#DailyDevotion The Most Important Thing Of All
1 Tim. 2:1-6 I urge you, as most important of all, to ask, pray, plead, and give thanks for all people, 2for kings and all who are over us, so that we may live quietly and peacefully and be godly and noble in every way. 3This is good and pleases God our Savior,
Paul tells Timothy something that is “most important of all.” Other translation may say “first of all” here. First of all may be a better translation as Paul is about to give a number of instructions to Timothy as a pastor. However, even though this is the beginning of a list of exhortations to Timothy, I do believe that “most important of all” is not a bad interpretation. What is first in a list is often the most important thing followed then by the last thing in matters of importance. Considering what Paul is listing first, “most important of all” makes a lot of sense.
And what is most important of all? Prayer. Now neither Paul or I am not saying faith, the sacraments, Jesus etc. aren’t all very important. In fact, without these, I don’t believe there is going to be much true prayer going on. Concerning our daily lives, and particularly, if your life is that of a pastor, prayers to God the Father, through faith in Jesus Christ, in the name of our LORD Jesus Christ, using the Scriptures (Holy Spirit) to guide our prayers is the most important thing of all. Prayer should be like breathing. For the fun of it, read the Gospel of Mark today and count all the number of times Jesus got away to pray (and these are just the recorded times). If the Creator of all that is seen and unseen, who sustains everything by the word of his mouth sees the necessity to spend time in prayer, sometimes all night, what do you think you poor, miserable, weak sinner should be doing? You got that right, praying.
So Paul list some things for Timothy to pray about. It’s interesting he uses several words here, for emphasis I believe, as opposed to actual different types of prayer: ask, pray, plead, and give thanks. The one really different from the others is give thanks but that should be part of all our prayers. Not only should we give thanks to God for the prayers we see he has answered, we should give thanks to God for hearing the prayers we just prayed as if he already answered them. As Isaiah the prophet said, “Before they open their mouths the answer is on its way.” Jesus in the sermon on the mount tells us, “Your Father in heaven knows what you need before you ask him.”
Ok, so take note of the things he tells us to pray for: all people, kings, and all those in authority over us. We are to pray for these things so we may live quietly, peacefully, nobly and godly lives. If you ever listen to the general prayers of the Church you will see such petitions. In them we pray for the church, its pastors, the spreading of the gospel, for our national and state leaders, for those who are sick, in trials and tribulations, for those who work, those who travel, for forgiveness, for our enemies repentance, for the ability to lead quiet lives and the like. You should ask your pastor for a copy of them.
Paul says this is good and pleased God our Savior. It pleases him because this is his will for us and we are through faith doing his will. It is an act of faith to pray to God. Prayer is one of the greatest acts of faith we do. Jesus once chided his disciples for having little (no) faith and not praying. Let us be praised by him instead, invoking his name and opening our mouths.
Heavenly Father, give us your Spirit, so we may open our mouths in prayer, pray your will be done and give thanks for all things at all times. In Jesus’ name we pray. Amen.