Teaching on Prayer
One Thing

As we begin the New Year it is often a time of re-odering priorities. Trying to clean out, slim down, re-focus, set goals. This is an enormous challenge in our North American culture of muchness. We have so many options! From fifty brands of cereal to choose from in the grocery store to 100 TV channels, being
a person who lives a focused life remains an elusive idea.

Three people are mentioned in the Bible as being one-thing people.

King David, with all the riches, all the fame and power available to him - - lots of options - - was a man of one thing, and approved by God as a man of God's own heart.

Psalm 27:4
One thing I ask of the Lord . . .
to gaze upon the beauty of the Lord
and to seek him in his temple.

Mary of Bethany, with domestic and family pressures all around her, was memorably affirmed by Jesus as being a woman of one thing.

Luke 10:42
"One thing is needed. Mary has chosen what is better, and it will not be taken away from her."

While heading up global mission expansion and writing much of the New Testament, the Apostle Paul was still able to define himself as a person of one thing.

Phillippians 3:13-14
One thing I do: Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus.

How can we Salvationists commence the New Year as one thing people? What needs to change? What excuses need to go?

Henri Nouwen wrote:
"Sometimes it seems as if the Christian community is "so busy" with its projects and plans that there is neither the time nor the mood to pray. But when prayer is no longer its primary concern, and when its many activities are no longer seen and experienced as part of prayer itself, the community quickly degenerates intko a club with a common cause but no common vocation." (Reaching Out)

Is prayer our primary concern? How man of our projects and plans flow out of the prayer meeting? What are we willing to sacrifice to see God's power released in our generation as in days gone by?

From Salvation Story-Study Guide,
"The years leading up to the birth of The Salvation Army were marked by a great holiness revival. It began in 1858 in the USA as a prayer meeting revival . . . It manifested itself in prayer campaigns or great concerts of prayer."

I believe God will visit The Salvation Army again with the power of the Holy Spirit in our day when Salvationists again become people of one thing, a people of prayer.

"My house will be called a house of prayer." (Isaiah 56:7)

Determine in your heart to make 2006 a Year of Prayer!