Smoother Sailing Article – Prayer: Where the Action Is!
By Pastor Barry Black“Which hope we have as an anchor of the soul, both sure and stedfast.” Hebrews 6.19
“The one concern of the devil is to keep Christians from
praying. He fears nothing from prayerless studies,
prayerless work, and prayerless religion. He laughs at our
toil, mocks at our wisdom, but trembles when we pray.”
– Samuel
Chadwick
The ministry
of prayer is probably the most available yet often
overlooked ministry among believers. We often overlook this
powerful ministry with lack of interest, or excuses of lack
of time, etc. The longer I live, the more circumstances
that I go through, the more blessings I enjoy, and the more
problems I face; prayer becomes more and more important to
me. I hope that the same is true for you. The purpose of
this article is to challenge and encourage you to become
more disciplined and consistent in your prayer life. As
with any aspect of the Christian life (bible study,
witnessing, etc.), our prayer life can grow deeper and
stronger with the passing of time. It is always a great
encouragement to look back periodically and see how our
Lord has answered prayer, and matured our faith. In the
words of Robert
Murray McCheyene:
“What a man (or woman) is, he (0r she ) is on his (her)
knees alone before God, nothing more.” – (parenthesis
mine)
Anytime,
any place
It doesn’t matter how many rules or laws are created or
passed to prohibit prayer; prayer is possible most anytime,
most anywhere, and under most any circumstances. The place,
or position or volume of our prayer may be of great
consequence to us, but it is probably of little consequence
to God. It is certainly not that prayer is not important to
God; it is simply that where
we pray may
not be so important to Him. Prayer does not have to take
place in a church. Prayer does not have to be done only
while standing, or only while kneeling, etc. Prayer can be
done when in you are a crowd, or when you are alone. In
fact a great deal of prayer is done in silent. There are
times when prayer should be done quietly and reverently, in
a worship setting, etc. There are times when prayer should
be done while driving (just don’t close your eyes,
please!), or walking; or waiting for an appointment. One of
the key truths concerning prayer is that
the Lord is more willing to listen than we are to
pray. With that
in mind, let’s look at some favorite prayer times recorded
in Scripture:
Daniel 6
Had he not
been a man of faith and courage (Daniel
6.3,4), Daniel
could have easily found and made excuses to not stay
faithful. I don’t think the lesson here is to go to your
workplace, or to go out in your yard and begin praying 3
times a day for the purpose of impressing everyone with
your spirituality. Notice that Daniel did not all of a
sudden start praying 3 times a day. He had already been
doing that. That is the only thing that his accusers could
find “wrong” with him. They determined to “bring Daniel
down” by attacking his spirituality (Daniel
6.5).
The key
here is that when the heat was on, and it became unpopular
or even threatening to Daniel, he just KEPT ON doing what
was right! Someone has
wisely said: The most
powerful position on earth is kneeling before the God of
the universe. – Author Unknown
Nehemiah
2
Nehemiah had
been burdened to leave captivity and go back to Jerusalem
to rebuild the city (Nehemiah
1.1-3). He then
began to pray and fast about it (1.4-11).
About four months passed and Nehemiah, had the opportunity
to ask permission of the king to rebuild the city of
Jerusalem. Approaching the king with such a “king sized”
request was not to be taken lightly. Nehemiah says
in
2.4,5:
“Then the king said unto me, For what dost thou make
request? So I prayed to the God of heaven. And I said to
the king…” As soon as
the king asked the question, Nehemiah prayed. He didn’t
say, “wait,
let me go to my prayer closet”, or
“let me
go over here and kneel and pray for a moment.”
He simply,
silently, quickly prayed. He may have prayed something
like, “okay
Lord, here is my chance, help me.” The
obvious application is that there are times when we have
very little time to pray, but we still should pray
anyway. Another
interesting side note is that when the time came to talk to
king Artaxerxes, Nehemiah had already been praying about
the request that he would ask of the king. Remember, four
months had passed. He had prayed when he received the
initial burden for the task of rebuilding Jerusalem, and
quite likely Nehemiah had been praying during the four
months before he petitioned king Artaxerxes. Another
important lesson here is the
importance of praying at the first “sight” of the problem
or burden. Oswald
Chambers: “Prayer
does not fit us for the greater work, prayer is the greater
work.”
Another
favorite account of prayer is found in
Acts 12.
In this
passage, the apostle James had been martyred, and Simon
Peter was in prison. He was next on Herod’s list
(Acts
12.3). The
scripture then tells us that,
“…prayer was made without ceasing of the church unto
God for him…” There are
times of desperation when all we can do is pray.
“There
are times when we can do no MORE than pray, but we should
never do any LESS than pray.” – Author unknown
As the church
was praying, prayer changed an IMPOSSIBLE circumstance! God
sent his angel, and fetched Peter and delivered him. Thomas
Watson summed up the practical lesson for us in this
statement: “The
angel fetched Peter out of prison, but it was prayer that
fetched the angel.”
A
ministry for every Christian
Five of the
sweetest words that someone can say to you would probably
be the words, “I am
praying for you”. You can
never pray too much. It is possible to pray and not “put
feet to our prayers”, but you cannot pray too much about
something. It is quite possible that you may find that
while you are praying, God is at work. What are some
important things to pray about in our ministry of prayer?
Pray that
the Lord will call and send men and women to proclaim the
gospel.
Luke
10.2 “…the harvest truly is great, but the labourers are
few: pray ye therefore the Lord of the harvest, that he
would send forth labourers into his harvest.”
Pray
for protection for those who proclaim the gospel from those
who hinder the gospel, and the work of God.
Romans
15.30-32 “Now I beseech you, brethren, for the Lord Jesus
Christ’s sake, and for the love of the Spirit, that ye
strive together with me in your prayers to God for me; That
I may be delivered from them that do not believe in Judea;
and that my service which I have for Jerusalem may be
accepted of the saints; That I may come to you with joy by
the will of God, and may with you be refreshed.”
Ephesians 6.18-20; “Praying always, with all prayer and
supplication in the Spirit, and watching thereunto with all
perseverance and supplication for all saints; And for me,
that utterance may be given unto me, that I may open my
mouth boldly, to make known the mystery of the gospel, For
which I am an ambassador in bonds: that therein I may speak
boldly, as I ought to speak.”
2 Thessalonians 3.1,2 “brethren, pray for us, that the word
of the Lord may have free course and be glorified…And that
we be delivered from unreasonable and wicked men: for all
men have not faith.”
Pray
about the things that cause worry.
Philippians
4.6,7 “Be careful for nothing; but in every thing by prayer
and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be
made known unto God. And the peace of God, which passeth
all understanding, shall keep your hearts and minds through
Christ Jesus.”
Pray
for those which despitefully use you, or persecute you:
Matthew
5.44 “But I say unto you, Love your enemies, bless them
that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for
them which despitefully use you, and persecute you.”
It is hard to
have ill feelings toward another when you are consistently
praying for them. It is amazing what that will do to our
attitude – beware, you may learn to have compassion towards
that person! It doesn’t necessarily mean that you will have
fellowship with them, but it will affect your attitude
toward them. Soon you will find that the more you pray for
them, the more that you will want
to pray for
them. Over time you will genuinely learn to love them. You
may not like their actions or attitudes, you may not even
trust them, but you learn to love them. “It is
hard to fear or hate someone whom you pray for.” – unknown
Prayer is
a full time job!!
1 Thessalonians 5.25: “Pray without ceasing.”
Praying
without ceasing does not mean that we pray in every breath
we take, it means that we continue to pray until God
answers. The key is to pray until the Lord opens or closes
a door.
If
Christians spent as much time praying as they do grumbling,
they would soon have nothing to grumble about. - Anonymous
Why is it
important to pray without ceasing?
It reminds us
that God is in control:
"An
important help in the life of prayer is the habit of
bringing everything to God, moment by moment, as it comes
to us in life." - A. B. Simpson
It helps us
keep the big picture in focus.
The Lord is
constantly at work, and as we continue to pray and stay
focused on the truth that the Lord is in control, we gain
much needed perspective in our lives.
It enables us
to constantly examine ourselves.
As we
continue to pray, we may find a step of action that we need
to take (to put “feet to our prayers”); or to change an
attitude, or to pray about the same thing in a different
way.
It is God's
way of measuring our Faith and Patience
Luke
18.1"...men ought always to pray, and not to faint."
“God will
not delay one moment longer than is absolutely
necessary...learn to give God time.” - Andrew Murray
“A faith so great that still clings to the Lord, in spite
of apparent rejection, is acceptable to Him above all
else.”- Andrew Murray
“Nothing
so furthers our prayer life as the feeling of our own
helplessness. It is only when we are helpless that we
really open our hearts to God.” - Ole
Hallesby
Prayer
changes things
“If we are honest, we must admit that much of our time is
spent pretending. But when we turn to God in prayer, we
must present our real selves, candidly acknowledging our
strengths and weaknesses and our total dependence upon
Him.” – Author
Unknown
Prayer
changes things. However, more often than not, prayer
changes us.
There are
some situations in which we pray about a problem or for a
person for a long period of time – weeks, months, or maybe
years. Another quote from Oswald Chambers illustrates one
way in which prayer changes us is the way it changes our
perspective:
"Every
time we pray, our horizon is altered, our attitude to
things is altered, not sometimes but every time, and the
amazing thing is that we do not pray
more."
As we pray, God is at work. Sometimes God answers our
prayers, “Yes”, sometimes he answers, “No”; and sometimes
God answers our prayers, “wait”. However, even when our
answer is not what we hoped it would be, we can be assure
that God knows what is best; and that along the way while
we are praying, He is working in our lives. He is drawing
us closer to Himself. He is teaching us to be patient, and
making our faith grow.
An
example to follow
In
Colossians 4.12, Paul tells
of a friend named, Epaphras. Epaphras was with Paul during
the time of the writing of the book of Colossians, and he
sent greetings to them. Paul describes him as one who
labored fervently for the Christians at Colossae, that they
would be mature in God’s will for them. We all need friends
like Epaphras in our lives. We would do well to be that
kind of friend to others.
Write it
down!
I have found that making a prayer list keeps things fresh
on my mind. I have also found that when you pray for people
by name (daily, weekly, etc.), that it helps you to
remember names; even people that you pray for but do not
necessarily see or talk to on a regular basis.
Make a list
from your church address directory. Add names as new
members join even if you have not had a chance to meet them
or get to know them yet.
List your family members.
Remember to pray for widows and shut-ins.
There may be someone for whom you are praying that the Lord
prompts you to call them or send them a card.
Put missionaries/mission ministries on your list.
Make a list of people whom you know that are lost - family
members, relatives, friends, people for whom you are
burdened, or that you would are burdened to believe on
Christ as Savior.
Make a list of specific needs of those for whom you pray
(when they are sick, or have some type of need).
Barry D. Black is
Pastor of Anchor Bible Church
Their website is:
www.anchorbible.org
Barry’s e-mail address is: barry@anchorbible.org