March 4, 3011 On Your Face

40 Days on Your Face
Read Deut 10-12

Deut 9:18 Then once again I fell prostrate before the LORD for forty days and forty nights; I ate no bread and drank no water, because of all the sin you had committed, doing what was evil in the LORD’s sight and so provoking him to anger.

WHEN I consider my prayer life, I have none contrasted to Moses’ passionate petitions for his people. Can you imagine being prostrate before the LORD for 40 days and nights? Lying on the ground praying with no food, no water, I couldn’t. I can’t imagine it. No way. Why would I want to do that?
Oh, wait a minute. What if my wife or my children were living lives opposed to God? What if God threatened to annihilate them? Would I then prostrate myself? For 40 days?
40 days. That’s how long it rained to wash the sin from the earth in the Great Flood (Gen 7). That’s how long Jesus battled the devil in the wilderness (Luke 4). 40 days of cleansing, 40 days of battle…the struggle is enormous, the struggle continues.
We must then, be prepared to wage war against the evil that threatens our lives and our loved ones’ lives.
Moses was on the ground for a people he originally wanted to run from. God had turned his heart to a great, sacrificial love for a people that consistently disobeyed their God. Yet, Moses didn’t give up on them, and God responded to his prayers. God blessed his people.
Who in your family needs your prayers? How do you respond? Is if for a minute? Is it once a day? Once a week? Once a year?
Or is it “prostrate for 40 days”?


Pause and Consider: prayer must consume us.