NY13 is upon us. What are we doing? Are we only planning, streaming, and video recording? There’s an old song that goes this way: “A little talk with Jesus makes it right, all right.” This is what prayer is, just talking to Jesus. We live in a complex society and confused world. We face decisions and shoulder responsibilities that no generation has ever faced in this age of tech knowledge, electronics, iPads, iPhones, and social media. Prayer is a lost art for many people. We go along life’s way trying to bear our burdens alone, trying to find by ourselves the right path to walk. When all the time God is just waiting for us to call upon Him, that He might put all of His resources at our disposal.
The most serious indictment that can be brought against Christians today is that they do not pray enough. We worry, we fight, we fume, we fuss, we find fault, but we do not pray as we should. God says, “Call unto me,” but we turn our backs on Him unconsciously and call on our petty resources. No wonder we are such needy, impatient, weak Christians.
The great men of the Bible were men of prayer. They felt they needed constant communion with God. Moses prayed all the time on the journey to the Promised Land and God answered.
Elijah prayed and God shut up the heavens and held back the rain for more than three years. He prayed again and God sent the rain to refresh the earth. David prayed and sang. John the Baptist prayed. Peter and Paul prayed, and Jesus kept in constant touch with God by prayer all his life.
We owe it to ourselves to pray. God loves His children and wants them to have some of His abundant blessings. But we need to ask for the blessings, “Ask it shall be given.”
We owe it others. We are told in the Bible to “pray for one another.” We have felt those prayers on many occasions. Samuel was a man of prayer; he prayed for the sins of the people. He not only felt obligated to pray for others, he also felt that he would be sinning against God if he did not pray for others.
We owe it to God. We eat and drink and use the blessings of God and never look up into His face to say, “Thank You, Lord.” We need to thank God for His wonderful plan of salvation. We were condemned, we were doomed, we were bound for hell, but in His gracious mercy He saved us and died for us.
We need to pray with clean hearts. We need to pray with grateful hearts. We need to pray with earnestness. We are to pray with expectancy. We need to pray with hearts seeking wisdom. We need to pray with definite requests. Our definite request at this time is that the Lord help us to represent Him rightly and ask God to open, soften the hearts of people in the great metropolitan area of New York to receive Him and accept Him as their personal Savior as we proclaim the gospel to the teaming millions in New York at the NY13 meetings. May the Lord pour His blessings upon every big metropolitan city, town, and village of this world.
We need to pray without ceasing from now till the end of the NY13 campaign. There is power in prayer. As we work, let us call upon God in the name of Jesus Christ to help us at this exciting and wonderful time of NY13 spiritual meetings. I am confident He will answer every sincere prayer. God bless you. Pray for the NY13 evangelistic campaign.
—Leon Thomassian is the Atlantic Union Conference treasurer and trust services director.