Tag Archives: Prayer

Before your head hits the pillow

Pesky Prayer

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Jesus’ Teachings on Prayer

We all know the Lord’s Prayer. We find His teachings on this instructive prayer in Luke 11:2-4 “And He said to them, “When you pray, say: Father, hallowed be Your name. Your kingdom come. Give us each day our daily bread. And forgive us our sins, For we ourselves also forgive everyone who is indebted to us. And lead us not into temptation.”’ (NASB)

But how often do we think about what Jesus said next. In Luke 11:5-8 Jesus tell us about a man who went to a friend’s house at midnight. The man began knocking on his friend’s door asking if he could borrow three loaves of bread. The man’s friend is likely irritated, he tells the man that his door is locked for the night and that his family is all in bed. He really didn’t want to get up to help his friend, not at this hour.

So what did Jesus say? He said that even if the friend didn’t want to help the man because of their friendship, if the man knocked for long enough, the friend would give up and give him whatever he wanted just because of the man’s shameless audacity. The King James Version uses the word “importunity.” Importunity as defined in the International Standard Bible Encyclopedia as – impudent insistence rising to the point of shamelessness.

This section of the lesson of prayer cannot be divorced from the first part of Luke 11. We must pray as Jesus taught us. We must worship and praise God in our prayers, we must ask God for our sustenance, relying only on Him for the things that we need, we must forgive others, just as Christ has forgiven us and we must pray that God keeps us from temptation.

But we must pray ALL of these things with importunity, with insistence rising to the point of shamelessness. We must go to God again and again and again. How often don’t we go to God with a concern in our lives, once or twice and then wonder why He hasn’t listened? God wants us to come to him with reckless abandonment. He wants us to come to Him over and over and over again!

If you think God is not listening, don’t give up. Keep knocking; keep asking, for he will answer you. And you can be assured that He will give you what is best for you. He is not going to give you a snake when you need a fish (vs. 11).

God is more loving than ANY earthly father. If an earthly father wants to provide for his children, think how much more our heavenly Father wants to provide for us!

When you pray, be the pesky friend. Pray again and again and again. Go to the Lord over and over, keep knocking. But then have faith that He will come to the door and give you what you need! He will give you what is best for your, what most blesses you. God is good that way. Begin your pesky prayer life tonight and watch and wait to see how God blesses you!

Before your head hits the pillow

Aborted Prayers

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prayinghands

…Before your head hits the pillow…

Aborted Prayers

The other day I read an interesting online article at tscpulpitseries.org by David Wilkerson.  It caught my eye because I remembered a book he wrote that was later made into a movie, The Cross and the Switchblade.  His topic was interesting so I thought I would share some of his points with you.

He said, “The devil’s final strategy in deceiving believers is to make them doubt the faithfulness of God in answering prayer. Satan would have us believe God has shut His ears to our cry and left us to work things out for ourselves.”  He continued, “It’s time we Christians took an honest look at the reasons why our prayers are aborted.  We can be guilty of charging God with neglect, when all along our own behavior is responsible.”

Wilkerson gave six, of many reasons, that our prayers are not answered.

  • Our prayers are aborted when they are not according to God’s will.  He says, “We are not at liberty to pray at random for whatever our selfish minds conceive.”  I John 5:14 says, “If we ask anything according to His will, He heareth us.”  We need to constantly look to God when we pray.  We must seek His face first and allow His will to be done in our lives.
  • Our prayers can be aborted when they are designed to fulfill and inner lust, dreams, or illusions. James 4:3 says, “When you ask, you do not receive, because you ask with wrong motives, that you may spend what you get on your pleasures.”  Psalm 66:18 says, “If I had cherished sin in my heart, the Lord would not have listened.”
  • Our prayers can be denied when we show no diligence to assist God in the answer. Wilkerson says, “We expect our prayers to get God to working for us, while we sit idly by, thinking to ourselves, ‘He has all the power; I have none, so I will simply stand still and let Him do the work.’”  God told Joshua in Joshua 7:10-13 – “Stand up! What are you doing on your face?”  God commanded Joshua to consecrate the people for their sins.  We must not try to “make” things happen, but God may ask us to act in order to fulfill His will.  We can’t just sit back and expect Him to do everything while we are laying on our backs.
  • Our prayers can be aborted by a secret grudge lodged in the heart against another. He continues by saying, “Christ will not deal with anyone with a wrathful and unforgiving spirit.  We are commanded to ‘lay aside all malice, envy, and evil speaking, and as newborn babes, desire the sincere mild of the Word.’” I Peter 2:1-2
  • Our prayers can be aborted by not expecting much to come of them. Matthew17:20 says, “Truly I tell you, if you have faith as small as a mustard seed, you can say to this mountain, ‘Move from here to there,’ and it will move. Nothing will be impossible for you.”  We must have faith that God can do what we are asking when we pray.  We serve an amazingly powerful God.  NOTHING is too big or too small for Him!
  • Our prayers may be aborted when we ourselves attempt to prescribe how God should answer. Wilkerson says, “The only person we lay down terms to is the one we don’t trust. Those we trust we leave to themselves to do what is right.  It all boils down to a lack of trust. The burdened soul, after he has unburdened his heart in prayer to the Lord, resigns himself to the faithfulness, goodness, and wisdom of God.  The true believer will leave the shaping of the answer to God’s mercy.  Whatever way God chooses to answer, the believer will welcome.”

Now, all that being said, it is God who determines how to deal with the request placed in prayer.  God may choose to fulfill the request of a person who is selfish.  He may determine to grant the request of the person who has little faith, because the full power in prayer is not in the one who prays but in the One to whom we pray.

But as we go into prayer it is important that we go to God with righteous motives, we must make sure that we have forgiven as Christ as forgiven us, we must have faith that God is capable to fulfill our petition, and we must be willing to participate in the fulfillment of our request if that is the way God is leading us.

Prayer is a powerful Christian asset.  Let’s make sure that we come before our Lord humbly and full of faith!

Before your head hits the pillow

Pray Until You Pray

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…Before your head hits the pillow…

Pray Until You Pray

Tonight I am going to admit a weakness. I don’t pray like I should. Yes, I do pray. I pray on my way to work when someone comes to my mind. I pray in the middle of the night when I wake up and it becomes evident that I need to pray for someone. But I don’t have a steady prayer life like I should. I don’t always keep my appointment with God. I am confident that some of you will be able to say the same thing about yourselves.

This issue has been laying heavy on my soul. My mom was what I would call a prayer warrior. I remember as a child coming downstairs for that second drink of water to see her kneeling at her bedside. I am confident that it was her fervent and consistent prayer life that brought members of her family through many difficult times. Now that she is gone, I feel more compelled to pick up that mantle. I want to pray like my mom prayed. I want to pray like Jesus prayed. I want to REALLY pray!

I teach theology on Thursday evenings and part of this week’s lesson is on prayer. As I have been listening to the podcasts I have become increasingly convicted about my own prayer life. In one of the podcasts the teacher said something I found very interesting. He said that we were to pray until we prayed.

At first I found that rather strange but as it was explained it began to really motivate me. Garneybridge.wordpress.com says this about praying until you pray. “It does not simply mean that persistence should mark much or our praying – though admittedly that is a point the Scriptures repeatedly make. What they meant [the puritans] is that Christians should pray long enough and honestly enough, at a single session, to get past the feeling of formalism and unreality that attends not a little praying. We are especially prone to such feelings when we pray for only a few minutes, rushing to be done with a mere duty. If we ‘pray until we pray,’ eventually we come to delight in God’s presence, to rest in His love, to cherish His will. Such advice is not to become an excuse for new legalism: there are startling examples of short rapid prayers in the Bible (e.g., Nehemiah 2:4). But in the Western world we urgently need this advice, for many of us our praying are like nasty little boys who ring front door bells and run away before anyone answers.”

God wants us to pray because it expresses our trust in Him, it brings us into deeper fellowship with Him, and it involves us in activities that have eternal importance. And we all know what the Bible says about prayer, “You do not have, because you do not ask.” James 4:2.

But we need to make sure that we are not like those nasty boys who just ring the door bell and run away. God accepts our quick prayers from our cars and he hears our petitions in the middle of the night, but what He wants is GREAT fellowship with us. He wants to talk to us and He wants not only for us to talk to Him but He wants us to listen to Him. We cannot do that if we utter just a few words and then disappear into our busy lives.

Revelation 3:20 says, “Behold, I stand at the door, and knock: if any man hear my voice, and open the door, I will come in to him, and will sup with him, and he with me.” In the time of Christ, dining with someone was intimate. When you sat and ate with someone, it was an experience. God wants an experience with us. He want us to take the time to really know him. That can’t be done in the amount of time many of us spend with Him.

So this is my November 2015 resolution. I resolve to spend more time with God. I resolve to do more listening. I resolve to bring Him more praise and worship. I resolve to bring more of my needs to Him rather than trying to do things on my own. I resolve to pray until I pray and I hope that many of you will join me on this journey!