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To pray is nothing more involved than to let Jesus into our needs. To pray is to give Jesus permission to employ His powers in the alleviation of our distress. To pray is to let Jesus glorify His name in the midst of our needs.
(Ole Hallesby, Prayer, 14.)
Much praying is not done because we do not plan to pray. We do not drift into spiritual life; but do not drift into disciplined prayer. We will not grow in prayer unless we plan to pray. That means we must self-consciously set aside time to do nothing but pray. What we actually do reflects our highest priorities. That means we can proclaim our commitment to prayer until the cows come home, but unless we actually pray, our actions disown our words.
The spiritual history of a mission or church is written in its prayer life.
~R. Arthur Matthew (Born for Battle)
If we call upon the Lord, He has promised in His Word to answer, to bring the unsaved to Himself, to pour out His Spirit among us…No matter what I preach or what we claim to believe in our heads, the future will depend upon our times of prayer.
This is the engine that drives the church
…keep the lines of communication open between you and God.
Deal quickly with sin, and continually ask the Holy Spirit to search your heart.
Ask God to increase your hunger to know Him!
If you do these things regularly, Satan cannot gain a foothold in your heart to deceive you
(Jonathan Graf, The Power of Personal Prayer, 80-81).
One of the all-time classic books on prayer is The Hidden Life of Prayer by D.M. M’Intyre. I still have my copy from my Bethel College days. I purchased a brand new copy of it in the campus bookstore for $1.50! M’Intyre writes…
But we Christians may ask our Father for all that we need. Only, let our desires be restrained and our prayers unselfish. The personal petitions contained in the Lord’s Prayer are very modest–daily bread, forgiveness, and deliverance from sin’s power. Yet these comprise all things that pertain to life and godliness (89).
I am still in Sioux Falls, SD for the Converge Worldwide (BGC) annual prayer gathering. It is one of the few times that I get to be with my Christian brothers in prayer and worship and fellowship. Dietrich Bonhoeffer wrote this in his classic book, Life Together…
The physical presence of other Christians is a source of incomparably joy and strength to the believer.
Because to some extent all prayer is warfare, as you develop in your prayer life you will be growing in spiritual warfare as well (95).
Jonathan Graf, The Power of Personal Prayer
Remember that prayer is simply talking to God and listening for his response. You can talk to him just as you would talk to someone sitting right next to you. You do not have to use ornate language to talk to him. You do not even need to worry if your prayer makes sense. God knows the heart, he knows your thoughts; you do not need to explain everything clearly for him to understand. Coming to God is the important thing (32).
Jonathan Graf, The Power of Personal Prayer
We could always blame it on Satan.
But according to Jonathan Graf, in his book, The Power of Personal Prayer…
But we can’t give Satan all the credit for our anemic prayer lives. Much of our ineffectiveness, our inconsistency, is our own fault (13).
Therefore, let us just pray. Let us pray for revival in our lives and churches. Let storm the gates of heaven with our prayers so that God’s kingdom will advance mightily in our homes, churches, cities and nations!
bryanaloha
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