{"id":1112,"date":"2019-10-24T10:19:53","date_gmt":"2019-10-24T15:19:53","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/ucog.org\/blog\/?p=1112"},"modified":"2019-10-24T10:19:53","modified_gmt":"2019-10-24T15:19:53","slug":"be-prepared-via-prayer","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ucog.org\/blog\/index.php\/2019\/10\/24\/be-prepared-via-prayer\/","title":{"rendered":"&quot;Be prepared&quot; via prayer"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>We just celebrated God&#8217;s fall festivals which symbolize Jesus&#39; return to this earth and His reign on earth. The end of this age is approaching and we look forward to Jesus&#39; return to this earth. <!--more--><\/p>\n<p>In this regard the apostle Peter exhorts us that &quot;the end of all things is at hand; therefore be serious and watchful in your prayers&quot; (1 Peter 4:7).<\/p>\n<p>As Christians we all know that prayer is an important part of our relationship with God and that the scriptures emphasize the importance of prayer.<\/p>\n<p>We are told that David and Daniel prayed three times a day (Psalm 55:17; Daniel 6:10).<\/p>\n<p>In the parable of the unrighteous judge, Jesus describes the righteous in this manner: &quot;And will God not grant justice to his chosen ones who cry to him day and night?&quot; (Luke 18:7).<\/p>\n<p>Jesus began His day with prayer (Mark 1:35), and even prayed all night before making important decisions (Luke 6:12-13). Jesus also took time to teach His disciples how to pray and provided an outline of a model prayer so that they would not blindly follow the vain and repetitive prayers of other religious leaders (Luke 11:1-4; Matthew 6:5-15).<\/p>\n<p>The Apostle Paul exhorts us to &quot;pray without ceasing&quot; (1 Thessalonians 5:17).<\/p>\n<p>The New Testament reveals that the prayers of the saints are like sweet incense to God (Revelation 5:8), and that the ears of the Lord are open to the prayers of the righteous (1 Peter 3:12).<\/p>\n<p>Let&#39;s be mindful of the Bible&#8217;s teaching on the subject of prayer and follow these examples and nurture our relationship to God. In so doing, we will stay prepared for Christ&#39;s return, in contrast to the foolish virgins of Matthew 25.<\/p>\n<p>With these thoughts I wish everyone a rewarding Sabbath!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>We just celebrated God&#8217;s fall festivals which symbolize Jesus&#39; return to this earth and His reign on earth. The end of this age is approaching and we look forward to Jesus&#39; return to this earth.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1112","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-sabbath-thoughts"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ucog.org\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1112","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ucog.org\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ucog.org\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ucog.org\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ucog.org\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1112"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/ucog.org\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1112\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ucog.org\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1112"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ucog.org\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1112"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ucog.org\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1112"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}