Praying
by Ken Pullen
ACP
Thursday, October 15th, 2015
In my research for this evidence reveals, depending on the survey or poll, that while the majority of Americans profess to pray at some point — 85% of Americans from combined beliefs, i.e. Buddhist, Hindu, Islamic, Christian, Wiccan, etc. gleaned from Pew Research, Gallup, and multi-denominational surveys and polls — those professing to be Christian pray on average 30 seconds a day, or about 15 minutes in the course of a week.
I read articles written by professed Christian writers, preachers, and leaders excusing this because as some wrote — Christians are so busy doing work within their respective churches and in their daily lives, and prayer takes energy, in our times with all everyone does there is no time or energy for prayer.
This is an abomination and an excuse that does not hold water.
One thing which annoys me to the point I could scream is how people today imagine themselves so much more put upon, busy, and stressed out than people at any other time in history. No one really does much of anything yet no one has time or energy anymore. People sit and talk on phones yet are exhausted. They work less and have it easier than any other people in history yet claim they have no time. People go to a store in an SUV and buy a boxed meal they place in a microwave yet bemoan how exhausted and put upon they are. No sense of history. No sense of reality. No sense at all. Walking blind bags of fleshly excuse!
Only 30 seconds a day for prayer!?
15 minutes a week on average!?
And in this DEVOTION towards God our Creator, towards Jesus the Lord Who bought us with a price of His shed blood and suffering and dying to conquer death by the power of the Spirit of God our 30 seconds a day, our 15 minutes a week is spent in asking “I want,” or “I need” and not knowing how to pray or what prayer is really about!
And what prayer is about with regard to a professed Christian is to increase in their SPIRITUAL walk with the Lord. To take the necessary time to grow SPIRITUALLY closer to understanding, obeying, and implementing the will of God in our lives. And that will is discovered in combination of fervent, humble prayer not amiss with dedicated reading of God’s inerrant word.
As disciples of Jesus Christ, as true believers in and of God, Jesus the Lord, the Holy Spirit, and the Holy Bible we are instructed by God through His word to place our lives, our all, our thoughts on those things of heaven, of spirit, and not of this world. We are instructed to turn to Him and away from this world. We are to obey and we will all be judged by our actions — or our refusal to act, to obey, to listen, to learn, to grow.
The sole reason our nation is in the throes it is as it decays and marches speedily towards the precipice and its demise is a turning from God and the inerrancy of the Bible. Refusing the instruction of the Lord. Refusing to pray — or if and when we do pray we pray amiss and it’s all “I want, I need, oh please Lord help me with this, give me that! Oh me, me, me, why does this happen to me, me, me!”
Where is the removal of self we are instructed to have?
Why do we refuse learning the ways of the Lord?
Why do we refuse to pray fervently and correctly?
Because we love self and this world and pleasure more than we love the Lord our God, that’s why.
Pray on that! On your knees America!
The Lord’s Prayer
1And it came to pass, that, as he was praying in a certain place, when he ceased, one of his disciples said unto him, Lord, teach us to pray, as John also taught his disciples.
2And he said unto them, When ye pray, say, Our Father which art in heaven, Hallowed be thy name. Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done, as in heaven, so in earth.
3Give us day by day our daily bread.
4And forgive us our sins; for we also forgive every one that is indebted to us. And lead us not into temptation; but deliver us from evil.
Ask, Seek, Knock
5And he said unto them, Which of you shall have a friend, and shall go unto him at midnight, and say unto him, Friend, lend me three loaves; 6For a friend of mine in his journey is come to me, and I have nothing to set before him? 7And he from within shall answer and say, Trouble me not: the door is now shut, and my children are with me in bed; I cannot rise and give thee. 8I say unto you, Though he will not rise and give him, because he is his friend, yet because of his importunity he will rise and give him as many as he needeth.
9And I say unto you, Ask, and it shall be given you; seek, and ye shall find; knock, and it shall be opened unto you. 10For every one that asketh receiveth; and he that seeketh findeth; and to him that knocketh it shall be opened. 11If a son shall ask bread of any of you that is a father, will he give him a stone? or if he ask a fish, will he for a fish give him a serpent? 12Or if he shall ask an egg, will he offer him a scorpion? 13If ye then, being evil, know how to give good gifts unto your children: how much more shall your heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to them that ask him?
When Jesus’ disciples came to Him and asked Him how they ought to pray — take note they came to Him and asked, He did not broach this subject with them. They realized in their spirits, in their souls the need to come to God the Father in individual prayer, yet they knew not how to do so.
And Jesus Christ taught them.
Now the Lord’s prayer is in truth the believer’s prayer. The Lord taught us the foundation. Also, we are not to merely recite by rote. Uninspired. Unfeeling. Auto-pilot style.
Too many pray, if they pray, by rote. Reciting the same monotone monotonous prayers over and over without any weight or sincerity behind the words.
Too many pray, if they pray, asking for things. Things of this world for themselves and for others in their families. Always asking God for things for themselves. Failing to understand the very elementary basics of prayer even though as professed disciples and professed believers in God’s Word they fail to understand and invoke God’s very words of instruction.
When Jesus taught the disciples to pray the very first part of prayer is to acknowledge and revere God the Father. Hallowed be His name. Honored, worshipped, Most High above all other names. We go to God boldly yet humbly acknowledging He is Most High above all else and everything and everyone else.
We are to acknowledge His will be done. Not ours. Not the will of our neighbors, our wives, our friends, or ourselves — HIS WILL BE DONE. Right here on earth in our fleshly lives as His will is done in heaven.
We give thanks. In all things. Satisfied for what He provides.
We not only give thanks — we forgive. We forgive all everything. As we forgive so we are forgiven.
Still no asking for a new house, a Cadillac, money for this, money for that, no asking for self, no asking for things.
No excuses!
Let it begin with me to pray more correctly and with greater devotion.
Let it begin with all professed believers in our sick and sin-filled dying nation to pray greater than 30 seconds a day — for ourselves.
We can and must do better.
We all will be held accountable and stand before the judgment seat of the Lord.
I pray we learn how to pray beginning today, and pray this day we spend more time in earnest, fervent, humble prayer not amiss before the Lord our God.
The Purpose of Prayer
by Pastor Cornelius R. Stam
The question is sometimes asked: If God’s will and purpose are unalterable, why pray? The answer is simply: Because the divine purpose, which any answer to prayer must represent, includes the prayer itself. It is enough that He “who worketh all things after the counsel of His own will” (Ephesians 1:11) invites and exhorts His people to “come boldly unto the throne of grace” to “let [their] requests be made known unto God” (Hebrews 4:16; Philippians 4:6).
But prayer is not merely petition, as many suppose. It is one aspect of active communion with God (meditation on the Word being the other) and includes adoration, thanksgiving and confession, as well as supplication. Hyde, in God’s Education of Alan, Pp. 154,155, says: “Prayer is the communion of two wills, in which the finite comes into connection with the Infinite, and, like the trolley, appropriates its purpose and power.”
We have an example of this in the record of our Lord’s prayer in the garden, for, while He is not to be classed with finite men, yet He laid aside His glory, became “a servant” (Philippians 2:7) and “learned obedience” (Hebrews 5:8; Philippias 2:8). In this place of subjection He made definite and earnest requests of His Father, but closed His prayer with the words: “Nevertheless, not My will, but Thine, be done” (Luke 22:42) with the result that He was “strengthened” for the ordeal He had to face (Ver. 43).
Thus prayer is not merely a means of “getting things from God” but a God-appointed means of fellowship with Him, and all acceptable prayer will include the supplication — as sincerely desired as the rest: “Nevertheless, not My will, but Thine, be done.”
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