kayte
Jul 14th 2004, 03:57 PM
Chapter Three
Why should we pray? If God knows everything, which He surely does, then what is the point? Is it possible for us to change God’s mind, to twist His arm by our sheer determination? Can we prompt God to move in a situation that He had no plans to intervene in? Is prayer a matter of us wielding power and influence? Is the purpose of prayer merely to ‘get’?
Most of us shudder at the sight of those words actually written down, yet isn’t it how many approach prayer at one time or another?
Unfortunately when we go at prayer in that manner we miss so much. We miss what God Himself designed prayer to be. Why He wants us to pray.
In Matthew 6:10 Jesus’ lesson in prayer continues: “Your kingdom come. Your will be done on earth as it is in heaven.”
Your kingdom come… it’s His kingdom, not ours. Your will be done… His will, not ours. Does heaven run on the principle of ‘do your own thing by what seems right to you, and if you get in a pinch then call on God and tell Him what He needs to do’? Of course not… the idea of that is totally repellent to us. Yet that is the course of many, many Christians on earth.
“Your will be done on earth as it in heaven.”
What is His will?
Part of the answer lies in Jesus’ prayer in John 17. Lets look at verses 20-26.
“I do not pray for these alone, but also for those who will believe in Me through their word; that they all may be one, as You, Father, are in Me, and I in You; that they also may be one in Us, that the world may believe that You sent Me.
And the glory which You gave Me I have given them, that they may be one just as We are one:
I in them, and You in Me; that they may be made perfect in one, and that the world may know that You have sent Me, and have loved them as You have loved Me.
Father, I desire that they also whom You gave Me may be with Me where I am, that they may behold My glory which You have given Me; for You loved Me before the foundation of the world.
O righteous Father! The world has not known You, but I have known You; and these have known that You sent Me.
And I have declared to them Your name, and will declare it, that the love with which You loved Me may be in them and I in them.”#
That we may be one in Him. That our relationship be so strong, so close that we are one in Him. In John 15 Jesus speaks about abiding in Him. He is the vine, we are the branches.
The vine and the branches are one. The branch has no life apart from the vine, also the vine and the branches have the same purpose.
The branch only reflects and produces what is in the vine. Imagine a branch on a honeysuckle vine producing limes or bananas. How about a fragile morning glory vine shoving out a watermelon? Okay—maybe this belongs in the book “Worthless Things to Ponder”, but what about the fruit that we produce when we’re abiding in Christ?
The person abiding in Him… being one in Him will produce His kind of fruit.
When I look at the fruit in my own life the evidence is all to clear. It’s obvious when I’m abiding in Him. There is love. John 15:10: “If you keep My commandments, you will abide in My love, just as I have kept My Father’s commandments and abide in His love.”
There is joy, peace, longsuffering, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. (Galatians 5:22,23)
But when I turn myself from Him, when I meander off and try to take root somewhere apart from the vine, my fruit is vastly different.
There is love, oh yes. Love of self. Passionately pursuing my own comfort, my own pleasure, my own way… my own will. The desires of my heart change, my vision shifts and I grow discontent. In short—I develop an “I” problem and it affects every area of my life, including prayer.
I don’t mean to say that I stop praying, no… I continue on with great zeal. But how I pray changes. I grow awkward and petulant with God. My ideas of what God should do leap to the foreground, sounding immensely wise and good in my own ears. My prayers become very ‘me’ focused, rather than God focused.
So often we pray standing in the greatest of sympathy for the one suffering. Our hearts are wrung out as we claim victories over the circumstances of our fellow men. Thanking God that He has the power to sweep away the circumstances that threaten to undermine the faith of the sufferer. (This is how we see suffering when we’re struggling in the realm of self.)
And He surely does have that power. He created the heavens and the earth. He parted the Red Sea. He brought water from a rock. He fed 5,000 with 5 loaves and 2 fish. He miraculously healed many. He defeated death and rose from the grave.
Yes, His power to alter circumstances is unquestionable. Yet if we pray solely in sympathy for a person or for ourselves, the purpose of prayer has not been fulfilled.
John 17:21: “that they all may be one, as You, Father are in Me, and I in You; that they also may be one in Us…”
When we are one in His heart, in His purpose… one in His love, our sympathies are then upon our Fathers will being done in our own lives as well as others, even in the midst of suffering.
Jesus entirely and completely reflected the love, heart and work of the Father. He is One in the Father and the Father is One in the Son. And we are offered the incredible invitation to be one in them. Not to be little god’s, but to know Him intimately. To become so yielded to Him that our lives reflect Him. His love poured into us and out to others. To come to the place of knowing how little value our own ideas are worth because we have known His heart. His love and compassion so surpasses our own that we are no longer satisfied with ourselves but must be filled by Him… more and more.
When we pray and set our hearts and lives upon Him, He directs our prayers. He teaches us how to pray and we ‘know’ Him.
When we pray from a place of sympathy for another are our prayers heard? Oh yes, He always hears us. But when we pray from that sympathy we are all too prone to pray from our own ideas of what’s right. Our view is entirely limited to our own experience and desire.
When we are one in Him our natural sympathy expands into eternal compassion and we glimpse the overwhelming love and care of our Father. We no longer see through just our earthly eyes, but through His eternal plan. Things that once seemed so dark that it was impossible to find good become transformed by the touch of His hand.
There is a story I want to share with you. A story where God revealed His heart to a woman that prayed to know His will.
An urgent prayer request was brought to the little church body… Nick, the cousin of a church member was gravely ill. Nick was 36, married with 2 small children. He had been in perfect health up until the Sunday afternoon when his 6-year-old son went to wake him from his nap for dinner.
Nick was in a coma; blood trickled from his ears, nose and mouth.
He was rushed to the hospital in the Texas town where the doctors began running every test known to man, while his panicked wife, Donna called everyone she could think of pleading for prayer.
And so it was that the prayer request came to the small church.
A week passed with no change in Nick’s condition. The doctors remained clueless as to what had caused this and were quickly running out of ideas.
In the second week a special prayer meeting was called on behalf of Nick at the little church. That day, in preparation for the meeting the woman set herself aside to continue seeking the Lord as to His will in this situation. Her heart ached for this family and she wanted very much to see God heal Nick, yet she was hesitant to ask for that. It was too important, too
serious a situation. She wanted to pray according to His will. Not her own… not anyone else’s.
She sat and worshipped the Lord till her heart was quiet. Then the prayer, the song in Psalm 61 sprang up in her heart.
“Hear my cry, O God; attend unto my prayer.
From the end of the earth will I cry unto Thee.
And when my heart is overwhelmed
Please lead me to the Rock
That is higher than I.
For You have been a shelter for me,
And a strong tower from the enemy.
And when my heart is overwhelmed
Please lead me to the Rock
That is higher than I.
That is higher than I.
Over and over the Psalm played through her heart, the tears pouring down her face. And she knew. She had seen the heart of God and she knew… Nick was going to die. The Psalm was the cry of his widows heart.
God knew the agony and grief that Donna would be facing. The overwhelming ‘lostness’ she would soon feel. And heaven was filled with His compassion.
Before she knew the depths of her need, He was there. Before her heart was overwhelmed, He sent the prayer out. Before her heart broke, His plan to be her shelter and tower was secure. He heard her cry before she uttered it, and He would surely lead her to the Rock of safety. The Rock that is higher than I.
The prayer meeting began at 7:00pm. About a dozen people sat quietly in their seats whispering prayers, asking the God of All Power to intervene for Nick and his family.
Slowly the prayers became louder as words affirming God’s desire to heal Nick poured forth.
The healing was claimed and everyone, except one, went home joyfully anticipating Nick’s full recovery and return to his much relieved, thankful wife and children.
Three days later Nick quietly slipped from the coma into the arms of his Savior.
The young widow with her children stood by his grave at the ends of the earth, overwhelmed by grief, and lifted her face to the Rock. And He was there.
#
Why pray? To be one in Him, in His purpose.
To know God. To see Him high and lifted up. To have our hearts, our selves, stretched beyond the sweetness of sympathy so that we can be filled by a greater compassion. So that the love with which the Father loved the Son may be in us.
To die to self and live to Him, that our joy may be full.
John 17:21: “That the world may believe that You sent Me.”
#
O Father, we want to know You. We want to be one in You. Your kingdom come, Your will be done in us as it is in heaven. To know Your heart… to be assured of Your compassion in the brightest and the darkest hours. To see You moving and working in the hearts and lives of those around us. Use us Lord, to pray. Show us the things You are doing so we might line up with You.
Father, help us to cease seeking our own way and to be filled with Your compassion.
In Jesus we come
Amen
#
Study questions
#
1) There are many different approaches to prayer, we’ve probably all attempted each approach at different times. In relation to your own prayer life make a list in order of frequency of how you pray.
Example: a) persistent and repetitious
b) Waiting before the Lord till He shows you how to pray
c) Let’s make a deal
d) Naming a verse and claiming it
e) Praying sympathetically for yourself and others
f) Grocery list style
Etc.
2) From your list, which approach are you least comfortable with? Why?
3) Which approach takes you nearest to God? Why?
4) Who has had the greatest impact in teaching you how to pray?
Example:
a) someone in the Bible
b) Some you know personally
c) Someone on TV
d) A book you read
What are things they taught you? Are those things scripturally based?
5) Have you experienced a time in your prayer life that you prayed so fervently with great expectation that God would do as you asked, only to have your prayers seemingly ignored in the end? What did you learn from it? What attitude did you come away with?
6) Are you continuously learning and truly growing closer to God through prayer?
copyright 2002 tkc
Why should we pray? If God knows everything, which He surely does, then what is the point? Is it possible for us to change God’s mind, to twist His arm by our sheer determination? Can we prompt God to move in a situation that He had no plans to intervene in? Is prayer a matter of us wielding power and influence? Is the purpose of prayer merely to ‘get’?
Most of us shudder at the sight of those words actually written down, yet isn’t it how many approach prayer at one time or another?
Unfortunately when we go at prayer in that manner we miss so much. We miss what God Himself designed prayer to be. Why He wants us to pray.
In Matthew 6:10 Jesus’ lesson in prayer continues: “Your kingdom come. Your will be done on earth as it is in heaven.”
Your kingdom come… it’s His kingdom, not ours. Your will be done… His will, not ours. Does heaven run on the principle of ‘do your own thing by what seems right to you, and if you get in a pinch then call on God and tell Him what He needs to do’? Of course not… the idea of that is totally repellent to us. Yet that is the course of many, many Christians on earth.
“Your will be done on earth as it in heaven.”
What is His will?
Part of the answer lies in Jesus’ prayer in John 17. Lets look at verses 20-26.
“I do not pray for these alone, but also for those who will believe in Me through their word; that they all may be one, as You, Father, are in Me, and I in You; that they also may be one in Us, that the world may believe that You sent Me.
And the glory which You gave Me I have given them, that they may be one just as We are one:
I in them, and You in Me; that they may be made perfect in one, and that the world may know that You have sent Me, and have loved them as You have loved Me.
Father, I desire that they also whom You gave Me may be with Me where I am, that they may behold My glory which You have given Me; for You loved Me before the foundation of the world.
O righteous Father! The world has not known You, but I have known You; and these have known that You sent Me.
And I have declared to them Your name, and will declare it, that the love with which You loved Me may be in them and I in them.”#
That we may be one in Him. That our relationship be so strong, so close that we are one in Him. In John 15 Jesus speaks about abiding in Him. He is the vine, we are the branches.
The vine and the branches are one. The branch has no life apart from the vine, also the vine and the branches have the same purpose.
The branch only reflects and produces what is in the vine. Imagine a branch on a honeysuckle vine producing limes or bananas. How about a fragile morning glory vine shoving out a watermelon? Okay—maybe this belongs in the book “Worthless Things to Ponder”, but what about the fruit that we produce when we’re abiding in Christ?
The person abiding in Him… being one in Him will produce His kind of fruit.
When I look at the fruit in my own life the evidence is all to clear. It’s obvious when I’m abiding in Him. There is love. John 15:10: “If you keep My commandments, you will abide in My love, just as I have kept My Father’s commandments and abide in His love.”
There is joy, peace, longsuffering, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. (Galatians 5:22,23)
But when I turn myself from Him, when I meander off and try to take root somewhere apart from the vine, my fruit is vastly different.
There is love, oh yes. Love of self. Passionately pursuing my own comfort, my own pleasure, my own way… my own will. The desires of my heart change, my vision shifts and I grow discontent. In short—I develop an “I” problem and it affects every area of my life, including prayer.
I don’t mean to say that I stop praying, no… I continue on with great zeal. But how I pray changes. I grow awkward and petulant with God. My ideas of what God should do leap to the foreground, sounding immensely wise and good in my own ears. My prayers become very ‘me’ focused, rather than God focused.
So often we pray standing in the greatest of sympathy for the one suffering. Our hearts are wrung out as we claim victories over the circumstances of our fellow men. Thanking God that He has the power to sweep away the circumstances that threaten to undermine the faith of the sufferer. (This is how we see suffering when we’re struggling in the realm of self.)
And He surely does have that power. He created the heavens and the earth. He parted the Red Sea. He brought water from a rock. He fed 5,000 with 5 loaves and 2 fish. He miraculously healed many. He defeated death and rose from the grave.
Yes, His power to alter circumstances is unquestionable. Yet if we pray solely in sympathy for a person or for ourselves, the purpose of prayer has not been fulfilled.
John 17:21: “that they all may be one, as You, Father are in Me, and I in You; that they also may be one in Us…”
When we are one in His heart, in His purpose… one in His love, our sympathies are then upon our Fathers will being done in our own lives as well as others, even in the midst of suffering.
Jesus entirely and completely reflected the love, heart and work of the Father. He is One in the Father and the Father is One in the Son. And we are offered the incredible invitation to be one in them. Not to be little god’s, but to know Him intimately. To become so yielded to Him that our lives reflect Him. His love poured into us and out to others. To come to the place of knowing how little value our own ideas are worth because we have known His heart. His love and compassion so surpasses our own that we are no longer satisfied with ourselves but must be filled by Him… more and more.
When we pray and set our hearts and lives upon Him, He directs our prayers. He teaches us how to pray and we ‘know’ Him.
When we pray from a place of sympathy for another are our prayers heard? Oh yes, He always hears us. But when we pray from that sympathy we are all too prone to pray from our own ideas of what’s right. Our view is entirely limited to our own experience and desire.
When we are one in Him our natural sympathy expands into eternal compassion and we glimpse the overwhelming love and care of our Father. We no longer see through just our earthly eyes, but through His eternal plan. Things that once seemed so dark that it was impossible to find good become transformed by the touch of His hand.
There is a story I want to share with you. A story where God revealed His heart to a woman that prayed to know His will.
An urgent prayer request was brought to the little church body… Nick, the cousin of a church member was gravely ill. Nick was 36, married with 2 small children. He had been in perfect health up until the Sunday afternoon when his 6-year-old son went to wake him from his nap for dinner.
Nick was in a coma; blood trickled from his ears, nose and mouth.
He was rushed to the hospital in the Texas town where the doctors began running every test known to man, while his panicked wife, Donna called everyone she could think of pleading for prayer.
And so it was that the prayer request came to the small church.
A week passed with no change in Nick’s condition. The doctors remained clueless as to what had caused this and were quickly running out of ideas.
In the second week a special prayer meeting was called on behalf of Nick at the little church. That day, in preparation for the meeting the woman set herself aside to continue seeking the Lord as to His will in this situation. Her heart ached for this family and she wanted very much to see God heal Nick, yet she was hesitant to ask for that. It was too important, too
serious a situation. She wanted to pray according to His will. Not her own… not anyone else’s.
She sat and worshipped the Lord till her heart was quiet. Then the prayer, the song in Psalm 61 sprang up in her heart.
“Hear my cry, O God; attend unto my prayer.
From the end of the earth will I cry unto Thee.
And when my heart is overwhelmed
Please lead me to the Rock
That is higher than I.
For You have been a shelter for me,
And a strong tower from the enemy.
And when my heart is overwhelmed
Please lead me to the Rock
That is higher than I.
That is higher than I.
Over and over the Psalm played through her heart, the tears pouring down her face. And she knew. She had seen the heart of God and she knew… Nick was going to die. The Psalm was the cry of his widows heart.
God knew the agony and grief that Donna would be facing. The overwhelming ‘lostness’ she would soon feel. And heaven was filled with His compassion.
Before she knew the depths of her need, He was there. Before her heart was overwhelmed, He sent the prayer out. Before her heart broke, His plan to be her shelter and tower was secure. He heard her cry before she uttered it, and He would surely lead her to the Rock of safety. The Rock that is higher than I.
The prayer meeting began at 7:00pm. About a dozen people sat quietly in their seats whispering prayers, asking the God of All Power to intervene for Nick and his family.
Slowly the prayers became louder as words affirming God’s desire to heal Nick poured forth.
The healing was claimed and everyone, except one, went home joyfully anticipating Nick’s full recovery and return to his much relieved, thankful wife and children.
Three days later Nick quietly slipped from the coma into the arms of his Savior.
The young widow with her children stood by his grave at the ends of the earth, overwhelmed by grief, and lifted her face to the Rock. And He was there.
#
Why pray? To be one in Him, in His purpose.
To know God. To see Him high and lifted up. To have our hearts, our selves, stretched beyond the sweetness of sympathy so that we can be filled by a greater compassion. So that the love with which the Father loved the Son may be in us.
To die to self and live to Him, that our joy may be full.
John 17:21: “That the world may believe that You sent Me.”
#
O Father, we want to know You. We want to be one in You. Your kingdom come, Your will be done in us as it is in heaven. To know Your heart… to be assured of Your compassion in the brightest and the darkest hours. To see You moving and working in the hearts and lives of those around us. Use us Lord, to pray. Show us the things You are doing so we might line up with You.
Father, help us to cease seeking our own way and to be filled with Your compassion.
In Jesus we come
Amen
#
Study questions
#
1) There are many different approaches to prayer, we’ve probably all attempted each approach at different times. In relation to your own prayer life make a list in order of frequency of how you pray.
Example: a) persistent and repetitious
b) Waiting before the Lord till He shows you how to pray
c) Let’s make a deal
d) Naming a verse and claiming it
e) Praying sympathetically for yourself and others
f) Grocery list style
Etc.
2) From your list, which approach are you least comfortable with? Why?
3) Which approach takes you nearest to God? Why?
4) Who has had the greatest impact in teaching you how to pray?
Example:
a) someone in the Bible
b) Some you know personally
c) Someone on TV
d) A book you read
What are things they taught you? Are those things scripturally based?
5) Have you experienced a time in your prayer life that you prayed so fervently with great expectation that God would do as you asked, only to have your prayers seemingly ignored in the end? What did you learn from it? What attitude did you come away with?
6) Are you continuously learning and truly growing closer to God through prayer?
copyright 2002 tkc