by Pastor Tyler Powell

Our Purpose (Romans 15:30 paraphrased): I urge you brothers, by the Lord Jesus Christ and by the love of the Spirit, to strive together with me in prayer to God the Father for the glory of the name of Jesus.

Early-Morning Prayer

Read Mark 1:35 – Do you think this verse is a solitary event that Mark records or a continual action that Jesus actually did on a daily basis?

Is being this disciplined in one’s prayer life a means to legalism or to joy? Explain.

Benefits to Early-Morning Prayer

1. It signals to our conscience that this is of first importance in the day.
2. Early-morning prayer strikes the first blow in the battle of the day, instead of waiting till we are besieged from all sides.
3. What we do daily and do early shapes the spirit of our minds and brings us into a disposition of humility and trust that will bear better fruit than anxiety or self-reliance.
4. Beginning the day with prayer opens the Word of God: “Open my eyes, that I may behold wondrous things out of your law” (Psalm 119:18).
5. It is uncanny how Satan can use even good things to squeeze prayer out of our schedule if we miss the early- morning hour. If you say to yourself, “I will give some time to prayer later,” it generally does not happen.

Do agree or disagree with any of the benefits above?

William Law’s Words of Wisdom on Early-Morning Prayer

William Law (1686-1761), who is famous mainly for his classic A Serious Call to a Devout and Holy Life, argues vigorously for “daily early prayer in the morning.” Law’s book at this website: http://www.ccel.org/ccel/law/serious_call.html

If our blessed Lord used to pray early before day; if He spent whole nights in prayer; if the devout Anna was day and night in the temple; if St. Paul and Silas at midnight sang praises unto God; if the primitive Christians, for several hundred years, besides their hours of prayers in the daytime, met publicly in the churches at midnight, to join in psalms and prayers; is it not certain that these practices showed the state of their heart? Are they not so many plain proofs of the whole turn of their minds?

Law also wrote, “sleep is . . . a dull, stupid state of existence” and that “prayer is the nearest approach to God, and the highest enjoyment of Him that we are capable of in this life.” What’s your thoughts in relation to this quote and early-morning prayer?

What benefits do you see from the following quote that rising early for prayer will benefit a believer:

If you were to rise early every morning as an instance of self-denial, as a method of renouncing indulgence, as a means of redeeming your time and fitting your spirit for prayer, you would find mighty advantages from it. This method, though it seems such a small circumstance of life, would in all probability be a means of great piety. It would keep it constantly in your head that softness and idleness were to be avoided, that self-denial was a part of Christianity. It would teach you to exercise power over yourself, and make you able by degrees to renounce other pleasures and tempers that war against the soul . . . .

But, above all, one certain benefit from this method you will be sure of having; it will best fit and prepare you for the reception of the Holy Spirit. When you thus begin the day in the spirit of religion, renouncing sleep, because you are to renounce softness and redeem your time; this disposition, as it puts your heart into a good state so it will procure the assistance of the Holy Spirit; what is so planted and watered will certainly have an increase from God. You will then speak from your heart, your soul will be awake, your prayers will refresh you like meat and drink, you will feel what you say, and begin to know what saints and holy men have meant by fervors of devotion.