7 Thoughts on Prayer

 

This article presents seven simple thoughts on prayer, and then shares insights from different individuals. I didn’t feel that a lot of explanation or amplification was needed on these.

 

1. Prayer is not a religious ritual.

“Real prayer comes not from gritting our teeth, but from falling in love.” (Richard Foster)

“I live in the spirit of prayer. I pray as I walk about, when I lie down and when I rise up. And the answers are always coming.” (George Mueller)

“Unless I had the spirit of prayer, I could do nothing.” (Charles G. Finney)

“Beloved, it is not our long prayers but our believing God that gets the answer.” (John G. Lake)

“There is no need to get to a place of prayer; pray wherever you are.” (Oswald Chambers)

2. Prayer is not a one-way conversation.

“God must speak to us before we have any liberty to speak to him.” (John Stott)

“The true spirit of prayer is no other than God’s own Spirit dwelling in the hearts of the saints. And as this spirit comes from God, so doth it naturally tend to God in holy breathings and pantings. It naturally leads to God, to converse with him by prayer.”
(Jonathan Edwards)

Jesus said in John 15:7, “If you abide in Me, and My words abide in you, you will ask what you desire, and it shall be done for you.”

3. Prayer is not a matter of talking an unwilling God into doing what you want Him to do.

“Prayer is not conquering God’s reluctance, but taking hold of God’s willingness.”
(Phillips Brooks)

“Prayer is not a means by which I seek to control God; it is a means of putting myself in a position where God can control me.” (Charles L. Allen)

“A sinning man will stop praying. A praying man will stop sinning.” (Leonard Ravenhill)

“I can no longer condemn or hate a brother for whom I pray, no matter how much trouble he causes me. His face, that hitherto may have been strange and intolerable to me, is transformed into the countenance of a brother for whom Christ died, the face of a forgiven sinner.” (Dietrich Bonhoeffer)

Remember, we don’t pray to change God. Prayer allows God to change me.

4. Prayer is not a substitute for action.

“Prayer will become effective when we stop using it as a substitute for obedience.” (A.W. Tozer)

“I prayed for twenty years but received no answer until I prayed with my legs.” (Frederick Douglass)

“We Christians too often substitute prayer for playing the game. Prayer is good; but when used as a substitute for obedience, it is nothing but a blatant hypocrisy, a despicable Pharisaism…To your knees, man! and to your Bible! Decide at once! Don’t hedge! Time flies! Cease your insults to God, quit consulting flesh and blood. Stop your lame, lying, and cowardly excuses. Enlist!” (C.T. Studd)

5. Prayer is not informing God about things He didn’t know.

“Prayer is not designed to inform God, but… to humble man’s heart, to excite his desire, to inflame his faith, to animate his hope, and to raise his soul from earth to heaven.” (Adam Clarke)

6. Prayer is not an exercise is hyper-technical precision.

Some get excessively concerned about technicalities when they pray. Granted, we want to pray accurately, according to the truth of Scripture, and according to the leading of the Holy Spirit. But people can get so caught up in hyper-technicalities that they get off track when it comes to simply trusting God.

• Was I binding when I should have been loosing?
• Was I interceding when I should have been supplicating?
• Was I praying to the Father when I should have been talking to Jesus?

As Corrie Ten Boom said, “Nestle, don’t wrestle.” The simplicity of David’s faith is expressed beautifully in Psalm 131:1-2 (NLT): “I don’t concern myself with matters too great or too awesome for me to grasp. Instead, I have calmed and quieted myself, like a weaned child who no longer cries for its mother’s milk. Yes, like a weaned child is my soul within me.”

7. Prayer is not a peripheral activity of the church.

“Prayer is not just getting ready for Christian service. Prayer is Christian service.”
(Adrian Rodgers)

“It is obvious that Paul did not regard prayer as supplemental, but as fundamental—not something to be added to his work but the very matrix out of which his work was born. He was a man of action because he was a man of prayer. It was probably his prayer even more than his preaching that produced the kind of leaders we meet in his letters.” (Oswald Sanders, from Dynamic Spiritual Leadership)

“I would rather teach one man to pray than ten men to preach.” (Charles Spurgeon)

“You could remove the powerful preaching from our church and it would still continue. You could remove the administration of pastoral care through the cell group system and the church would still continue. But if you remove the prayer life of our church it would collapse.” (David Yonggi Cho)

May your walk with Him will be rich and sweet!

By: Tony Cook

Often times people feel a sense of emptiness when they pray, like your prayers are not heard or you didn’t do it right. You can’t concentrate or you easily get distracted. I can help! Check this out! 

 

How To Have A Relationship With God

God has a desire for a relationship with us. It is good to focus on God’s desire for a relationship as supposed taking it from the perspective of “I am going for God, I am going after God.” I heard a great sermon form Pastor George Pearsons of Eagle Mountain International Church about how to have a relationship With God; he said that God had challenged him to look at the perspective of how much God desires to have a relationship with us. God wants us to see His side of the fellowship. That is a different point of view on how to build a relationship with God.

So often we have a perspective of God sitting on the throne in that huge authoritative way and that we are the ones  always approaching Him . We even might have a Wizard of Oz perspective on what God is all about.

Do you remember the moment when Dorothy and the Tin Man (Haley) and all the rest came up into the castle? When they went into the throne room they were looking at that fire that was came out of there and heard: “don’t come near the fire”. Of course they were standing there shaking. I think that is sometimes the perspective that people have of God, whether it is knowingly or unknowingly, consciously or subconsciously that we have that attitude towards God.

There is a place where the Lord is saying to us: “I want you to come this time from the perspective of my passion for you, my hunger for you, my desire for you.” God wants to have a sweet communion with us.

Unfortunately there is too often that sense of unworthiness. We think that we are not worthy to have that, but that’s why we are made the righteousness of God in Christ Jesus.

The universe was created to cradle this earth. The entire universe was made in order to place this earth there. Te earth was created by God for men, for us. And we were created by God for fellowship with Him.

Do you remember the moment when Dorothy and the Tin Man (Haley) and all the rest came up into the castle, when they went into the throne room they were looking at that fire that was came out of there and heard: “don’t come near the fire”. Of course they were standing there shaking. I think that is sometimes the perspective that people have of God, whether it is knowingly or unknowingly, consciously or subconsciously that we have that perspective of God.

In our own development of our own passion that we have towards God we should learn of the passion that God has for us. The greatest thing that God has in the entire universe is fellowshipping with us. That is quite a thought isn’t it? He wants to have koinonia with us. We have been called in this close companionship, this sweet communion. He wants that intimate relationship, He wants a personal friendship.

The more we realize His passion to have a deeper relationship with us, the more we will experience our greater desire to have a deeper relationship with Him. The more you know that He wants you, the more you will want Him. The more you understand the pursuit that God has. It is the best approach on building a relationship with God.

Surely goodness and mercy shall follow you all the days of your life in psalm 23. The word “follow” here means “to chase after, to run after and to pursuit.” Surely, God in the form of goodness and mercy is after you and pursuing you. HE LIKES YOU!

Even if you don’t have a full understanding about the word “LOVE”; it might help you to define your relationship with God even more. It is really something when somebody comes up to you and says “I like you”. It builds you up and it is very encouraging. It should have the same impact when they tell you, that they love you.

You have to get that understanding down on the inside of you that God likes you! All sense of unworthiness will dissipate and disappear the more you know how much He likes you and how much He wants to spend time with you. It is really something when you know that somebody wants to spend time with you.

You know, I love to spend time with my family and even more with my husband and when I am not really sure that he wants to spend time with me for some reason; I am disappointed. But God always wants to spend time with us, always! He has so many things He wants to talk to us about. That motivates you spend time with somebody. Knowing that God longs to spend time with you is the key on how to have a relationship with God.

It’s up to our choices, we have the opportunity to choose to give our attention to Him and be with Him. Psalm 46 says Be still and know that I am God. To listen in His presence to things that He wants to tell us; one of the things is that when we tell Him how much we love Him and be still before Him to hear Him say “I love you too.”