15 September 2010 Devotion for Today "P.U.S.H" Acts 12:11-17

 

What does the word "push" mean to you? The verb "push" means to physically move something or somebody out of your way or in a forward direction. In this passage of Scripture we see people pushing- actually they were praying. The people in that day (unlike today) really believed in the power of prayer. They came together for the purpose of praying for Peter and James who were in prison and threatened with death. Unfortunately, James befell the sword- but Peter is miraculously released from prison. He is just ushered right out of there, as the Scriptures described. What made the difference? Prayer!

 

Then Peter came to himself and said, "Now I know without a doubt that the Lord sent his angel and rescued me from Herod's clutches and from everything the Jewish people were anticipating."

 ¹²When this had dawned on him, he went to the house of Mary the mother of John, also called Mark, where many people had gathered and were praying. ¹³Peter knocked at the outer entrance, and a servant girl named Rhoda came to answer the door. ¹⁴When she recognized Peter's voice, she was so overjoyed she ran back without opening it and exclaimed, "Peter is at the door!"

 ¹⁵"You're out of your mind," they told her. When she kept insisting that it was so, they said, "It must be his angel."

 ¹⁶But Peter kept on knocking, and when they opened the door and saw him, they were astonished. ¹⁷Peter motioned with his hand for them to be quiet and described how the Lord had brought him out of prison. "Tell James and the brothers about this," he said, and then he left for another place. (Acts 12:11-17)

    Notice what the people of the church were doing. Were they listening to a sermon? No. Were they singing? No. Were they eating and sipping on coffee? No. They were praying. Prayer is the most important thing we can do as Christians, and yet the most overlooked and undervalued activity that we do because most people neither see the value or the sense of prayer. You can tell the temperature of a church by their attendance at prayer meeting and what they pray about. What does this have to do with PUSH? It is not original with me, but PUSH is also an acrostic which means to "Pray Until Something Happens.

    In Luke 18:1 Jesus said that "men always ought to pray and not lose heart". We are to continue in an attitude of prayer until the desired goal or outcome is reached or until God shows us differently. We might not receive the answer we had hoped to have- such as in the case of James; God allowed James to be executed but Peter was not only spared but ushered right out of the prison. Why did this happen? No one knows but the mind of God. It could have been because God knew who would become the most effective disciple of the two, or perhaps because the people in John Mark's mother's house were not praying fervently enough. Perhaps this is the case because when their prayer for Peter's release was fulfilled, the people of the church did not want to believe that when Rhoda went to the door and saw him standing there. Even then they tried to explain it away.
    Prayer is not Pushing God- because He will do what He intends to do or not do. He has commanded us to pray so that we can accept His answers and to allow our minds to be likeminded with His. This is not to say we will understand everything by praying about it. But God wants us to pray nonetheless because God desires to see if we are truly serious enough about what we want by coming to Him persistently in prayer. In prayer we not only discern the will of God but also know our own hearts better as we do. It is as one person said years ago, "Be careful what you pray for- you just might get it!"

Do you have something that you are praying about? PUSH it through until you get the answer. It may not be the answer that you want, but you will get an answer nonetheless.

 

Have a blessed day!