"There
is enough sin in my best prayer to send the whole world to Hell.”
~ John Bunyan
~ John Bunyan
If you
find the above observation by John Bunyan, (a Puritan preacher and author {c.
1628-1688}) to be a goad, pricking & piercing
at the very depths of your heart today, then this message is for you.
I would
like to serve our fellow spiritual
brothers and sisters with prayer support as well as encourage everyone
to deepen, grow, & enjoy their own prayer life. To that end I encourage you
to reconsider anew, “what exactly is prayer?”
As silly as this may initially sound, we find that any confusion or
potential misunderstanding of it is a real cause to much of our personal
difficulty with it.
If you
think of prayer as simply something that Christians do because we were
commanded and instructed to do so, you will soon come to find that prayer then
becomes some chore or burdensome duty – potentially veering into the realms of
mysticism & magic, where we think that we can get what we want by correctly
following some ritual or routine as we say the right ‘spell’. (And if you don’t
get the answer you want, you either start tweaking or doubting the ‘magic
formula’ you’ve been employing.)
John
Calvin, French theologian, pastor, and reformer in Geneva during the Protestant
Reformation (July 10 1509-May 27 1564) is quoted as saying, “Prayer is the chief exercise of faith.” Michael Reeves, President & Professor of
Theology at Union School of Theology in the UK, in his book Enjoy Your Prayer Life,
states that “Prayer is the primary way
true faith expresses itself. This also means that prayerlessness is practical
atheism, demonstrating a lack of belief in God.” He goes on to say, “Your prayer life reveals how much you
really want communion with God and how much you really depend on him. I stress it absolutely does not tell you
about your security as an unrejectable child of God, but it does tell you, very
accurately, how much of a baby you are spiritually, how much of a hypocrite you
are, and how much you actually love the Lord. Thus if your tendency is to think
you’re rather wonderful, just remember your prayer life.”
If you
find these words particularly cutting, please remember the counsel of Proverbs 27:6
and know that Michael does go on to exhort us with the following
acknowledgement & encouragement: “If
prayer is ‘the chief exercise of faith’, then of course everything – the world,
the flesh, and the devil – conspires against prayer. This means that you are
not the odd on out in your struggles with prayer, and it is not your secret
shame – which can be the crippling fear.
You’re just a sinner, naturally inclined away from faith and prayer.
We’re all sinners. And you know who the friend of sinners is! Jesus. He then goes on to say, “The Son, then is the first pray-er. And the
salvation he brings is a sharing of his own communion with his Father. Prayer is learning to enjoy what Jesus has
always enjoyed.”
Prayer should be a natural expression of our faith. Just as faith
is awakened as we grasp the wonders of the gospel, so prayer follows as our
hearts respond to these glorious truths. When faith is awake and surging in us, prayer doesn’t feel like a burden or
an obligation. It feels natural. It’s how faith most instinctively speaks.
According to Jon Bloom, in the article, “What to Do When We’re Prayerless”:
“Prayerlessness, then, is not
fundamentally a discipline problem. At root it’s a faith problem. Think of
prayer as a train. Faith is the engine of prayer, God’s promises are the fuel,
and discipline is the rails. Prayerlessness is almost always due to a stalled
engine. For prayer to get going again, we first need to fire up our faith
engine again with fuel from God’s promises. You see, discipline doesn’t power
the train of prayer. Faith powers the train as you trust God’s word. But
discipline will guide the train. The rails of planning, structure, and methods
are necessary. But the best time to address those is when you’ve stoked your
engine, because when faith is firing you want to move forward in prayer and you
are more likely to be led by the Spirit to choose the rails that are best for
your prayer train.”
So let us today recall God’s past grace, reflect and stoke the
flames of our faith as we reconsider anew His eternal love, goodness, and
unchanging promises!!
If you find yourself needing to either restart the engine or tend to the rails of your “prayer train” then please enjoy making use of some of the following resources:
-
Sing along
with Tauren Wells – “When We Pray”
- 
For more, please read: “Have you prayed today?” by Francis Bourdillon
Please know that I have prayed, am
praying, and will continue to pray that the Lord knits our souls together as
He’s done for David & Jonathan (1 Samuel 18:1) so that we manifest ourselves as Jesus' disciples (John 13:35), who live their faith as the early Christians have (Acts 2:42) and are part of His one body (1 Corinthians 12:12-26). Enjoy!!
CORAM DEO,
Galatians 6:2
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