Celebrating Dads: Leaving a Legacy of Prayer
Job 1:1-5
INTRODUCTION:
Oswald Chambers wrote: “Every time we pray, our horizon is altered, our attitude to things is altered, not sometimes but every time, and the amazing thing is that we don’t pray more.”
Dads, if we want to leave a spiritual legacy with our children, it needs to be passed on with God’s strength, not our own. We need to be praying dads.
In Job 1:1-5, we are introduced to the patriarch of the east who had seven sons and three daughters. The author tells us that Job would rise up early in the morning and offer burnt offerings for his children. Job said in his heart, “Perhaps my sons have sinned and cursed God in their hearts,” so he prayed for them continually.
From the time Rachel became pregnant with Jewell 22 years ago and from the time she became pregnant with Ana over 20 years ago, we have not missed a day that we haven’t prayed for each of them not just once but multiple times a day. Now, I pray for each of them – and Jacob too – 3-4 times every single day. As I have mentioned before, and I don’t know what they are doing on any given day at any given hour, I pray at breakfast that God will bless them over the next four hours. Then when I pray at lunch, God will bless them over the next four hours. When I pray at dinner, that God will bless them through the evening and the night. Some prayers are very specific, some prayers are more generic.
I can’t be with my daughters and son in law all the time. Even if I were, I can’t know the right decisions they need to make in their lives. Often times, they even know better than I would. But God knows best of all. That’s why I need to pray and ask God to give them wisdom and guide their decisions, to keep them safe physically and spiritually, and to bless them in the way He knows is best.
In this study, I want us to consider how to pray, using Job as an example.
PRAY COMPREHENSIVELY:
Notice in Job 1:5 that Job would “send and consecrate them… offering burnt offerings according to the number of them all.”
Our prayers need to be comprehensive. Pray for every aspect of your child’s life. Pray for their spirits and their emotions. Pray for their education and their friends. Pray for their future spouse and their future jobs.
PRAY CONTINUALLY – Job 1:5:
“Thus Job did continually.”
To pray continually means that we trust God to such an extent that when anything, and everything that comes up, we are prepared to mentally fall to our knees and ask for God’s help, or to give God praise, whatever the need may require.
PRAY CONFIDENTALY – Job 1:5:
Job worshipped God on behalf of his children trusting that “perhaps my sons have sinned and cursed God in their hearts” and God would forgive them.
It seems to me that here is the role of the Spirit in our prayers… When we obey the Spirit’s word and we are born again of the water and the Spirit (John 3:3-5), then Jesus’ blood washes our sins away (Acts 22:16) and we receive the Holy Spirit as God’s gift (Acts 2:38). Then the Spirit is able to open up a “hot-line” between us and our Creator. In Romans 8:26-27, Paul writes that the Holy Spirit can even help us and intercedes for us when we do not know what to pray for as we should.
When we realize that the Holy Spirit has opened up the “hot-line” between us and Jehovah God, then we can pray confidently. We can know for sure that God will answer our prayer in doing what is best for our children, as long as their hearts are also open to being led by their Creator.
PRAY WITH CARE – Job 1:5:
Job would arise early and offer these burnt offerings every day, continually, so that God would forgive Job’s children in case they had sinned against God.
Dads, we are the sentinels for our children, keeping alert on their behalf, in prayer. The apostle Peter was a dad; maybe he had other dads in mind when he wrote: “be of sound judgment and sober spirit for the purpose of prayer” (1 Peter 4:7).
PRAY CONSTANTLY – Job 1:5:
Again, we point out that Job offered these burnt offerings to God on behalf of his children “continually.”
Be persistent. Start praying for a Christian spouse when your wife gets pregnant and don’t stop until they say “I do.” Then start praying that they will keep Jesus at the center of their marriage when Satan tries to distract them with an affluent lifestyle.
Dads, let us raise our children in an atmosphere bathed in prayer.
Paul Holland
