What is To Pray Without Ceasing?

Paul’s command in 1 Thessalonians 5:17, “pray without ceasing,” can be very confusing. Obviously, it cannot mean we are to be in a head-bowed, eyes-closed posture all day long. Paul is not referring to non-stop talking, but an attitude of God-consciousness and God-surrender that we carry with us all the time. Every waking moment is to be lived in an awareness that God is with us and that He is actively involved and engaged in our thoughts and actions.

When our thoughts turn to worry, fear, discouragement and anger, we are to consciously and quickly turn every thought into prayer and every prayer into thanksgiving. In his letter to the Philippians, Paul commands us to stop being anxious and instead "in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known to God" (4:6). He taught the believers at Colosse to "devote yourselves to prayer, keeping alert in it with an attitude of thanksgiving" (Colossians 4:2). Paul exhorted the Ephesian believers to see prayer as a weapon to use in fighting spiritual battles (Ephesians 6:18). The famous 19th century preacher Charles Spurgeon described the Christian's prayer life, saying it is "like the old knights, always in warfare, not always on their steeds dashing forward with their lances raised to unhorse an adversary, but always wearing their weapons where they could readily reach them. . . . Those grim warriors often slept in their armor; so even when we sleep, we are still to be in the spirit of prayer, so that if perchance we wake in the night we may still be with God.”

As we go through the day, prayer should be our first response to every fearful situation, to every anxious thought, to every undesired task that God commands. John MacArthur warns that a lack of prayer will cause us to stop depending on God's grace and depend on ourselves instead. Unceasing prayer is, in essence, dependence upon and communion with the Father.