Prayer: Our Essential Connection to God

Small group discussion guide for "Connecting with God through Prayer"

Bible Passages:
1) Luke 18:1
2) Psalm 42:1

Directions:
Begin by reading Luke 18:1 and Psalm 42:1. Reflect on the importance of prayer as a means of connecting with God.

Discussion Questions:

Observation Questions:
1) In Luke 18:1, what does Jesus instruct his disciples to do?
2) What does the Psalmist express in Psalm 42:1 about his longing for God?

Interpretation Questions:
1) What does it mean to "always pray and not give up" as Jesus instructs in Luke 18:1?
2) How does the Psalmist's longing for God in Psalm 42:1 relate to our own desire to connect with God through prayer?

Application Questions:
1) How can we apply Jesus' instruction to "always pray and not give up" in our daily lives?
2) How can we cultivate a longing for God, similar to the Psalmist's, in our prayer lives?
3) How can we make prayer a priority in our lives, not just as a means of asking for things, but as a way to connect with God?

Day 1: The Power of Prayer

Prayer is not just a religious ritual, but a powerful tool that can bring peace, comfort, and strength in our lives. It is a divine communication that connects us with our Creator. It is through prayer that we can express our deepest fears, hopes, and desires. It is through prayer that we can find solace in times of distress and guidance in times of confusion.

James 5:16 - "Therefore confess your sins to each other and pray for each other so that you may be healed. The prayer of a righteous person is powerful and effective."

Reflection: Reflect on a recent situation where you felt powerless. How could you have used prayer as a tool to find peace, comfort, and strength in that situation?

Day 2: The Personal Experience of Prayer

Prayer is a personal journey that requires commitment and dedication. It is not just about asking for things, but about building a relationship with God. It is about dedicating time to listen, to understand, and to grow in faith. It is about making prayer an integral part of our daily lives.

Matthew 6:6 - "But 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."

Reflection: Consider the idea of dedicating one hour of your day to prayer for the next 21 days. What challenges do you anticipate facing, and how might you overcome them to make this commitment?

All right, here we go. Jumping into a three-part series called "Dear God." We're gonna be talking about prayer, but really this is more than just a sermon series because we really, really want to emphasize this lifestyle of prayer.

So over the next 21 days, we're just gonna press into prayer. I think it's a great way coming out of the summer, right? As kids are getting ready to go back to school and life gets a little bit more chaotic, it's important for us to say, you know what, with all the fun and all the activities of the summer behind us, we want to make sure that God is our priority, that God is still our focus.

And so we're going to spend these 21 days together. I really want to challenge you over these 21 days to actually make every effort to join us, right? And not just let it be the thing your church is doing; let it be the thing you're doing, okay?

So we're going to be gathering right here in this room every weekday from noon to one o'clock for a time of worship together, a teaching from one of our leaders, and a time of prayer together. If you can't make it here Monday through Friday at noon or Saturdays at 9:00 a.m., we will be online at live.clc.tv at that same time.

So maybe if you're at work, you can schedule your lunch break around that noon prayer gathering or put us on at least in the background while you're going about your day. So you'll be praying with us for these next 21 days. Sound good?

All right, that was a much better response than the first service. First service, like, I don't know, man, they woke up too early; they weren't ready for prayer. But you guys, you're on it! I love it.

And so we want to help you in your journey with prayer as much as possible. So we have some resources. We've got our "Pray First" book, which is actually something that we pretty much always have available to you at those communion tables. This book is just packed full of resources on how to pray and different methods of prayer. It really teaches some great things about prayer, and you can always grab a copy of this book; it's our gift to you.

I will say, though, there's something really cool that I was hoping would be here today. It's actually coming later in the week, but we have our "Pray First" kids' books for the first time. So this is perfect, especially for the elementary age range, to actually make prayer a focus for them as well, to guide them through ways to pray and how to pray.

And so that book will be available, so maybe another incentive for you to actually come here in the building during the week for that noon prayer gathering so you can snag one of these for your kids. I will say these were flying off of the shelf or table or whatever it is over there at the first service. So if you don't get a copy of it today, we will be ordering some more, or you can be fancy like me and download the PDF of the book. Then you can take it with you wherever you go. You can scan that QR code.

If you don't have time to grab your phone and scan that real quick, you can also, on the CLC app notes, we do have the links for all of this as well. I see a lot of cameras snapping.

All right, three, two, one. I got another QR code for you, a different one this time, because I'm in love with this app. The "Pray First" app was created by some friends at Church of the Highlands down in Birmingham, Alabama, and it is beautiful. It basically takes everything that the book does but puts it in a beautiful format on your phone.

What's really cool about it is it's got the methods of prayer, it's got video teaching from Church of the Highlands on prayer, but it also has a place for you to add music during your prayer time, and you can track a prayer list. So like all those people that you keep saying, "I'll be praying for you," and then you forget about it and you never actually do what you said you were gonna do—no more excuses, right?

When you bump into somebody in the lobby, they tell you a sad story, you're like, "I'm going to be praying for you." Now you can pull out your phone, go to the app, add that to your prayer list, and then in your prayer times, you've got that right in your hand.

Because really, we're emphasizing prayer because the power of this church is not in the fun of "At the Movies." I'm very blessed today to see a full house, right? Like sometimes we pack the place out for "At the Movies," but the movie clips end, and it becomes a ghost town around here. But not today!

And so I'm excited about that because the power of this church is not in the fun of "At the Movies," as fun as that is. The power of this church is found in our passion and our focus and our emphasis on prayer. That prayer is so vital to our relationship with God and our health as a church, as a body of believers.

And so really, if you want to connect with that heart for prayer beyond just these next 21 days, we actually have eight different dream teams that revolve around prayer. And so I'm like the QR code king today; we got another one for you. But if you're interested in how you can get plugged into the heart of prayer here at CLC, there are eight different ministries that you can get connected with.

If you go to that website, scan that QR code, it's going to show you what those ministries are, a little bit about them, and who you can contact to get more information or to get plugged in. So if you're an intercessor in the room or if you're just somebody that says, "You know what? I think that God has created me for prayer. I want to get plugged into that more at CLC," this is how you can do that.

All right, that's my long commercial break. Okay, but why are we doing all of this? Why a five-part series? Why 21 days of prayer? And just so you know, it's prayer, not prayer and fasting. That comes in January. So for August, eat whatever you want unless God tells you not to, and then listen to Him.

But this is a time of prayer, and that's it. But why are we doing this? Why do we spend the money to print out these books to give to you? Why do we make the app accessible to you? Why do we do all of this stuff?

Well, it's because—and somebody said it better than I ever could, and so I'm just going to use his words—Martin Luther said that to be a Christian without prayer is no more possible than to be alive without breathing. So if you want to take a nice deep breath, it's good to be able to do that. And it's just as vital in your life to be praying.

There is nothing that we do that is more important than prayer. There is nothing you do that is more important than prayer. It is as vital to our spiritual lives as breathing is to our natural lives. Not only that, but Charles Spurgeon put it like this: he said, "Now my own soul's conviction is that prayer is the grandest power in the entire universe, that it has a more omnipotent force than electricity, attraction, gravitation, or any other of those secret forces which men have called by names but which they do not understand."

There is a power found in prayer because, you know, when you're in prayer, you know what you find? You find peace, you find comfort, you find strength, you find purpose and direction and answers. It's in prayer that you find power and miracles and healing.

If you want to have a relationship with God, that is found in prayer. The heart of God is discovered in prayer. Transformation happens in your life when you pray. Deliverance and victory and freedom are all found in prayer. Prayer is the most important thing you will ever do.

Samuel Chadwick said that the one concern of the devil is to keep Christians from praying. He fears nothing from prayerless studies, prayerless work, and prayerless religion. He laughs at our toil, mocks at our wisdom, but trembles when we pray.

Come on now! Somebody's gotta get a little fired up for prayer because, man, there is nothing more important in our lives. And if all of the wisdom of all these guys way smarter than me doesn't convince you today about the importance of prayer, maybe Jesus can.

Because you know what Jesus said? Jesus said you should pray. Luke 18:1, then Jesus told his disciples a parable to show them that they should always pray. He didn't just say every once in a while. He didn't say just when things are bad or just when you need something. No, He said always pray, pray without ceasing, and do not give up.

Jesus thinks you should pray. And then He went a step further, and Jesus actually set the example for us to follow. I don't know if you've counted; I did. 38 times in the Gospel, we see Jesus go away to pray or pray for someone. 38 times Jesus prays.

Now think about that for a second. If Jesus, God in the flesh, had to prioritize prayer in His life, why would we think for a second that we could be Christians and followers of Christ and not pray? That's just silly.

Okay, but here's the thing. There's a lot of claps, a lot of amens, but there's still some people that just aren't getting it. And here's the reality: you can't possibly fully grasp or fully understand the true value of a life dedicated and focused on prayer until you experience it for yourself. Until then, it's just a guy wearing a pinkish-purple jacket on a stage telling you about something.

Until you experience it for yourself, and then you can say, "I didn't get it before, but now I know without prayer I have nothing."

And so for the next 21 days, why don't you take prayer for a test drive, right? Try it out. Join us in giving God one hour of your day every single day for the next 21 days as we refocus our hearts and our minds and our lives on prayer.

Because imagine with me for a second: what would your life look like 21 days from today if you spent an hour with God every day? So that's my challenge for you: one hour with Him in prayer. You can join us noon to one o'clock weekdays, Saturday 9 to 10, or do it on your own.

Some of you are taking my last challenge I gave you to actually tithe your day to God, and you're working on your 144 minutes a day. Now we've given you 60 of them that you get to spend with us, but that's the challenge that I have for you today.

Now this series, we want to do something a little bit different than what we did last year. Last year we did a series called "Pray First," and our real emphasis, our goal of that series was to help equip you on how to pray.

I think that there's a lot of people that have a passion; they have a zeal. They're like, "Yes, I'm gonna pray! I'm going to talk to God for an hour!" And you get 30 seconds in, and you run out of things to say. And so we wanted to equip you last year on how to pray, and we're not going to do that this year because those resources are still available for you.

You can grab the "Pray First" book, download the app. There's a lot of methods for that. You can go back online on YouTube or on our website for the "Pray First" series, and you can hear the longest sermon I've ever preached at CLC. I taught the Tabernacle prayer.

Anybody remember that one? For anybody that's like, "Man, I just wish Brent would teach for like two hours straight and just not stop," that's for you. That's your gift. It wasn't quite that long, but it was the longest one I've ever preached for sure.

But I taught my favorite prayer, my favorite model or method of prayer, which is the Tabernacle prayer. My wife taught us the Lord's Prayer, but not just how to say the Lord's Prayer all in, you know, in memorization in one little moment, but how to take that prayer and use it throughout your day to stretch it out for the entire day to be praying the Lord's Prayer.

And then we had a guest speaker that came in and basically did the opposite of me. He gave us a prayer with only one word: "Jesus." Come on, that was a good prayer too.

And so if you need help or guidance on how to pray, what are you actually saying in prayer, man, those resources are going to be great for you. But today and for the next three weeks, what we really want to do is talk about why we pray.

And there's a really simple reason for this, and it's because I think that when you don't know your why, it's really easy to give up. It's really easy to quit. It's really easy to get distracted. It's really easy to get discouraged when you don't know your why. It's really easy to just throw in the towel and say, "I'm going to do something else instead."

But when you know your why, you're focused, okay? And so we want to take these three weeks to just go deeper into the why we pray. And so we've kind of targeted—there's a lot of reasons why we pray, but we've targeted three kind of key reasons.

And so next week, Pastor Chris is going to be teaching us a message about we pray so that we can receive from God. That sounds pretty good, right? If there's some things in your life that you are needing, we want to pray prayers to receive from God.

And here's the thing: I got to see her notes earlier this week, and I think it may be the best message she's ever taught at CLC. Like, it is powerful, it is brilliant, it's beautiful. I love the message that she's going to be bringing next week, so you definitely want to be back for that.

And then the last message in the series, my wife is going to teach us that we pray in order to align with God. How many of you know if you're going left and God's going right, there's a problem? Okay? And so prayer is designed to align us with God.

And what that means is not getting God to align with you; as your prayers are getting you to align with God. It's going to be brilliant; it's going to be awesome.

But they say that confession is good for the soul, and so I have a confession for you today. I was selfish—like, uber selfish—because I was the guy that got to design this series and then tell other people what part they're going to play in the series, and I saved the best for myself.

How selfish! I was like, "Y'all can do your thing; I'm gonna take the important one." And not to knock their messages; they're going to be so vital, so important in your life. But what we're going to talk about today is way more important than anything else.

In fact, I would go so far as to argue that if you pray for the only reason that you're going to learn today, if this is the only reason why you pray, you'll be okay. If the only reason why you pray is to receive from God, you're in trouble. Okay? If that's your only why, next week or the week after, you're in trouble.

But if you get today's, you don't need anything else. I was very selfish. Have I built this up enough for you? Are you excited to hear the number one why we pray? Should I keep going, or should we get into it?

ASA wants me to get into it, so we're going to get into it. Here's the number one reason why we should pray: we pray to connect to God.

And I appreciate the amen so much, but I know the rest of you are like, "That does not sound nearly as good as receiving from God." But just bear with me.

First, think about this for a second: the all-powerful, all-knowing, omnipresent God, creator of everything—the one who spoke galaxies into existence. When you think about space and how the universe is constantly expanding, and you put that into spiritual context, that means that the echo of God's voice is still creating today. Just the echo!

Oh man, that is a big deal! The same God that carved mountains with a word, that breathed life into Adam—that same all-powerful God said, "Draw near to me, and I'll draw near to you." That same God said, "I want to have a relationship with you so much so that He gave you His personal number and said, 'Call me anytime.'"

That is awesome! So we pray to connect to God, and He gave us this gift because He knows that you can't know someone that you don't talk to.

Look, I would not have a good relationship with my spouse if we didn't talk, or if the only conversation we ever had was, "Hey, good to see you, love you, okay, bye." Like, how deep of a relationship do we have if that's the extent of it?

What kind of relationship would I have with my kids if the only thing we ever talked about is what I needed from them? Like, Jaden walks in, and I'm like, "Jaden, good to see you. Take out the trash." Bennett comes in, "Bennett, so good to see you, man. I'm kind of thirsty; can you go grab some water for me?" If Kelsey came in, I said, "Kelsey, you look beautiful today. Go clean your room because it's a mess, and I need you to clean it."

All right, everybody good? Talk, see you next week, same time, same place. Be great! Ridiculous, right?

What's your prayer life like? Did I just describe prayer for you? Just that moment of saying, "Hi, God, nice to see you, goodbye," or "God, got to talk to you because I need something." What kind of relationship do you have with God without prayer?

Spoiler alert: you don't. God invites you into a relationship with Him, and then He gives us prayer as the primary way that we can connect with Him and develop that relationship.

I'm going to say something risky. I get like one risky statement a message, right? So let me preface this by saying I love the Bible. I love the Word of God. You know me by now; you know I'm a Bible guy. Like, just give me the Word. If it's not in the Word, we ain't talking about it. Like, just give me the book, okay?

So please do not take what I'm about to say out of that context. The Bible is amazing, and we all need to be reading it as if our lives depended on it because I think they probably do. But the Bible doesn't give you a relationship with God.

It will give you an understanding of who He is, what He likes, what He doesn't like, what He wants. But there are atheists who have read the Bible more than Christians and yet walk away without a relationship with the author.

Without, man, as amazing as the Bible is, without a prayer life connected to it, the Bible is just information. It is not going to give you that connection to God.

And my number one priority, your number one priority as a follower of Jesus, as a disciple, as a Christian, your number one priority is to connect with God. Everything else will be just fine as long as you are connected to God.

And the moment you get disconnected from God, it doesn't matter how good things were before; it will all fall apart. You have got to be connected to Him.

And the reason why that connection is so important is because it's when I'm connected to God that means that I'm in His presence. Just open up your Bible sometime and read about what happens when you're in the presence of God.

I'll show you: in the presence of God, there's hope. So when you're going through something and it seems hopeless, there seems to be no answer to the problem, there's no solution, there's nothing that you can do, it seems like you've tried everything and it's still not working, and you find yourself in that place of hopelessness, get in the presence of God, and you'll find hope.

There's fullness of joy in the presence of God. That's that fruit out of season, right? You can be going through a difficult time of life; everything could be falling apart. Everybody around you can be sad or hurting or broken or whatever, and yet in the presence of God, you can find a fullness of joy even when the circumstances don't change.

Just being in His presence gives you joy. There's a peace that surpasses all understanding found in the presence of God. That everybody at work can be worried about layoffs and pay cuts, and yet you have no anxiety. Why? Because you got in the presence of God, and now there's a peace that doesn't even make sense.

And people look at you like you're crazy because you're happy and you're calm and you're breathing fine even when they're all panicking because there's a peace that surpasses understanding.

There's protection found in the presence of God. In the presence of God, there's comfort for the broken and the hurting. Man, I've met so many believers that are in horrific situations that break my heart, and yet they've got a glow and a smile on their face, and they're saying, "I know it's bad, but every time I get in the presence of God, there's just this comfort that it's gonna be okay."

There's comfort in the presence of God. There's provision in the presence of God. There's strength in the presence of God. If you've ever been in a place where you're like, "I don't think I have the strength to resist this temptation to get through this situation. I don't have the strength for it," get in the presence of God, and boom, there's strength like you wouldn't believe.

In the presence of God, there's freedom. In the presence of God, there is rest for the weary. Let me tell you something: better than any nap you could ever take. If you're worn out and you're weary and you're exhausted, and you get on your knees with some worship music and you enter into the presence of God, there is rest for the weary.

There transformation happens in the presence of God as you're being transformed from you to Jesus, right? Less of you, more of Him, right? That's what we're called to. Every day we should be ending the day looking a little bit more like Jesus than we did at the start of the day.

That transformation only happens in the presence of God. The benefits of this connection to God are absolutely incredible. But please understand me: prayer is about relationship more than about results.

It's not about what we're getting out of it; it's about who we're connecting to in it. And I know a lot of people pray because they need something from God. And yes, the primary way we receive from God is prayer, and we're going to learn all about it next week. It's going to be awesome.

There are so many scriptures about praying to receive from God, but while the primary way we receive from God is prayer, the primary purpose of prayer is not to receive. And we've got to make sure that we keep these things in balance.

That means that when I'm sick, I can be praying for my healing, and even if I don't get healed on this side of Heaven, that time was not wasted. I was praying, and I was connecting to the God that is more important than my physical health.

And this, man, there are some people excited about this, and there are some people that are hurting in this because it's not easy to get to that place. But there's this amazing story in the Old Testament: Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego. It's one of my favorites in the Old Testament. You can read about it in Daniel chapter three.

So these three boys, they're confronted with a dilemma. King Nebuchadnezzar says, "Bow down and worship these gods, or I'm gonna throw you in a furnace and let you burn alive." Like, that sounds like a horrible way to go.

And yet in that moment, these three boys looked King Nebuchadnezzar dead in the face. They didn't go behind his back; they didn't post something on Facebook. No, they just looked him dead in the face, and this is what those three boys said to King Nebuchadnezzar: "We don't need to explain these things to you."

That opening line is like, that took some spine! Like, whoa! Then they say, "If you throw us into the hot furnace," right? They just want to make sure he knew that they understood the threat. It's not an empty furnace; it's a hot furnace.

"The God we serve can save us, and if He wants to, He can save us from your power." They're giving him a reality check. You might be powerful, King, but we know somebody that's a little bit higher than you.

And then this is the statement—this is the one that this is our aspiration, that we'd be able to have the boldness to say this—but even if God does not save us, we want you to know, King.

I read that with a lot of sarcasm; I don't know if you do too, but I feel like that was, "We want you to know, King, that we refuse to serve your gods." Even if He doesn't! Even if He doesn't, He's the only one we're worshiping.

Even if He doesn't, He's still our God. Even if He doesn't, He's the only one we're going to pray to. Even if He doesn't! When you need a healing, even if He doesn't, is He still your God?

When you need direction, even if He doesn't? When your kids need something, even if He doesn't? When you need a new job or you need some provision, even if He doesn't? That, to me, that's the mark of a mature believer or an immature believer.

The mature believer can stand there and say, "I know He can, but even if He doesn't, He's still my God."

And so I've got a question for you, and this is literally the start of this sermon for me in the development process several weeks ago, maybe a couple months ago now. I was racked with this question: would you still pray if God never did what you were asking Him to do?

Like, if He actually just walked up to you and said, "Just so you know, every time you ask for something, my answer is no," would you still pray? Because I've heard a lot of Christians say that they don't pray anymore because God never did the stuff that they were asking Him for.

And can I just lovingly challenge you or correct you this moment and say you've been approaching prayer the wrong way? God is not a vending machine. Pop a few prayer coins in, push the button for what you want, and out pops your miracle.

God is not your genie; He is your God, and He is sovereign. My daughter—I love my daughter; she's beautiful; she's the baby; she's the princess; she's amazing—but she went through this phase. I don't know if any other parents had a kid that went through this kind of phase, but she had this phase a few years ago where she would come up to me with those puppy dog eyes, like we saw last week in the movie.

She'd come up to me with those puppy dog eyes, and she would say, "Daddy, I love you," and she'd get all snuggly. It was just like, "Oh," just melts your heart. And then without it missing a beat, she would say, "Can I have a cookie?"

"Daddy, I love you. Can I have a cookie?" And like the first time it happened, you know what she got? She got a cookie because her daddy just melted.

Like, it was the second time she got a cookie, third time she got a cookie, fourth time she got a cookie. At some point, though, Brent started getting wise. It might have taken 87 times; I'm not sure.

But eventually, it got to the point where as she would walk in the room, if she had the puppy dog eyes, I knew she was about to tell me she loved me, and then she was gonna ask for something.

And at that point, look, I don't doubt that my daughter loves me. I know my daughter loves me. But in that moment, I knew she wasn't there to tell me she loved me. It wasn't love that brought her in the room; it was hunger. She had something she needed and she wanted from her daddy, and so she was buttering me up to be able to get what she wanted.

How many of us approach God in prayer the same exact way? "Daddy God, I love you. I need a cookie."

When you pray, are you results-oriented or are you relationship-oriented? Because the purpose of prayer is relationship, not results. What's more important to you: the results, getting the thing that you want, or being with the one who created you?

What's more important? Because we've got to understand—we don't talk about this a lot—but we've got to understand the sovereignty thing, that God is sovereign, not us. In layman's terms, that just means He is above, and there's nothing above Him, right? Which includes you and me.

And sometimes I feel like we approach prayer as if we're above God, and we're just giving Him our to-do list of the things that He should have done already but hadn't yet. And so we're just trying to correct God.

Here's what scripture says: Colossians 1:16-17 says that "for by Him all things were created in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities. All things were created through Him and for Him, and He is before all things, and in Him all things hold together."

Jesus is sovereign; He's above it all, not us. And we talk about God's sovereignty; what we're talking about is His omniscience, His omnipotence, and His omnipresence, right? These are the—it's the natural byproduct of those three things.

If God knows everything, you can't know something He doesn't. If God can do everything or anything, what power do you have to tell Him what He should do? And if He's omnipresent, that means He is everywhere; He didn't miss nothing.

So when you approach God in prayer, you cannot give Him information He didn't have before you prayed. When you approach God in prayer, you cannot give Him counsel on wisdom He lacked before you came to talk to Him.

When you pray, you've got to understand God's plans are perfect, and they don't need your revisions. But God, I think it would be better if—no, no, that's not how it works.

In other words, when you pray, you've got to remember that God makes a better God than you do. And so we recognize His sovereignty, and so we come to Him in prayer with humility, saying, "God, help my ignorance. I know that you are above all things."

And so some of you may be wondering, if God is sovereign, if He's going to do what He wants to do anyway, then why should we bother praying? Three super fast reasons.

Number one, we pray because He told us to. Okay? John 15:7: "If you abide in me and my words abide in you, ask whatever you wish, and it'll be done for you." So He's telling us to ask, so if He's telling us to do something, I think we should do it.

Okay, reason number two: we pray because if we don't, we may not actually get what we're wanting. You do not have because you do not ask. Like, I don't want to miss out on something God wants for me just because He's waiting for me to ask for it, and I'm not bold enough to actually ask.

So we pray because if we don't, we may not get it. But the third reason is really the reason we've been talking about today: we pray simply to connect with God.

Because the answer isn't what's important; His sovereignty—He's going to do what He's going to do, and we're going to trust Him in it. And even when you know that you need this thing and God says, "No, I'm not giving it to you," we're trusting His plans and His purposes.

We're saying, "God, You're sovereign, and even though I feel like I need this thing, I know You know best, so I'm going to submit to You because I'm coming to You just so we can be connected."

And our connection to God is the most important thing about us, and prayer is the way we stay connected to Him. And without prayer, we can't get connected to Him.

John 15:5 says, "I am the vine, and you are the branches. If you stay joined to me and I to you, you will produce plenty of fruit, but separated from me, you won't be able to do anything."

That connection is way more important than you could ever imagine. SD Gordon said, "You can do more than pray after you have prayed, but you cannot do more than pray until you have prayed."

The way we put it here at CLC is we pray first, right? Prayer is our first response, not our last resort. Prayer is not our panic button. Prayer is not, "Though we tried it our way and it didn't work, so God, I need you to fix it now."

We pray first before we make any decisions, before we move forward on anything. Even here at the church, before we even start a meeting, we pray first, right? Because that is the most important thing in our lives.

Psalm 145:18 says that the Lord is near to all who call on Him. So we're just going to be obedient to that. If He's near to all who call on Him, we're going to pray so we can be near to Him.

And if we do our part in praying, He does His part in drawing near to us. You want to have a connection to God? It happens in prayer.

We don't pray to impress God with our fancy words or to inform Him on stuff He already knew anyway. We pray to invite Him into our lives, to tell Him, "God, You are the most important thing in my life, and all I want right now is just to be connected to You."

And here's the thing: when we don't pray about a specific area in our life, you know what we're communicating to God? We're telling Him we don't want Him or need Him involved in that thing.

So if I'm not praying about my marriage, I'm telling God, "I've got this. I don't need You to help me in my marriage." When I don't pray to God about my finances, I'm telling God, "Hey, my paycheck is sufficient. I have job security. I don't need Your intervention in my finances, so you stay out of it."

When I don't pray about direction in my life, it's because I've already decided what I want to do, and I don't want Him messing it up.

And so when you don't pray about an area of your life, you're saying, "God, stay out of it." Does any of us want to live that kind of life? No!

And the opposite's true too. When you do pray about areas, you're saying, "God, I want You and I need You, and I'm choosing You as the Shepherd of my life. I'm Your disciple, which means I'm going to listen and obey whatever You have to say."

And so even when my marriage is great, I'm still praying about my marriage because, God, I know I need You involved in that marriage on the good days and the bad days.

Even if my finances are great and I listen to Dave Ramsey and I got out of debt and I did all the right stuff, I'm still praying about my finances on a regular basis because I want to make sure that every dollar goes where God wants it to go, not where I want it to go.

When I know with certainty the direction I'm supposed to go, the thing that I'm supposed to do next, I'm still going to talk to God about it because I want Him walking with me step in step.

And if I am possibly wrong—because I'm not sovereign—and even when I think I know best, I still want God to be able to be there to say, "No, that's wrong."

One last verse; we'll close with this. Psalm 42:1 says, "As the deer longs for streams of water, so I long for You, O God. I thirst for God, the living God. When can I go and stand before Him?"

So for 21 days, this is our heart. We're saying, "God, I'm longing for that connection with You." We pray to connect with God.

And so that's what we're going to do right now. We're actually gonna do something a little bit different. We're gonna take three minutes right here, right now. We're gonna play some music. We're not gonna sing a song; it's not a time of worship; it's a time of connecting.

And so we're just going to spend these next three minutes, and we're gonna tell Him about our week, tell Him about our struggles. We're going to tell Him about our fears and our hopes and our dreams.

We're just going to connect with God. We're not asking Him for anything, right? We aren't here for the cookie; we're here for the connection.

And so we're going to spend these next three minutes together just connecting with the God of the universe, our Creator, the one who sits on the throne above all others. And then we're going to close out this time of connecting by receiving communion together.

So we're gonna put three minutes on the screen; we're just gonna connect with our God.

- "Martin Luther said that to be a Christian without prayer is no more possible than to be alive without breathing." [06:35]
- "Charles Spurgeon put it like this he said now my own Soul's conviction is that prayer is the grandest power in the entire universe." [07:14]
- "Samuel Chadwick said that the one concern of the devil is to keep Christians from praying. He fears nothing from prayerless studies, prayerless work, and prayerless religion." [08:41]
- "Jesus said you should pray. He didn't just say every once in a while, he didn't say just when things are bad or just when you need something, no, he always pray, pray without ceasing and do not give up." [09:19]
- "You can't possibly fully grasp or fully understand the true value of a life dedicated and focused on prayer until you experience it for yourself." [09:59]