Dear KCPC Congregation of Jesus,
This is an important invitation. Would you read it prayerfully and carefully with your family? I love you.
This is an invitation to our congregational prayer meeting this Lord’s Day evening! Would you consider making plans to attend our prayer meeting this Sunday evening at 6 pm?
We plan to gather as a congregation and cry out to God for help this Sunday evening at 6 pm at our church building. Would you join us? Let us talk straight: We make time for what is most important to us. If our favorite sports team is playing, we are diligent to arrive on time to see it (or sit down in front of it); if we have tickets to a play, a concert, a ballet, etc. we make time to attend it (and arrive promptly, too!). What is most important to you? What do you rise early to do? What do you put aside free time to work on? What do you make time to do with great earnestness and diligence?
I encourage you to think seriously about making attendance to prayer meeting important on your schedule, especially when it is on the Lord’s Day. I realize that sometimes there are things that prevent us from attending, but let us seek to be faithful and well-pleasing to Jesus (2 Cor. 5:9).
Come this Sunday evening NOT merely because you got this invitation. No, rather, come because this invitation served as a reminder to you of the glorious riches found in our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Your heart was moved because of God’s grace, reminding you that you’re an undeserving sinner for whom Christ has lived and died, and God the Father loves you and calls you His own, and has added you to His Glorious Church! May this invitation whet your spiritual appetite for a prayer feast together with God’s people at the Throne of Grace! May you meditate upon the beauty and glory of Christ as He lives to pray for us and the importance Christ placed on prayer for us in His ministry in His humble estate of humiliation, and now, in His glorious estate of exaltation (Heb. 4:16; 7:25)! May you mediate about how we can come together and see the king before the eyes of our faith, who will grant us encouragement, endurance, and steadfastness in our faith on our pilgrimage! The King delights in changing us by His Spirit when we pray! (2 Cor. 3:18).
Let us meditate on the wonderful scriptures that God has revealed to us that teach us the importance of praying together and the spiritual riches that will come from it! (see Eph. 1:15-23 and 3:14-21 as just two examples, but I have listed more below).
Why is it important for us to pray together as a congregation? We are a desperately needy people. We have many things to pray about. Here are just a few:
“Therefore, confess your sins to one another and pray for one another, that you may be healed. The prayer of a righteous person has great power as it is working.â€
– ESV James 5:16
- Prayer is a foundational and vital part of our spiritual life as a congregation (Acts 2:42; Eph. 6:18-20; 2 Cor. 1:11).
- All things are possible when we pray! (Mark 9:23; Luke 18:7-8).
- Some spiritual matters in the congregation can only be handled through prayer (And how do we know which ones? We don’t know! Therefore we always pray—especially together, Mark 9:29).
- We are commanded to pray without ceasing, and at all times (Luke 18:1; 1 Thess. 5:17; Eph. 6:18-20; 1 Tim. 2:1, 8).
- As God’s people we are powerless, thankless, immature, and spiritually lazy without prayer (Col. 1:9-11; 4:2-4; 2 Thess. 1:11-12; Col. 4:12; James 5:16).
- We are commanded to “watch and pray†by our Lord Jesus Christ (Matt. 26:41). The Lord Jesus told this to his disciples corporately because there are many temptations, and many things that trouble us are not so obvious to us, and we are easily self-deceived by sin.
- If we humble ourselves and pray as a congregation, we are promised that God will hear and heal us and our church (this is ultimately that He will continue to make us holy, 2 Chr. 7:14).
- We are told to pray because it will build our faith and increase our love for God (Psa. 116:1-4).
- We are to pray in the Holy Spirit to build up our faith (Jude 20).
- We are told to pray for laborers to help in the building of the church and to make the Gospel known (Matt. 9:38).
- The Holy Spirit loves to minister to God’s people by taking us to Christ in prayer teaching us the truth, and helping us to pray more effectively (John 16:13; Rom. 8:26).
- We are to see in Scripture the saints praying for one another and be encouraged that God hears, and that these prayers together increase our love for each other! (Acts 2:42; Rom. 15:30; 2 Cor. 9:14; Col. 1:3; 1 Thess. 1:2; 3:10; 5:25; 2 Tim. 1:3; Philemon 1:4; Heb. 13:18).
I am praying that you will make a special effort to come to this opportunity to pray together as a congregation!
“O Lord, let your ear be attentive to the prayer of your servant, and to the prayer of your servants who delight to fear your name…â€
– ESV Nehemiah 1:11
In Christ’s love,
Pastor Biggs