This is the confidence which we have before Him, that, if we ask anything according to His will, He hears us. And if we know that He hears us in whatever we ask, we know that we have the requests which we have asked from Him. I John 5:15 NASB
This is a collection of excerpts from the first four years that Christianity 201 published. In several cases I have added sections and updated the text.
We all experience prayer differently. I think the success of Philip Yancey’s book Prayer: Does it Make Any Difference? was that he touched on so many different aspects of it that it resonated with Christ-followers even though their experiences in prayer — and their understanding of prayer — may vary.
I think the success of Philip Yancey’s small-group curriculum on prayer is that those varied experiences are going to contribute to some rather lively, interesting discussion. It’s probably the best discussion-starter curriculum on the market.
The reason is simple: Although it’s never listed in those 7 – 12 “core” doctrinal statements your church, denomination or Christian organization has as part of its charter, prayer is part of the common, shared experienced of all of us.
I’ve never met a Christian who said, “I am a committed follower of Christ, but I don’t believe the practice of prayer needs to be part of that package.”
No way. So why isn’t prayer mentioned in that handful of “core” doctrinal sentences? Is it too self-evident? Why not amend a creed to include, “I believe in prayer.” (I supposed that’s the liability of creeds; no where does it mention the miracles and teachings of Jesus, either.)
Your Father knows what things you need before you ask Him
from Lesson 3 of With Christ in The School of Prayer by Andrew Murray
At first, this might seem to make prayer less necessary: God knows far better about what we need than we do. But as we get deeper into understanding what prayer really is, this truth will strengthen our faith.
It will teach us that we do not need, as in other religions, a multitude of words or urgency, to try to compel an unwilling God to listen.
It will lead us to a holy thoughtfulness and quietness in prayer as it begs the question: Does my Father really know that I need this?
It will, once we have been led by the Spirit to the certainty that our request is indeed something that, we do need for God’s glory, give us wonderful confidence to say, “My Father knows I need it and must have it.”
And then, should there be a delay in getting the answer, it will teach us in quiet perseverance to hold on…
Oh, the blessed freedom and simplicity of a child that Christ our teacher would desire to cultivate in us, as we draw near to God; we should look up to the Father until His Spirit works that freedom and simplicity in us.
We should, at times when we’re praying, when we’re in danger of being preoccupied with our fervent, urgent requests — so much that we forget that the Father knows and hears — we should hold still and just quietly say: My Father sees, My father hears, my father knows. It will help our faith to accept the answer and to say that we know that we have the requests we have asked of Him.
What about that one prayer which started it all for us; a prayer we may have repeated after invited to “come forward” after a large revival meeting or rally; a prayer we may have repeated with a parent at the kitchen table or beside our bed; a prayer we may have voiced with a Sunday School teacher at church?
The personal problem I have with The Sinner’s Prayer is that I spent an additional 14 years of my life lost because my trust was in what I did rather than in what Jesus did. I trusted in the fact that I repeated those words rather than the fact that Jesus, God in the flesh, was crucified, buried and raised three days later. Though I had repeated those words, my trust was no more in Christ than it was before I said them. My trust was right where it began…in myself.
The “sinner’s prayer” is probably one of the great Evangelical add-ons; one that exists even as Evangelicals deplore the additional or supplemental doctrines and practices of Roman Catholics. The quotation is from a 2-part article written by Eric Douglas, a pastor in the U.S., that is now offline.
Trying to dissect how prayer works is like using a magnifying glass to try to figure out why a woman is beautiful. If you turn God into an object, he has a way of disappearing…
The only way to know how prayer works is to have complete knowledge and control of the past, present, and future. In other words, you can figure out how prayer works if you are God. (Paul E. Miller, A Praying Life p128)
Paul Clark, Operations Pastor at Fairhaven Church in Centerville, Ohio posted this as the church recently completed an “Action Series” of messages by having the congregationjoin in this prayer. As I studied this, I added some emphasis to the action petitions in each section.
Father, I thank you that your beauty and glory are beyond anything I can comprehend. Please open my eyes to your wonders so that my heart is filled with awe.
Father, I thank you that your love for me is astonishing; far beyond anything I can understand. The cross of Christ demonstrates the depth of your love. Help me to believe that Jesus’ sacrifice is the ultimate proof that I am your treasure.
Father, I know that your extravagant love demands something special from me. I offer you all of my life. I will hold nothing back. Help me respond wholeheartedly.
Father, help me to realize that your extravagant love can transform me. It can make my heart pure and holy and acceptable in your sight. Please fill my thoughts with becoming more like you.
Father, I want to love you passionately, from the depths of my soul. Please create in me that kind of love. Help me to feel it intensely. Help me to share it freely. Help me to give it back to you authentically.
Father, I am amazed that you have chosen me. You have a future for me that’s worth everything. Please give me a vision of eternity so that I would live each day on purpose, being one step closer to that day.
Then, the question, “Do we pray once, or do we ‘keep on asking?'”
Matthew 6:7 “And when you pray, do not heap up empty phrases as the Gentiles do, for they think that they will be heard for their many words.
Luke 18:7 And will not God bring about justice for his chosen ones, who cry out to him day and night? Will he keep putting them off? 8 I tell you, he will see that they get justice, and quickly…
This brings to mind something which may have been part of your spiritual life:
Prayer: I don’t think Jesus ever intended it to be this complicated
Years ago, I discovered Good Question, a blog by InterVarsity Press (IVP) author Christopher R. Smith. This is a treasure trove of Q&A on subjects that some people find difficult or controversial. He was asked, Did Jesus send a mixed message about repetition in his teaching about prayer?
When he warns in the Sermon on the Mount against “heaping up empty phrases,” he’s specifically saying that we shouldn’t expect God to hear us and grant our requests based on how many words we’ve said—that is, how much time and energy we’ve put into saying long and repetitive prayers. This is really a form of “works,” of trying to earn something from God by our own efforts. Jesus directs us instead towards grace: “Your Father knows what you need before you ask him.” What we receive from God in prayer is an expression of His love and goodness towards us, not our efforts.
On the other hand, in parables like the one about the Friend at Midnight, the Persistent Widow, etc. Jesus is saying that once we have become convinced that something will advance God’s purposes in our lives and in the world, we should pray for it with a persistent, relentless faith. We shouldn’t pray one or two half-hearted prayers along the lines of “Well, if you think you might want to do this, and you could maybe get around to it, we’d appreciate it.”
Rather, the kind of persistent prayer Jesus describes in these parables is what the author of Hebrews calls “boldly approaching the throne of grace.” But note that in this case as well the answer to prayer comes as a result of God’s grace, not our efforts. Hebrews makes clear that it rests on Jesus’ own high priestly intercession for us. And it begins with a revelation to us of God’s purposes in the world; we then join in those purposes through our prayers, with the faith God gives us to pray them and believe for their answers. (I suggest in my study guide to John, for example, that Jesus turns the water to wine at the wedding in Cana because “Mary’s persistent faith and implicit trust show him that God is powerfully at work at this very moment.”)
As for the Lord’s Prayer, I think it’s important to recognize that this was Jesus’ response to his disciples request, “Lord, teach us to pray,” after they had seen him at prayer. When we see it as a teaching, we realize that the Lord’s Prayer is designed to show us what the themes and priorities of our own prayers should be: for the advancement of God’s kingdom first, and then for our own needs in the context of our participation in that kingdom, as well as for forgiveness and deliverance from temptation.
The Lord’s Prayer is, therefore, a model prayer that we are meant to imitate but not necessarily to repeat verbatim over and over again (as by trying to do “penance” by saying “ten ‘Hail Marys’ and ten ‘Our Fathers’”). However, I think the Lord’s Prayer can nevertheless be used very effectively in liturgical settings.
Prayer is complicated. Furthermore, everyone of us today has a different experience of it; we each have a unique prayer life. I hope these excerpts today can be springboards for greater examination in your own life, or perhaps discussion in your own small group meeting.
Christianity 201 