June 27, 2025 -- Acts 9:9-11 -- Behold, he is praying

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9 And for three days he was without sight, and neither ate nor drank.
10 Now there was a disciple at Damascus named Ananias. The Lord said to him in a vision, “Ananias.” And he said, “Here I am, Lord.” 11 And the Lord said to him, “Rise and go to the street called Straight, and at the house of Judas look for a man of Tarsus named Saul, for behold, he is praying…
Acts 9:9-11 ESV
 
For the last couple of days I have been listening to the audiobook recording of E. M. Bounds “Prayer and Praying Men”. (I need to interject, what a blessing it is to live in such an age where we have free access to vast libraries of wonderful books.) Bounds noted that pre-conversion Saul, now called unto Jesus and becoming the great apostle Paul, is described to Ananias with these words “behold, he is praying”. Context is important here. Saul was on his way to Damascus, prepared to persecute Christians. Jesus stopped him. Jesus changed the course of his life. Ananias is a faithful disciple of Jesus, fully aware of Saul’s fearsome reputation.
 
Bounds made many great points, a few stood out.

  • Saul was praying. He has been praying and fasting for three days. As a devout Jewish man, Saul would be familiar with urgent, deep prayer.

  • Saul was praying. His first encounter with Jesus led him to three days solid of prayer.

  • Saul’s life from that time forward is filled with prayer. You will see many references of it through-out his writings.

  • Saul’s life shows both a intellectual knowledge of Jesus and a deep relationship of intimacy with Jesus. That is a characteristic of the life of a person of prayer.

I would add,

  • Saul’s former way of life and his patterns of misapplying the Old Testament needed to be changed. Having met Jesus so dramatically, then placing himself fully, without distraction in His presence over three days, Saul’s understanding of Jesus utterly changed.

  • Plus, Saul needed to learn the fear of the LORD. He’d been used to making men afraid and wielding fear as a weapon against Christians, now he needed to be in prayer and learn the fear of the LORD so that he himself would not succumb to the fear of men. At the time of his conversion God told him how much he’d have to suffer (Acts 9:16). The fear of men leads to one being ashamed of the Gospel. (Recall Romans 1:16, where he declares he is not ashamed of the Gospel. How mercifully God has answered his prayers.)

 
What drives you to prayer? Where are you so devoted to Jesus and desirous of His work in your life that you have committed to prayer? Or perhaps prayer and fasting? Are you perhaps feeling lazy in your walk with God and distant, without intimacy? Does reading about the intimacy others experience in prayer stir up within you questions of how is that possible? Or I long for that again? Or what is that? Prayer is both a gift of God and a spiritual discipline. The gift is God our Father has opened the way to Himself in Christ. The Father and the Son have given the Holy Spirit, the Counselor. Here is some advice to lead you into deeper prayer.

  1. Spend time with Christians whose prayer walk you admire and pray together! Prayer shared and prayer modeled will influence your own prayer life.

  2. When your pastor prays the congregational prayer, in your heart, pray the words with him. (If you say, but I don’t have a pastor, I strongly urge you to find a church home and get connected with the body of believers!)

  3. Pray Psalms. For example, take Psalm 139 and read it slowly, as an intentional prayer to God. If the translation you have is too hard to understand, read it over in a few different versions, and then go back to the version used in your church and pray it. So that you both become familiar with the Bible used in your church and you become familiar with the Bible itself and make it your own portal to intimacy with God.

  4. Prayer, like any other discipline, takes time and practice. Expect the beginning to be hard. Expect excuses to rise within, like mosquitoes buzzing in your tent demanding to be swatted, distracting you from your goal of praying.

  5. Prayer, after initial bitterness, and practice, becomes sweet to the heart and a solace for the soul. May it be said of you, “behold, he is praying”.

 
Blessed Jesus, Your disciples made one request of You. It was not to teach them how to cast out demons, or prophecy, nor how to heal the sick. They received power from You by the Spirit to do such things. What was it that awakened a deep longing in their souls? It was hearing You, blessed Shepherd, speaking to Your Father. Their request was “teach us to pray”. As You richly, beautifully, by example and lessons taught Your disciples to pray, so lead us in the lessons of prayer until prayer is no longer a duty, but sweet, unbroken fellowship with You, leading us to our Father in heaven, through Whom every family in heaven and on earth is named. Blessed Jesus, as You were filled with the Holy Spirit and by the Spirit strengthened in Your humanity for devoted service to the Father, fill us with the Holy Spirit so that we will know the love that surpasses knowledge and be filled with all the fullness of God. Amen.
 
https://youtu.be/o1FY7I5667Q?si=z2AaWGSWtSIcBXQe Sweet Hour of Prayer
 

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