Our third reason to pray together is that the Lord pours out blessings on His people when the church gathers to pray. There are several facets to that blessing and we will explore more of them in future weeks. Here are just a few examples for us to meditate upon this week:
1) The blessing of having God with us
We saw in reason #2 that the Lord promises to be specially present where two or three of His disciples meet together in His name. How could there not be special blessing when He is specially present? Can we conceive of a greater blessing than to be in the presence of the Lord of glory?
2) The blessing of knowing that God hears us:
Psalm 34:15 The eyes of the LORD are toward the righteous And His ears are open to their cry.
This verse is just a few short words in length but its message is staggering. God does not hear those who have sin in their hearts (Psalm 66:18) and His eyes are too pure to look upon sin (Habakkuk 1:13). So we know that none of us, sinners by nature and by practice, could have any hope that God would ever listen to our prayers. One of the incalculable privileges we have when we trust Jesus and His finished work as the sole ground of our salvation, is to have His righteousness credited to us as our own. In Christ, therefore, we are "the righteous" of whom this verse speaks. God receives us as He receives Jesus, and He hears us when we pray!
3) The blessing that God answers us
Acts 4:24 And when they heard this, they lifted their voices to God with one accord and said, “O Lord, it is You who made the heaven and the earth and the sea, and all that is in them,........ 31 And when they had prayed, the place where they had gathered together was shaken, and they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak the word of God with boldness.
Peter and John had been arrested by the authorities in an early indication of the persecution that the followers of Jesus were about to undergo. They gather for prayer, not asking that the Lord might spare them from this danger (which Jesus had taught them to expect), but that He might enable them to speak God's word with confidence in the face of the threats. This verse records the immediate and emphatic answer God gave them, granting them all that they needed to be obedient to the Great Commission they had received.
The blessings we receive when we gather for prayer may not always be as immediate or as obvious as the one granted to the disciples here, but we who are His children know from experience that they are real. He is among us and His ear is inclined to hear us, so we can be confident He will answer us (1 John 5:15).
Here some more examples in which it is clear that God was present, heard the prayers of His children and granted them the thing they were seeking in His name:
Acts 2:42–43 They were continually devoting themselves to the apostles’ teaching and to fellowship, to the breaking of bread and to prayer. 43 Everyone kept feeling a sense of awe; and many wonders and signs were taking place through the apostles.
Acts 12:5–7 So Peter was kept in the prison, but prayer for him was being made fervently by the church to God. 6 On the very night when Herod was about to bring him forward, Peter was sleeping between two soldiers, bound with two chains, and guards in front of the door were watching over the prison. 7 And behold, an angel of the Lord suddenly appeared and a light shone in the cell; and he struck Peter’s side and woke him up, saying, “Get up quickly.” And his chains fell off his hands.
Note that the blessing of the prayer meeting isn't confined to those who attend and who seek after the glory of God, the honor of His name and the good of others (though their blessings are great indeed!); it cascades over into the lives of those who are the objects of their prayers.
Taken together, the blessings that are experienced in, and that flow from the prayer meeting constitute a very compelling reason for us to be there!
