I ain’t got no money, but I’ve got somethin’ better. I’ve got friends.”
–Elmer Kelton (The Way of the Coyote)
“No longer do I call you servants, for a servant does not know what his master is doing; but I have called you friends, for all things that I heard from My Father I have made known to you.”
“No longer do I call you servants, for a servant does not know what his master is doing; but I have called you friends, for all things that I heard from My Father I have made known to you.”
–John 15:15 (NKJV)
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Prayer, what a force! Prayer plus reading God’s Word–a force that cannot be reckoned with–too powerful for natural understanding! Add the power of the Holy Spirit and we can be “more than conquerors.”
The other day my eldest granddaughter and I were having a conversation about prayer. She said it was “crazy” in today’s vernacular. “Why pray when God already knows, yet I know we should. It was a good discussion. Prayer is one of the most vital spiritual disciplines yet is one of the most neglected. I told her that indeed God already knows but when we pray we are building up a relationship. Everyone is saying that Christianity is a relationship, not a religion, but only, only if we pray and read the Bible. That is how the relationship grows.
How prayer works is for the most part a mystery. God is omniscient, therefore, as my granddaughter said, He already knows, yet there must be more to it. The more I contemplated it over the weekend, the more I began to think that there is indeed something more that happens when we pray. Because of prayers, we see needs met, lives changed, miracles happen, but that is what the eye can see. What about the spiritual realm? What happens there? I have come to the conclusion that prayer not only builds a relationship with Christ, but that there is something taking place in the spiritual realm. Something far beyond our understanding.
Prayer is simply talking to Christ, or to the Father. Now don’t get me wrong, there is a time for formal prayer, and there is nothing wrong with the habitual prayer said over meals as long as it is meant and not perfunctory. However, the stronger relationship comes through conversational prayer; talking to God in a conversation. The more you know your Bible the better and easier this becomes. Talk to Him as if He were beside you and a friend, for He is. Your personality will dictate greatly to how you pray. I remember a well known preacher lying in bed after heart surgery. In walked one of his colleagues and began to shake the walls of his infirmity down. He was a boisterous man and so was his prayer. A while later another colleague came in and prayed over him, “Father, this is Joe. My friend is in need…” Get the picture? Neither prayer was wrong. Don’t let the devil trick you into thinking that God can hear only certain types of prayers.
“When I think of the wisdom and scope of God’s plan, I fall to my knees and pray to the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Creator of everything in heaven and on earth. I pray that from his glorious, unlimited resources he will give you mighty inner strength through his Holy Spirit. And I pray that Christ will be more and more at home in your hearts as you trust in him. May your roots go down deep into the soil of God’s marvelous love. And may you have the power to understand, as all God’s people should, how wide, how long, how high, and how deep his love really is. May you experience the love of Christ, though it is so great you will never fully understand it. Then you will be filled with the fullness of life and power that comes from God.”
–Ephesians 4:14-19 (NLT)
——————————–
Prayer, what a force! Prayer plus reading God’s Word–a force that cannot be reckoned with–too powerful for natural understanding! Add the power of the Holy Spirit and we can be “more than conquerors.”
The other day my eldest granddaughter and I were having a conversation about prayer. She said it was “crazy” in today’s vernacular. “Why pray when God already knows, yet I know we should. It was a good discussion. Prayer is one of the most vital spiritual disciplines yet is one of the most neglected. I told her that indeed God already knows but when we pray we are building up a relationship. Everyone is saying that Christianity is a relationship, not a religion, but only, only if we pray and read the Bible. That is how the relationship grows.
How prayer works is for the most part a mystery. God is omniscient, therefore, as my granddaughter said, He already knows, yet there must be more to it. The more I contemplated it over the weekend, the more I began to think that there is indeed something more that happens when we pray. Because of prayers, we see needs met, lives changed, miracles happen, but that is what the eye can see. What about the spiritual realm? What happens there? I have come to the conclusion that prayer not only builds a relationship with Christ, but that there is something taking place in the spiritual realm. Something far beyond our understanding.
Prayer is simply talking to Christ, or to the Father. Now don’t get me wrong, there is a time for formal prayer, and there is nothing wrong with the habitual prayer said over meals as long as it is meant and not perfunctory. However, the stronger relationship comes through conversational prayer; talking to God in a conversation. The more you know your Bible the better and easier this becomes. Talk to Him as if He were beside you and a friend, for He is. Your personality will dictate greatly to how you pray. I remember a well known preacher lying in bed after heart surgery. In walked one of his colleagues and began to shake the walls of his infirmity down. He was a boisterous man and so was his prayer. A while later another colleague came in and prayed over him, “Father, this is Joe. My friend is in need…” Get the picture? Neither prayer was wrong. Don’t let the devil trick you into thinking that God can hear only certain types of prayers.
“When I think of the wisdom and scope of God’s plan, I fall to my knees and pray to the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Creator of everything in heaven and on earth. I pray that from his glorious, unlimited resources he will give you mighty inner strength through his Holy Spirit. And I pray that Christ will be more and more at home in your hearts as you trust in him. May your roots go down deep into the soil of God’s marvelous love. And may you have the power to understand, as all God’s people should, how wide, how long, how high, and how deep his love really is. May you experience the love of Christ, though it is so great you will never fully understand it. Then you will be filled with the fullness of life and power that comes from God.”
–Ephesians 4:14-19 (NLT)