, the doors of Calvary Chapel Secret Harbour are open for Christ’s Church to gather in prayer? For those sacred moments, a cement building becomes God’s house of prayer. The Lord gives us the opportunity, the privilege, the joy, and the wonder of coming together in His name to cry out to Him as one body.
The Apostle James gives a sobering warning—a warning we should take seriously in these Last Days before the Rapture of the Church and the coming seven-year Tribulation. He writes:
“You lust and do not have… you fight and war. Yet you do not have because you do not ask.
You ask and do not receive, because you ask amiss, that you may spend it on your pleasures…
Do you not know that friendship with the world is enmity with God?…
The Spirit who dwells in us yearns jealously.” (James 4:1–5)
But there is hope—glorious hope:
“God resists the proud,
But gives grace to the humble.”
Therefore:
“Submit to God. Resist the devil and he will flee from you. Draw near to God and He will draw near to you.” (James 4:6–8)
May we be a people who ask… who seek… who knock— and who gather together faithfully in God’s house of prayer.
Let us not live foolishly as did that atheist and only cry out to God when our lives are at threat!