To Pray or Not to Pray, That is the Question
Posted in Guest Bloggers, Prayer 2 comments
This week's guest blogger is Jessica Fine. Welcome Jessica!
Disclaimer: I am not a good writer, but I will share my heart and thoughts with you. You may take them or leave them.
You might think that this title doesn’t really make sense, who would really choose not to pray? Most people would not actively choose not to pray but they might not consciously choose to pray. I was recently at a Village church in Texas and the pastor did a sermon on the average prayerlessness of Christians, I found this quite intriguing and most of this will be borrowed from that sermon. I found myself sitting, listening to the sermon, feeling quite convicted. I get into bad habits of only praying before meals or at bedtime instead of praying throughout the whole day, as I should. 1 Thessalonians 5:17, “Pray continually.” That sounds much easier than it actually is, there is always so much going on that it is easy to get distracted and forget how much we need God, or how badly we need to be praying.
One question that might be worth answering is why do people not pray? One answer could be they do not see the good in praying or they feel like their prayers are not answered, so why pray. Another answer is a lack of self-discipline. In addition, another answer could be that they do not get that sweet hour of prayer. They start to pray and then are suddenly distracted about something else and eventually they don’t even remember what they were doing in the first place. Whatever the case may be, prayer is vital to our walk with the Lord and it is time that we start praying. The pastor talked about how breathing is instinctive, most of us do not have to remind ourselves to breathe, it just happens. He said like breathing, prayer needs to become instinctive in our lives; it needs to be something that is pouring out of us all the time.
He mentioned four points to remember when it comes to prayer:
1) Prayer actually changes things. James 5:17-18, “Elijah was a man just like us. He prayed earnestly that it would not rain, and it did not rain on the land for three and a half years. Again he prayed, and the heavens gave rain, and the earth produced its crop.” God listened and answered Elijah’s prayer, praying made the difference. We have to believe in what we are asking for and know that God is big enough to change things. The passage said that Elijah was a man just like us, if God listened to him, he will surely listen to us. Mark 11:24 says, “Whatever you ask for in prayer, believe that you have received it, and it will be yours”. We have to believe that prayer can change things and it will.
2) Be desperate. Cry out to God, make your requests known, do not give up, and let God see how badly you need Him.
3) Believe that the mercy of God is abundant. We don’t deserve His love and we don’t deserve forgiveness but God sent Jesus to live and die as a man to take away our sins. His mercy never fails.
4) Pray trustingly like a child. Children have this amazing sense of confidence in love, they might ask their parent for something and if they say no, they will ask again and again. But eventually they will give up and believe that the parent knows best because they are older and wiser. That is how we should be with God, His wisdom is definitely greater than ours, and therefore we should trust Him like a child. God sometimes answers our prayers by answering them how we would if we had the knowledge God has. 1 John 5:14-15, “This is the confidence we have in approaching God: that if we ask anything according to his will, he hears us. And if we know that he hears us-whatever we ask-we know that we have what we asked of him.”
I challenge all of you to pray continually. Invite God to join you throughout your whole day instead of at meals and bedtime.
Disclaimer: I am not a good writer, but I will share my heart and thoughts with you. You may take them or leave them.
You might think that this title doesn’t really make sense, who would really choose not to pray? Most people would not actively choose not to pray but they might not consciously choose to pray. I was recently at a Village church in Texas and the pastor did a sermon on the average prayerlessness of Christians, I found this quite intriguing and most of this will be borrowed from that sermon. I found myself sitting, listening to the sermon, feeling quite convicted. I get into bad habits of only praying before meals or at bedtime instead of praying throughout the whole day, as I should. 1 Thessalonians 5:17, “Pray continually.” That sounds much easier than it actually is, there is always so much going on that it is easy to get distracted and forget how much we need God, or how badly we need to be praying.
One question that might be worth answering is why do people not pray? One answer could be they do not see the good in praying or they feel like their prayers are not answered, so why pray. Another answer is a lack of self-discipline. In addition, another answer could be that they do not get that sweet hour of prayer. They start to pray and then are suddenly distracted about something else and eventually they don’t even remember what they were doing in the first place. Whatever the case may be, prayer is vital to our walk with the Lord and it is time that we start praying. The pastor talked about how breathing is instinctive, most of us do not have to remind ourselves to breathe, it just happens. He said like breathing, prayer needs to become instinctive in our lives; it needs to be something that is pouring out of us all the time.
He mentioned four points to remember when it comes to prayer:
1) Prayer actually changes things. James 5:17-18, “Elijah was a man just like us. He prayed earnestly that it would not rain, and it did not rain on the land for three and a half years. Again he prayed, and the heavens gave rain, and the earth produced its crop.” God listened and answered Elijah’s prayer, praying made the difference. We have to believe in what we are asking for and know that God is big enough to change things. The passage said that Elijah was a man just like us, if God listened to him, he will surely listen to us. Mark 11:24 says, “Whatever you ask for in prayer, believe that you have received it, and it will be yours”. We have to believe that prayer can change things and it will.
2) Be desperate. Cry out to God, make your requests known, do not give up, and let God see how badly you need Him.
3) Believe that the mercy of God is abundant. We don’t deserve His love and we don’t deserve forgiveness but God sent Jesus to live and die as a man to take away our sins. His mercy never fails.
4) Pray trustingly like a child. Children have this amazing sense of confidence in love, they might ask their parent for something and if they say no, they will ask again and again. But eventually they will give up and believe that the parent knows best because they are older and wiser. That is how we should be with God, His wisdom is definitely greater than ours, and therefore we should trust Him like a child. God sometimes answers our prayers by answering them how we would if we had the knowledge God has. 1 John 5:14-15, “This is the confidence we have in approaching God: that if we ask anything according to his will, he hears us. And if we know that he hears us-whatever we ask-we know that we have what we asked of him.”
I challenge all of you to pray continually. Invite God to join you throughout your whole day instead of at meals and bedtime.
2 comments:
Thanks for posting Jess! Strong words and a great challenge. Prayer has always been one of my weakest disciplines, sadly enough.
Great post, Jess! Makes me think of the parable of the sower. If we allow distractions in our prayer life, we become like the seeds choked out by weeds. I, for one, have seen a direct correlation between the closeness of my walk with God and my frequency of prayer. Just like any human relationship, our relationship with God requires regular communication.
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