THE PRAYER OF WORSHIP (PART 1) !

THE PRAYER OF WORSHIP (PART 1): As yielded hearts pour out praise to God, the Holy Spirit will manifest Himself in their midst. As we noted in the last lesson, most of our prayer or the petition type of prayer. Too many of us are like the little boy who prayed, "Lord, my name is Jimmy, and I'll take all your gimme !" This seems to be the only kind of prayer people know anything about. And if it is the only type of prayer we are praying, I wonder if the Lord sometimes doesn't get a bit tired of hearing just "give me" prayers. We need to take time to wait on God and to minister to Him -- times when we are not asking Him for anything -- times when we are not petitioning Him. Not only do we need to minister to the Lord in our individual prayer lives, but we also need to do it as a group. We read of a group in the New Testament who held such a service. (Acts 13:1-4). "Now their world in the church that was at Antioch certain prophets and teachers; as Barnabas, and Simon that was called Niger, and Lucius of Cyrene, and Manaen, which had been brought up with Herod the tetrarch, and Saul. As they ministered to the Lord, and fasted, the Holy Ghost said, separate me Barnabas and Saul for the work whereunto I have called them. And when they had fasted and prayed, and laid their hands on them, they sent them away. So they, being sent for by the Holy Ghost, departed on to Seleaucia; and from thence they sailed to Cyprus." Today when believers gather for a church service, they usually ministered to one another. Our services are designed that way. Fill our songs minister to the Lord; they minister to one another in song. Even when we seem special solo numbers, we are not ministering to the Lord; we are ministering to one another. Our prayers are primarily petitions. We petitioned the Lord to move in our midst, to manifest Himself among us, and to meet our individual need. When the minister stands to speak, he doesn't minister to the Lord; he ministers to the congregation. When the service is over, if we do have a time of waiting on God in prayer, this usually consists of petitioning prayer again. Thus, we don't go to church necessary to minister to the Lord, but to pray and seek God on our own behalf. The believers we just read about in (Acts 13), however, came together and ". . . Ministered to the Lord, and fasted." More than one person was involved in this account, because it says, "As They minister to the Lord, and fasted. . ." This is the true prayer of worship.