Prayer

This week our subject was fasting and prayer. Another tough one for me! I love to eat and found it difficult to fast. Matthew 6:17-18 says "But when you fast, anoint your head and wash your face, that your fasting may not be seen by others but by your Father who is in secret." The words that hit home to me were "when you fast". Jesus isn't suggesting it; he assumes I will voluntarily fast out of humble reverence to God, in order to learn self-control and reliance on Him alone, and to remember that my treasure is in heaven. Fasting goes hand in hand with prayer. You can pray without fasting, but I don't think you can fast without praying. I fast out of obedience to God and when I fast, I am spending time with God in prayer. The result of fasting and praying is found in Isaiah 58.

"Then your light will break out like the dawn and your recovery will speedily spring forth; And your righteousness will go before you; The glory of the LORD will be your rear guard. Then you will call, and the LORD will answer; You will cry, and He will say, 'Here I am 'if you remove the yoke from your midst, the pointing of the finger and speaking wickedness, and if you give yourself to the hungry and satisfy the desire of the afflicted, then your light will rise in darkness and your gloom will become like midday. And the LORD will continually guide you, and satisfy your desire in scorched places, and give strength to your bones; And you will be like a watered garden, and like a spring of water whose waters do not fail.
Those from among you will rebuild the ancient ruins; You will raise up the age-old foundations; And you will be called the repairer of the breach, the restorer of the streets in which to dwell."

Campus Crusade has a good explanation on fasting and prayer at Your Personal Guide to Fasting and Prayer :: Campus Crusade for Christ International

http://www.ccci.org/training-and-growth/devotional-life/personal-guide-to-fasting/index.htm

Prayer

We've been studying prayer in our Tuesday morning Bible study this semester. I've discovered it's easier to learn about prayer than it is to simply do it.  While I pray pretty much all day long in a running conversation with God, to sit down and have an intentional time of prayer with God is so hard for me.  I allow myself to be distracted during my prayer time or I just don't "get to it".  If you love someone, you usually enjoy spending time with them.  Why, then, is it so hard to spend intentional time with God in prayer?  Do I not love Him?  Am I so selfish and small to think I can ignore Him, the One to whom I owe my very life?  Forgive me, Lord, for relying on myself more than You.  Renew in me the desire to know You, study You, sit like Mary at your feet in worship, to keep a time daily with You alone and let nothing distract from it.  You alone are worthy of my time and my attention.  Thank you for loving me!

The Lord's Prayer

This week, one Bible passage that we looked at was the Lord's Prayer in Matthew 6. The setting was the Sermon on the Mount. Jesus gives a warning about praying; don't pray to be heard and seen by men; don't babble on when you pray; instead 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. Jesus wasn't warning against public prayers (we have lots of example in Scripture of public prayer). He was warning against the wrong attitude when we pray. He was warning against meaningless repetition just to sound good. The Jews of the day highly regarded long prayers. Jesus was showing that it is the heart attitude that matters to God.

Then Jesus gave the Lord's Prayer as a framework for how to pray. In Luke, the disciples asked Jesus to teach them how to pray and Jesus gave them the Lord's Prayer. There are alot of ways to examine the Lord's prayer and commentate on it. The model I want to share today is the P's of the Lord prayer.
1. Praise & worship "Our Father....."
2. Provision "Give us this day...."
3. Pardon "Forgive us our sins...."
4 Protection "Lead us not into temptation"
5. Praise "For Thine is the Kingdom...."

The phrase that stood out to me was "Hallowed be Thy name". Thy name encompasses the whole of who God is, His character, His holy unfathomable ways. His name describes who He is and isn't just a name like Sally. In another passage, Jesus instructs to ask God for what we need, in Jesus' name. More on this next time, I blog.

Prayer-To whom do you pray?

Who is out there to hear our prayers? We are living at a time where I hear many people talk about "being spiritual" and "praying". I hear it from friends, from the TV, radio and the newspaper. It can sound good because they are using the same terminology that I use when I talk about what I believe. One question that pops up in my mind when I hear some people talk about prayer. Exactly who are you praying to?

I KNOW to whom I pray. There is only one true God, who created all things, who is perfectly holy, infinite, loving, wise, etc. He is the God found in the Bible. His command that "You are to have no other gods before Me," is as true today as it was in the days of Moses. We come to God for help; we come to Him in praise and worship; we come to Him for mercy and forgiveness of our sin only through His Son, Jesus Christ.

"The LORD is near to all who call upon Him." (Psalm 145:18)
"Call upon Me in the day of trouble; I will deliver you, and you shall glorify Me." (Psalm 50:15)
"Whatever we ask we receive from Him, because we keep His commandments and do those things that are pleasing in His sight." (I John 3:22)
"Let us therefore come boldly to the throne of grace, that we may obtain mercy, and find grace to help in time of need." (Hebrews 4:16)

Be sure you're praying to the one true God!

What is prayer?

This semester we are going to be studying about prayer in our church Bible study. I'm looking forward to it, especially since one of my 2010 goals is grow in my prayer life. So I pulled out all the books I have on prayer; I didn't realize how many I had, probably too many. I could easily get busy and caught up in reading all these great books on prayer and never read what the Bible has to say on prayer and forget to actually pray. So, hopefully, I'll have some balance in my reading.

I started looking at "what is prayer". Here are a few answers from some notes I had from a seminar I taught on prayer a couple years.

From the Bible I see many people praying to God....in each case, it is someone simply talking to God. Some people are asking for needs to be met, some are simply praising God for Who He is, some are seeking forgiveness for being disobedient, some are seeking to be saved from trouble, some are praying on behalf of other people, some just want to know God more.

Pryaing is a soul attitude, a "lifting up of the mind to God".

Prayer is communicating with God. A conversation that can be spoken or silent, or even expressed in song. It is working with God to accomplish His goals.

Prayer is meant to be the conversation where your life and your God meet. Prayer is simply the medium through which we know God and connect to God. The focus is not on praying, but on God.

Prayer is a dialogue between God and me, not a monologue.

The essense of prayer is talking to God as you would to a beloved parent.

The chief purpose of prayer is to recognize the presence of the heavenly Father.

Prayer bathes the soul in an atmosphere of the divine presence.

Prayer more than anything else is sharing the needs and the burdens and the hungers of my heart with the God who cares. It's communion. It isn't getting things. It isn't forcing God to do something. It is just opening my soul to one who cares and that communes with me. As Luther said, "prayer is much more God instructing us than ever is it God being instructed by us." Prayer is saying oh God, I come to you with the needs of my heart, display Your glory.