Prayer 120125
Update: 2025-01-13
Description
A man was in a bit of trouble while flying his little plane. He called the control tower and said, "Pilot to tower, Pilot to tower, I'm 300 miles from the airport, six hundred feet above the ground, and out of fuel. I am descending rapidly. Please advise. Over." "Tower to pilot, Tower to Pilot" came the reply, "Repeat after me: "Our Father Who art in heaven...'"
We all pray in a crisis! But that’s a bit late to start! I want to talk today about our need to find our prayer life with God.
I think we are going to see 2 opposite developments this year. We’ll see the world get more crazy and weird – and more against us. But we’ll see throughout the nation new people coming to Jesus and lives being changed. To be part of that let’s walk with him!
Have you ever broken a limb, an arm or a leg? One of yours I mean. Did you have a plaster on it? As a 15-year-old, I woke up after a cartilage operation in desperate need of the loo: without thinking I stepped out of bed onto my bandaged leg and splat!....
It took a long time to get that muscle to work again because of the operation. If you've had an arm or a leg in plaster for a while you may have wondered where the muscle had gone when you took the plaster off. It had wasted away through all the inactivity.
Some of us have just been giving our muscles a rest for a while. But Col 4.2 says “devote yourselves to prayer, being watchful and thankful.”
You’ll hear people saying we should pray more and read the bible more. But why should we? Because we don’t do it enough, they say. But how much is enough? And how will we feel when we’ve done it enough?
The Christian life is not about living up to something but about living something.
You can’t live by the oughts and the shoulds. You ought to do more. You should do better. You should pray better! Do more!
You never will be as good as your conscience says you should. But the objective is not to hit some standard where you can feel good enough at praying!
Mt 6:5-7 “And when you pray, do not be like the hypocrites, for they love to pray standing in the synagogues and on the street corners to be seen by others. Truly I tell you, they have received their reward in full.6 But when you pray, go into your room, close the door and pray to your Father, who is unseen. Then your Father, who sees what is done in secret, will reward you. 7 And when you pray, do not keep on babbling like pagans, for they think they will be heard because of their many words.
Prayer is talking to somebody that you know, and that knows you. It is so far from an ought to or should do. But be prepared to be changed!
Jesus said in Jn 10:10 “The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy; I have come that they may have life and have it to the full.”
Jn 16:26 In that day you will ask in my name. I am not saying that I will ask the Father on your behalf.
27 No, the Father himself loves you because you have loved me and have believed that I came from God.
The Father loves us and coming to him in prayer is life-giving. So in the midst of all we have to do in life, that seems so important, we have to come to him.
Perhaps we sometimes treat the temporary like it is eternal and the eternal like it is temporary. For instance my garden seems to be permanently full of weeds. They come in waves. It feels like a permanent thing. They keep regrowing and my house becomes untidy. Maybe that feels eternal. But it is temporary. Yes I need to do it but It is not what I need to fill my mind with.
God very clearly is eternal: you could describe that as being every day for ever. He is always our priority.
Maybe because he’s eternal it’s easy to leave him until tomorrow. Yet this is something that for many of us needs to change.
So How Can I Build Up my Prayer Muscles Again?
1/ Yield
Psalm 139 is an incredible Psalm where David talks about all the ways that God knows and loves him. Then at the end he says this
Ps 139:23 Search me, God, and know my heart; test me and know my anxious thoughts.
24 See if there is any offensive way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting.
It’s like he has twin doors on his brain, flings them open, and says, " Lord, look at everything I’ve ever thought, good or bad. I am completely open!
We spend every Sunday morning and many other times talking about the way Jesus loves us and what he’s done for us.
But surely our response has to be, like David, to throw open the doors and say Search me, God, and know my heart; test me and know my anxious thoughts. See if there is any offensive way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting.
A real prayer life begins right there! Do it regularly.
2/ Decide to trust him
a/ We are all affected by good and bad things that have happened in our lives. We may have certain attitud
We all pray in a crisis! But that’s a bit late to start! I want to talk today about our need to find our prayer life with God.
I think we are going to see 2 opposite developments this year. We’ll see the world get more crazy and weird – and more against us. But we’ll see throughout the nation new people coming to Jesus and lives being changed. To be part of that let’s walk with him!
Have you ever broken a limb, an arm or a leg? One of yours I mean. Did you have a plaster on it? As a 15-year-old, I woke up after a cartilage operation in desperate need of the loo: without thinking I stepped out of bed onto my bandaged leg and splat!....
It took a long time to get that muscle to work again because of the operation. If you've had an arm or a leg in plaster for a while you may have wondered where the muscle had gone when you took the plaster off. It had wasted away through all the inactivity.
Some of us have just been giving our muscles a rest for a while. But Col 4.2 says “devote yourselves to prayer, being watchful and thankful.”
You’ll hear people saying we should pray more and read the bible more. But why should we? Because we don’t do it enough, they say. But how much is enough? And how will we feel when we’ve done it enough?
The Christian life is not about living up to something but about living something.
You can’t live by the oughts and the shoulds. You ought to do more. You should do better. You should pray better! Do more!
You never will be as good as your conscience says you should. But the objective is not to hit some standard where you can feel good enough at praying!
Mt 6:5-7 “And when you pray, do not be like the hypocrites, for they love to pray standing in the synagogues and on the street corners to be seen by others. Truly I tell you, they have received their reward in full.6 But when you pray, go into your room, close the door and pray to your Father, who is unseen. Then your Father, who sees what is done in secret, will reward you. 7 And when you pray, do not keep on babbling like pagans, for they think they will be heard because of their many words.
Prayer is talking to somebody that you know, and that knows you. It is so far from an ought to or should do. But be prepared to be changed!
Jesus said in Jn 10:10 “The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy; I have come that they may have life and have it to the full.”
Jn 16:26 In that day you will ask in my name. I am not saying that I will ask the Father on your behalf.
27 No, the Father himself loves you because you have loved me and have believed that I came from God.
The Father loves us and coming to him in prayer is life-giving. So in the midst of all we have to do in life, that seems so important, we have to come to him.
Perhaps we sometimes treat the temporary like it is eternal and the eternal like it is temporary. For instance my garden seems to be permanently full of weeds. They come in waves. It feels like a permanent thing. They keep regrowing and my house becomes untidy. Maybe that feels eternal. But it is temporary. Yes I need to do it but It is not what I need to fill my mind with.
God very clearly is eternal: you could describe that as being every day for ever. He is always our priority.
Maybe because he’s eternal it’s easy to leave him until tomorrow. Yet this is something that for many of us needs to change.
So How Can I Build Up my Prayer Muscles Again?
1/ Yield
Psalm 139 is an incredible Psalm where David talks about all the ways that God knows and loves him. Then at the end he says this
Ps 139:23 Search me, God, and know my heart; test me and know my anxious thoughts.
24 See if there is any offensive way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting.
It’s like he has twin doors on his brain, flings them open, and says, " Lord, look at everything I’ve ever thought, good or bad. I am completely open!
We spend every Sunday morning and many other times talking about the way Jesus loves us and what he’s done for us.
But surely our response has to be, like David, to throw open the doors and say Search me, God, and know my heart; test me and know my anxious thoughts. See if there is any offensive way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting.
A real prayer life begins right there! Do it regularly.
2/ Decide to trust him
a/ We are all affected by good and bad things that have happened in our lives. We may have certain attitud
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