Embracing Prayer: A Divine Privilege and Guide

Prayer is not an isolated spiritual exercise -- we pray and we live in two different compartments. The truth of the matter is we live as we pray and we pray as we live, and so the Lord's Prayer, it's not only a basic manual of instruction about how to pray, it's a basic manual of instruction about how to live for God's glory in order that we may learn what it means to pray, and we should never lose sight of these two realities. [00:06:48]

There are times when we have cries in our hearts that words cannot express, and we simply do not know how to pray. So we should not despair if we feel, "I am finding it difficult to pray." Paul goes on to say, "You need to know that in those seasons the Spirit Himself makes intercession for the saints with groans that words cannot express." And he's giving us this wonderful picture of what it means to know God and to be in fellowship with Him as our heavenly Father, that He looks upon us in our weakness. [00:02:36]

And Jesus says when you come to know God as your heavenly Father, that two things begin to happen. One is you begin to be delivered from hypocrisy, that is, pretending to be something you're not. How does that happen? Because you know that your heavenly Father knows everything about you. He knows the worst about you, and if you can come to Him then you have no need to pretend to anyone else that you're something different or better than what you really are. [00:09:04]

And the other reality that it delivers us from is anxiety. "If you know your heavenly Father, then you know," says Jesus, "that He will take care of you," and for that reason when we come to God in prayer, simplicity is of the essence. We don't need to use big complex words. There are no big complex words in the Lord's Prayer. Jesus brings us down to the absolute essentials in which we are saying, "Heavenly Father, I want Your glory to be seen and I need Your help," and that's what Jesus goes on to teach. [00:09:48]

And this is the wonder of prayer that the heavenly Father has placed Himself in His Word under obligation to give us certain things, to provide for us certain blessings, and so amazingly and daringly and humbly we're able to come to Him and say to Him, "Father, You promised." You sometimes see that in the prayers of the Old Testament saints, don't you? They are not praying out of their own imagination. "Let me think up what would be good for God's kingdom." [00:19:48]

The prayer of faith was just Elijah coming to the heavenly Father and saying, "Heavenly Father, it's in Your Word, it's in Your promises that if we rebelled like this the heavens would be closed. They would be as grass and glass. The heavens would be closed and they would be as brass. The earth would become a famine. Now, great God, great covenant keeping God, I'm coming to you and I'm saying to you, God You promised it would be so, so may it be so." [00:16:44]

And it's in this that he was confident, not because he had unusual measures of faith that enabled him to imagine great things that God could do, but because he had faith that took hold of the promise of God he was able to come to God and say to Him, "You are our Father and You promised," and then the faith to believe that if He had promised and if Elijah asked then it must be so. What does that teach us? [00:18:15]

There is nothing in the Lord's Prayer that does not focus on what God has promised to be and to do. "Our Father in heaven, hallowed be Your name. Your kingdom come." How can we pray that with confidence? Well, because look at what's happening in the church. There are marvelous things happening in the church. Well, what do you say when there aren't marvelous things happening in the church? No, you pray, "Your kingdom come," because God has promised to bring in His kingdom. [00:19:08]

And then there's our need for pardon as we pray, that God will forgive our debts as we forgive our debtors. And you see the logic of what... have you ever thought about what you're actually asking for there? You have the boldness to say to God, "God, find somebody else who will pay my debt because it must be paid." You're really praying what David prayed in Psalm 51, "Oh God! There is no sacrifice for this sin of mine. Find another sacrifice." [00:22:23]

Prayer is weakness. My dear friends, that's the church's greatest problem in the West. We don't realize how weak we really are and therefore we pray so little. And that's my problem as a Christian. I think I can do it and that makes me prayerless, and it's only when I realize how dependent I am on Him that I'll learn to pray. So, we want to say, "Lord, teach me how to pray." [00:23:48]

And the experience was, in a sense, an encouragement to me, because many Christian people tell me that they find prayer difficult, but sometimes they erroneously assume that because somebody seems to be an older Christian and a wiser Christian they therefore find prayer easy. Now, of course there are seasons in life when prayer is easier than at other times, but we need to understand that when we find prayer difficult, first of all we are not on our own. [00:01:52]

And so it went on and on, and I never did see him publishing a book on prayer. And the experience was, in a sense, an encouragement to me, because many Christian people tell me that they find prayer difficult, but sometimes they erroneously assume that because somebody seems to be an older Christian and a wiser Christian they therefore find prayer easy. Now, of course there are seasons in life when prayer is easier than at other times, but we need to understand that when we find prayer difficult, first of all we are not on our own. [00:01:52]