Basic Biblical Principles 7

Just recently Dave preached an excellent sermon on “prayer”. It is strictly by coincidence that my Shepherd’s Pen, this month, is on prayer. I thought about postponing this to a later time, but I decided against it because it is such an important topic that it could be covered more that twice a month and still be edifying.

The bible has a lot to say about how we should pray:

1. We should pray with a pure heart. Mark 11:25 tells us that we should forgive anyone, that we have something against, before we pray. For example, if we have just had a blowup with someone, that would be a good time to pray. But, we must be careful to let go of our anger and to forgive that other person first.
2. We must pray with our spirit and our mind (1 Corinthians 14:15). Prayer is not something we do by rote, we must think about what we are saying in our prayers. We need to put our hearts into our prayers.
3. As we pray, we need to be clear minded and in self-control (1 Peter 4:7). I sometimes fall asleep while praying in bed at night. But, that is not what God had in mind for us when we pray. We need to be alert and in control of our emotions.
4. We must pray with joy (Philippians 1:4). What a privilege to be able to talk to God. Try to call the President of the United States or the CEO of a major corporation, see if he or she will talk to you. But, the most awesome God, the creator of the entire universe, the most powerful being ever, will listen to you anytime you want to talk to Him. Even better than that, He will answer your prayer in the way that is best for you. When thought of in those terms, it should be very easy to be joyful while praying.
5. We are to pray when we are in trouble (James 5:13). Unfortunately, for some that is the only time that we pray.
6. We are to pray continually (1 Thessalonians 5:17). This verse has always troubled me. It obviously can’t be taken literally, because if we prayed all of the time we would get nothing else done. What it does mean then, is that we should not allow gaps in our prayer life. We should be regular in our prayer life and not allow events in our lives to interfere with our prayer life. We need to have a prayerful attitude at all times.
7. We need to pray to be heard by God, not seen by men (Matthew 6:5-8). Our personal prayer lives are very private things. We pray to praise God and to let Him know the things that are on our heart.

Matthew 6:9-13 is often called the Lord’s Prayer, but many people feel a more accurate name would be the “model prayer”. Jesus’ disciples asked Him how they should pray and Jesus replied with this “model” prayer. It is not God’s intention that our prayer lives consist of memorizing this prayer and reciting it repeatedly. But, I believe that our prayers should contain the elements that are shown to us in this model prayer.

Our prayers should contain praise for our God. I believe that this should definitely include thanksgiving for all God has done for us.

God wants us to ask Him for the things we need physically. Even though we know that He knows what we need before we ask. Physical needs are not things like winning the lottery or a new car, but are the basic things we need for living: food, shelter, and clothing.

We need to ask God for forgiveness, for us and for others. It is so very important to remember that God will only forgive us to the extent that we are willing to forgive others.

And last but not least, we need to remember that we are to ask for things in prayer that are according to God’s will and not ours. God knows what will be good for us, while we often find out that what we thought would be good for us, isn’t good for us at all.

Our prayer lives are very important. We need to constantly be trying to improve our prayers and our prayer life. This does not happen just by chance, it is something that we must work on continually.

Steve Truman