Acts 13: Worship, Prayer, and Fasting The Road to Greatness

What is your take on prayer? Francis Chan, Pastor and author, says of his staff, "if you're not praying at least one hour a day, let me know and I'll find someone else who will." What if you spent an hour in undistracted prayer each day? Would that be a waste of time? For the rest of the world this sort of 'inactivity' would be considered a waste... but for the Christian there is nothing more essential and more productive than sitting at the mercy seat.

Prayer is the power horse of the Christian life. That's what was happening in Acts 13. "While they were worshipping the Lord and fasting... after they fasted and prayed, [the believers] placed their hands on [Paul and Silas] and sent them off" (Acts 13:1-3). So we see a few things happening that led to their send off. First, they were worshiping. They were gathered together praising God. Secondly, they were fasting. Fasting is a purposeful refusal of something to get something greater. Fasting is a forsaking of things to gain a supremely valuable thing... Christ. And they prayed. I can't imagine this being a canned prayer. I bet there were tears. I bet there was meditation. I bet there was guidance and direction from on high. 

Those were the precursors to the greatest missionaries being sent out. Worship, praying, and fasting led to 14 of the most productive years in history where Paul was preaching Christ crucified to as many as possible so that he might win as many as possible. This little paragraph in the bible is the beginning of a send off, it is the fire that sparked in the heart of my hero the Apostle Paul. And, the result of these few lines in the text is a colossal life of suffering, rejoicing, ministry, and the gospel. 

Do not neglect these items: worship, fasting, and prayer. It is through these things that God might be enlisting you to greatness. And it is by these things that you might recieve training and equipping for a service you can't perform on your own.