The Value of Praying and Serving the Lord

Two questions were asked dealing with the value of praying to and serving the Lord.  There is a connection between the two.

Job 21: ¹⁴ Therefore they say unto God, Depart from us; for we desire not the knowledge of thy ways. ¹⁵ What is the Almighty, that we should serve him? and what profit should we have, if we pray unto him?

Verse 14 shows us the general thought of the day.  People don’t desire the Lord anymore.  The fact of the matter is that if we ever needed the Lord, we need him today.  Think about the questions in verse 15, about the value here.  Job is describing how the lost are.  There is a tremendous lesson for us to focus on.  These are common questions.  Why should I pray?  Why should I serve the Lord?  Shouldn’t prayer be the last step I take when nothing else works?  Absolutely not!  Prayer is what makes everything else work.  Seeking God is the first step.  Our generation doesn’t sense the need to serve God.  We’re tempted to serve ourselves and our passions and wants.  We’re under great influence to try everything else before we pray.  Job said to stop and consider the value of prayer and the honor and privilege to serve the Lord.  God recognizes our feeble attempts at prayer.  As awkward as we are, he listens when we pray even when we don’t know how.  He understands our heart no matter what language it’s in.

If we receive God’s blessings we must first be a praying person and second a serving person.  They are actually inseparable.  If we’re really praying, we’ll follow through with service.  If we’re really serving him, we are already praying.  Prayer and service go hand in hand.  Prayer represents our personal, private relationship with the Lord.  It determines the kind of relationship we have.  If we don’t pray as we should, if our days don’t include personal time with God, they are not as they should be.  It means we don’t have a real relationship because relationships require contact as often as possible.  When that doesn’t happen, relationships grow distant.

Prayer is the literal bringing about of our relationship.  We had to respond to the voice of God when he spoke to our heart and convicted us of our sins.  When we made that connection through faith and responded, we were saved.  When God speaks to us, the least we can do is speak back and then follow up with service.  Develop a relationship that is evident.  God has help for us every day.  He’ll show us how to serve.  Serving is our public relationship with God while prayer is our private relationship with him.

We can’t hide Jesus.  Our life reflects what we have privately.  If we’re connected through prayer, we will serve the Lord.  That means we need to realize our limits.  What we can’t do, God can do for us and through us.  Even Jesus felt the need to pray when he was on earth.  This should tell us how important prayer is.  We won’t serve as we should without a personal prayer life and our prayer life means little if it doesn’t follow up with service.

Job chose to call God “Almighty” in this verse.  Many things will try to hinder you.  Many times you may dread days as they come.  You may get caught off guard.  You may face the unexpected sometimes.  We don’t realize the danger we’re in.  Two things we need:  constant contact in prayer and serving the Lord.  Our connection to God is through prayer.  God honors and will help and enable us to serve him.

Haven’t you seen God work in your days?  The days when things go badly are usually the days we don’t take time to pray.  We fail and at the end of the day we have regrets.  When we fill our day with prayer, we’re able to bear and face what it brings.  Praying and serving like we should bring us God’s best.  We are not almighty.  Our insight and skill are little against what we deal with.  God is the All-Mighty.  He make all—everything—possible, achievable, attainable.  He makes the impossible endurable.  Romans 8: 28 tells us and we know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to his purpose. 

Who is the Almighty that we should serve him?  He is G-O-D.  We are M-A-N.  Guess who is bigger?  He is valuable.  We serve him.  His might gives us victory.  What do we have by serving him?  Everything!  He’ll open the way.  He is more valuable than anything or anyone.  It pays to pray.  It pays to have a visible relationship with God that others can see.

Our prayer today should be “Lord, teach us afresh how to pray and how to serve.”