Prayer and How to Pray.
Dr. Martyn Lloyd-Jones explains that prayer is not easy. It is challenging. Prayer is entering God’s presence with a clean conscience and pure heart. How can anyone do this? It seems impossible. The conscience condemns, and the heart proves the guilt. Yet, prayer is vital and essential to the Christian life. It is through Jesus Christ that we can approach God in prayer: For there is one God, and there is one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus (1 Timothy 2). Prayer has been given to us so we may enter this holy place to commune with our Father in heaven. As the bride of Christ, we know He wants us to approach Him with our needs and petitions for the kingdom's sake. After all, if a good marriage on earth depends on communication with one’s spouse, how much more does a blessed relationship with our Lord depend on speaking with Him regularly?
J.C. Ryle says prayer strengthens faith, moves mountains, and promotes spiritual growth and contentment that rises above circumstances. Prayerlessness, on the other hand, is the broad road leading to Hell for the unbeliever and the primary cause of backsliding in the Christian. Ryle observes that ‘men fall in private long before they fall in public.’ His warning is undoubtedly a word in season to our contemporary evangelical church, whose witness to a lost and perishing world has been sorely compromised by false teaching during the last generation.
“If there are two things your flesh hates, one of them is studying God’s Word, and the other is Prayer. ”
Martyn Lloyd-Jones: Sermons on Prayer (Read or Listen) - Christians should learn to begin prayers by remembering and praising the one to whom they are praying. Prayer is coming into the presence of God. Approach Him in worship. One cannot focus on themselves and their problems but should look at the God who controls everything, even His enemies. While the hands of people carry out works, it is the purpose of God that plans them. People do not own the church. When persecution comes, it is not the person against the person but rather the person against God Himself.
The Birth of Modern Protestant Missions by Michael A.G. Haykin (article) - What lessons can we learn from this early era in the modern missionary movement? First, the Moravians and Baptists around Carey remind us that nothing can be accomplished without prayer to expand God’s kingdom.
John MacArthur: A Pattern of Prayer from a Man of Prayer Daniel 9:1–19 (Read or Listen) - prayer has few equals. It doesn’t teach by precept, theological truth, or doctrine but by practice, pattern, model, or example. Here, we see a man of God praying. We can take apart this prayer and look at its rich components to understand what the prayer of the godly should contain.
If God Is Sovereign, Why Pray? by RC Sproul (article) - Nothing escapes God’s notice; nothing oversteps the boundaries of His power. God is authoritative in all things. If I thought even for one moment that a single molecule was running loose in the universe outside the control and domain of almighty God, I wouldn’t sleep tonight. My confidence in the future rests in my trust in the God who controls history. But how does God exercise that control and manifest that authority? How does God bring to pass the things He sovereignly decrees?
Can our prayers change God‘s will? If not, why pray? by R.C. Sproul (video) - To ask that question is to answer it. What could I possibly say to God that would change His mind? Would I give Him information that He didn’t have before I talked to Him? Could I provide him with counsel or wisdom that He lacked before I talked to Him? You and I both know that we are not God’s guidance counselors. We don’t change His mind. If we don’t change His mind, why pray?
What role does intercessory prayer play in the salvation of the nations? by Stephen Nichols & Derek Thomas (video) - Intercessory prayer is a vital part of the nations’ salvation because God has made a promise, and He keeps it through means. From the first book to the last, Scripture is clear that part of the means is our prayer and intercession. Intercessory prayer is vital on both a personal and a corporate level.
How should I deal with prayerlessness in my life? by Kevin DeYoung & Robert Godfrey (video) - The only way to become prayerful is to pray that the Lord will make you prayerful. It’s a gift of His, and we have to pursue it. I think Calvin said something similar but in a slightly more refined way. If you don’t feel like praying, pray that the Lord will make you feel like praying.
Martin Luther: A Simple Way to Pray (ebook) - During the Lenten season of 1517, only a few months before the posting of the 95 Theses, Martin Luther preached a series of sermons in Wittenberg on the Lord’s Prayer. These were published in April 1519 as An Exposition of the Lord’s Prayer for Simple Laymen. Sixteen years later, Luther returned to the same topic after being asked by his barber for advice about praying. Luther acknowledges at the start that it is not easy to sustain prayer meaningfully as a daily practice. People become lazy or listless and often get distracted by other mundane tasks that seem more urgent than prayer. Luther notes how Christ commanded prayer and taught how and what to pray. In A Simple Way to Pray, Luther recommends his practice of beginning and ending the day with prayer and illustrates a method of prayer based on the Lord’s Prayer that is both elaborate and flexible.
A Call to Prayer by J.C. Ryle (ebook) - I ask whether you pray because prayer is essential to a man’s salvation. I say needful, and I say so advisedly. I am not speaking now of infants or idiots. I am not settling the state of the heathen. I know that where little is given, there little will be required. I speak especially of those who call themselves “Christians” in a land like our own. And of such I say, no man or woman can expect to be saved who does not pray. I hold salvation by grace as firmly as anyone. I would gladly offer a free and full pardon to the greatest sinner. But prayerless is to be without God, Christ, grace, hope, and heaven. It is to be on the road to hell. Now, can you wonder if I ask: Do you pray?
“Prayer is the sure forerunner of salvation. Sinner, you can not pray and perish; prayer and perishing are two things that never go together. I ask you not what your prayer is; it may be a groan, it may be a tear, but if it be a prayer from the innermost heart, you shall be saved; yet if from your heart you have learned to pray—“Prayer is the breath of God in man, returning whence it came”—You can not perish with God’s breath. “Whoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved!””
A sermon by Charles Spurgeon. “…surely, my brethren, it was enough to restrain all lightness and constrain an unceasing earnestness, did we apprehend the greatness of the Being before whom we plead.” “Therefore I say unto you, what things soever you desire, when you pray, believe that ye receive them, and ye shall have them.” (Mark 11:24).
In this episode, Costi Hinn talks about prayer and how to get the most out of your prayer life. Before he provides the practical action steps, he highlights the affections you must have. Any thriving prayer life begins with a deep love for Christ.
In this episode, Nathaniel and Ekkie discuss the life of prayer. Like the Apostle Paul, every Christian should have a prayer life that is "never ceasing.”
The strength of Puritan character and life lay in prayer and meditation. In this practice, the spirit of prayer was regarded as of first importance and the best form of living prayer, which is the characteristic of genuine spirituality. Yet prayer is also vocal and may, therefore, be written on occasion. Consequently, many written prayers and meditations constitute an essential corpus of inspiring devotional literature in the Puritan tradition.
The “Still Hour” refers to the devotional prayer time of a Christian. Austin Phelps describes the pitfalls of prayer, such as apathy, laziness, and lack of desire. He warns us of negative consequences when we approach prayer grudgingly, mechanically, or insincerely. He also describes earnestness, enjoyment, and praying with purpose as qualities to ascribe to. A whole chapter describes Jesus Christ’s atonement as the only basis of prayer.
Charles Spurgeon says of this book…."I was reading the other day a sweet little book, which I would commend to the attention of all of you, written by an American author, Austin Phelps, who seems to truly and completely know the power of prayer and to whom I am indebted for many good things. The little book is called The Still Hour."
Most evangelical Christians know of Matthew Henry’s Commentary on the Bible. Still, few are as familiar with his A Method for Prayer, with Scripture Expressions Proper to Be Used under Each Head. This work consists almost entirely of Scripture, arranged under various headings, to help Christians to pray in harmony with the truth of God, revealed in his Word.
According to J. C. Ryle, private prayer is the most neglected of all Christian duties. That is unfortunate because private prayer accurately measures a Christian’s walk before God and ‘the pith and marrow of practical Christianity.’ To stir his readers to the practice and privilege of private prayer, Ryle points out both the blessings of prayer and the grave dangers of prayerlessness.
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