FROM PRISON TO PRAYER GROUP !

FROM PRISON TO PRAYER GROUP: Notice the first thing Peter and John did when they were released from the prison: "And being let go, they went to their own company. . ." Many believers when they are released from jail or prison, go back to the former things that they know and use to do. Singling that they may not have been truly born again. Or perhaps many do not understand that the old man is dead. "Know ye not, that so many of us as were baptized into Jesus Christ were baptized into his death ? Therefore we are buried with him by baptism into death: that like as Christ was raised up from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life. For if we have been planted together in the likeness of his death, we shall be also in the likeness of his resurrection: Knowing this, that our old man is crucified with him, that the body of sin might be destroyed, that henceforth we should not serve sin. For he that is dead is freed from sin. Now if we be dead with Christ, we believe that we shall also live with him: knowing that Christ being raised from the dead death no more; death has no more dominion over him." A good place to be when in trouble is with your "own company" --- people of like faith or people of the same kind of faith ! It is good to be around people who know how to pray or who know how to live for God. I often have thought that if this group had been like some Christians today, the first thing they would have done would have been to organize a committee to go talk to those leaders and make a deal whereby everyone could get along. After all, these leaders were religious men, too, they believed in God and prayed. The only difference was that they didn't accept Jesus as being the Messiah, the son of God. I could imagine that if it was like Hollywood Christianity that it would be some type of compromise of the faith, that we are still human and God understands we all going to sin, or no one is perfect. However, the Bible does not say they appointed a committee for compromise. It says, ". . . They lifted up their voice to God with one accord." In other words they were saying or praying the same things. They knew the value of United prayer. I was raised in a Southern Baptist Church, and in my youth I never heard people praying out loud in United prayer. In our services someone usually lead in prayer. We never lifted our voices as a group in prayer. When I started attending some for gospel services, there praying all at once disturbed me. I would go down to the altar to pray with them, but I prayed quietly. It bothered me because they prayed out loud. There services stimulated my faith, but when I prayed at the altar, I would get at the far end, away from them, so I wouldn't be close to their noise. One time I ventured to say something about it, I told them that God wasn't hard of hearing. They responded, "He isn't nervous, either." I decided to search my Bible for the scriptural answer to this question. I wanted to see how the early church had prayed. We claim to be preaching the same new birth they preached, so we might as well be following them in prayer. As I read through the book of Acts, underlined in red pencil every verse where it said the people prayed in a group. I couldn't find one place where they called on one person to lead in prayer ! Nor did they have any kind of "sentence prayers." The Bible said they lifted their voices. They all prayed at once, and they all prayed out loud. After reading this, the next time I went to a for gospel service I God right in the middle of where they were praying. My mind had been renewed with the Word, and I got a blessing I never had received when praying alone quietly. I saw for the first time the blessing of United prayer.