ETERNITY

[Ranb2khz]

You Won’t Have One without the Other

“It was the first year of the reign of Darius the Mede, the son of Ahasuerus, who became king of the Babylonians. During the first year of his reign, I, Daniel, learned from reading the word of the Lord, as revealed to Jeremiah the prophet, that Jerusalem must lie desolate for seventy years. So I turned to the Lord God and pleaded with him in prayer and fasting.” ~ Daniel 9:2-3

What was it that caused Daniel to set his face to seek the Lord? It was reading the books, the Old Testament prophets. As Daniel studied the book of Jeremiah, God showed Daniel that He had prophesied a seventy-year program of captivity for His people the Jews in Babylon (Jeremiah 25:11-12), and the seventy years were almost up. Through Jeremiah God said to Daniel, “I’m going to judge Babylon.”

Now Daniel is in a crisis, and he’s praying. But what prompted his prayer? Reading the Word, Daniel saw God’s blueprint and knew he was living at the end of an age. He was asking God for wisdom. What do we learn from this? That Bible study and prayer rise and fall together. Your study life will not be greater than your prayer life and vice versa. There is no way you can separate Bible study from prayer.

When you read the Bible, the Bible impels you to pray. And when you pray, your prayer life will urge you to read the Bible. Prayer and Bible reading go hand in hand. When you read the Word of God, God is speaking to you. Prayer is you, talking back to God. And it ought not to be a one-sided conversation from either side.

~ Pastor Adrian Rogers