February 24

The Old Testament is replete with admonitions to prayer. One example of God’s beckoning of us to Himself and its attendant benefits is to be found in Proverbs 8:17 where it says, “If you seek Me early and diligently, you will find Me.” The intent is that we seek the Lord not only early in the day but early in life.

If we will, He assures that we will find Him, and in finding Him, we gain all that His perfect plan for us entails. In Mark 1:35, we see the Sinless One, Jesus Himself, complying with this admonition. We are told, “In the morning, before daybreak, He got up and went out to a deserted place, and there He prayed.”

How telling it is that the Lord God incarnate, when He walked in the flesh among His people, when He was subject to the wiles and ways of the world, kept Himself spiritually strong by seeking the face of His Father before He engaged in any other pursuit through the day. If Jesus felt that HE needed to set aside the first part of the day to commune with our Heavenly Father, how much more should we!

He said before He ascended into heaven that if we believe in Him, we shall be able to do greater works than He had done (John 14:12). Should we not commune with His Spirit that we might gain His direction for our day, that we might achieve the goals He desires us to attain! If we have the ability to be His hand extended, to do the works—the miracles!—He has done, should we not appropriate the power to attain it all! The power that comes through prayer!