Continue in prayer: 'Keep on keepin' on'

Prayer is that divinely appointed means of experiencing an intimate, personal relationship with a heavenly Father who loves you. It’s participating in His revealed plan in His Word to make His love known to a lost world through His people.

I Thessalonians 5:17: [17] Pray without ceasing.

Prayer is you talk to God about every aspect . . . you talk to God about all the things that on your heart. That’s why you pray about EVERYTHING, explains Richard Jordan.

Every detail of your life is brought into the consciousness of it being lived in the presence of God, and you bring it under the authority of God’s Word, under the lordship of Jesus Christ.

You do it by looking at the details of your life and saying, “Lord, here’s what’s going on in my life and here’s how I think about it. Lord, what does your Word say about it; how does your Word apply . . . ?”

Prayer literally becomes the breath of your inner man and it becomes the catalyst; it becomes the thing that catalyzes taking the truth of God’s Word in my experience and putting them together and making it my life. It’s a wonderful thing.

Colossians 4:2: [2] Continue in prayer, and watch in the same with thanksgiving;

When Paul says “continue in prayer,” what’s he’s talking about is CONTINUE in this intimate personal communion with a heavenly Father who loves you and demonstrated it completely and fully and established it forever in Christ, and wants more than anything that fellowship with you.

If God had wanted perfection, He would have stayed home. If He wanted you to be perfect, He knew you couldn’t and wouldn’t. That’s why He MAKES you perfect in His Son.

What He wants is your trust. He wants you to trust Him. He wants you to enter Him into your life in all of its details. Not having little areas over there that you’re going to keep for yourself. Not like that little hidey hole in the bottom desk drawer of life, but to take His life, His thinking and all of your life . . .

How do you do that? You simply contemplate every detail of your life in light of what His Word says. What great motivation that is! You say, “Here’s something going on in my life I have no idea what God’s Word has to say about it.” If you don’t know something, go look for it.

I’m interested in the Word because I want to know what God says about this thing in my life and I want to be able to get it myself. That’s what right division is all about. It has to do with the pursuit of God’s Word and the life of God in our life; of Christ as our life.

Paul says, “Continue in that.” When you continue in something, you endure in it, you persevere in it. You persist in it; you hold on to it and you don’t let it go. We used to say, “Keep on keepin’ on.”

All of your conscious thinking should be lived in a communion with God; the consciousness of His presence in your life. One of the things you do is train yourself not to talk to yourself. You talk to the ever-present Creator of the universe and you don’t wonder, “What’s God over there thinking about me?”

You know, when you go in a room, you’re real self-conscious. You’re thinking about what everybody else is thinking about you. Well, what are they thinking about? They’re thinking about what everybody else is thinking about them. They aren’t thinking about you; they’re thinking about themselves. That’s exactly what you’re doing!

But when you become friends with somebody, and you become intimate with them, and you get to know them, all of a sudden you’re not worried about what they’re thinking about you.

You want to talk to them and share yourself with them, and them with you, and welcome them into your heart. That’s what you’re to continue in; that’s what “continue in prayer” is. That’s why it’s the first thing you do.

The local assembly is to be a group of people in whom Christ is their life and that’s how He IS your life. That’s how you experience that.

Soon enough, it becomes just that consciousness, and all of your self-talk becomes not talk to YOU, but talk to Him. That’s how you activate the doctrine that’s in your heart, because the Holy Spirit takes that doctrine in your heart—your conscience takes it and the talk you’re doing and it will say “nah,” and it reproves and corrects and instructs in righteousness, and that’s called growth.

Paul says, “Not only continue in it but watch in the same.” That’s means be vigilant. You’re being alert, because Paul understood—God knows that there are always things to take your eye off the ball.

There are constantly things in your life to divert you away from that intimate fellowship that is your privilege with God the Father through Christ Jesus. Troubles come. Maybe it’s sickness. Maybe it’s just things: Heartaches, financial reversals, assaults from others, slander that comes your way. Misunderstandings, anxiety about something you’re trying to resolve.

All kinds of things that can come to ROB you of continuing, praying without ceasing, by getting your mind off, “Lord what are we doing here, and what will we do . . .” and onto self.

So Paul says, “Watch in the same with thanksgiving.” In Colossians, Thanksgiving is referred to more than in any other of Paul’s epistles. It’s a recurring theme.

Thanksgiving, that’s grace thinking. Thanksgiving is what keeps you awake and alert; it’s what keeps you watching. It’s what keeps you alert in your spiritual life.