Prayer (I still like this one)
Prayer
In looking at the aspects of prayer and study, we need to see each for what they are. Prayer is when we speak to God, our husband. Study is when we listen to our husband and see what he has for us, what his will is. If we treat prayer as a honey-do-list we are a nagging wife. We need to spend at least half our time listening to our husband. After all if we don’t listen to him, how do we know who we are talking to? In his words are the secrets to who he is. As we come to understand our husband better, we know what to ask, how to ask, and the proper order for doing so. The wife of a King who burst into the throne room yelling and walking around hysterically is liable to get her head removed, only by the mercy of our loving husband has this not been so.
But we need to move beyond the permissible, and into what brings our husband glory. We need to be the Proverbs 31 wife to our husband, God. Not a nagging crone that never listens to a word our husband says, but always having something to tell him. As if he is a simpleton, with no ability to reason or know anything.
Am I saying not to pray? Heaven forbid, but many of us prayer warriors out there, who battle night and day in the spirit, might to well to spend a few days in silence and listening to what the word of God says, and immerse ourselves in this great love letter from the man who rescued us from our assured damnation.
We are constantly bombarded with new idea’s on how to pray: That we should pray in the spirit, worship based prayer, that we should spend hours mumbling uttering things we do not know, that we should spend time in worship – making sacrifice to our God so we can appease him into listening to us, that we should be stirred up with emotion and yell out requests to God, maybe if we first butter him up by telling him how good he is and how bad we are. All these things and more are done on a continual basis and the hearts of people that do these things are only after God, but there is a better way.
Mat 6:5-8 "When you pray, you shall not be as the hypocrites, for they love to stand and pray in the synagogues and in the corners of the streets, that they may be seen by men. Most certainly, I tell you, they have received their reward. But you, when you pray, enter into your inner chamber, and having shut your door, pray to your Father who is in secret, and your Father who sees in secret will reward you openly. In praying, don't use vain repetitions, as the Gentiles do; for they think that they will be heard for their much speaking. Therefore don't be like them, for your Father knows what things you need, before you ask him.”
So the things that this poignant passage in Matthew that God tells us are fairly simple, and should not be the cause of confusion:
When you pray don’t stand up and yell out your prayers in your church or in your community, instead go into your home, into a closed off space where no one is around and secretly pray to God.
Just say what you have to say. Don’t repeat it over and over, God doesn’t have a CB radio that cuts in and out all the time, you don’t have to keep saying it. God knows your every need before you even ask, so just ask and that’s enough.
Using a lot of words will not conjure up some special reward from God, in fact no amount of praying will bring reward to your life.
Mat 6:9-13 “Pray like this: 'Our Father in heaven, may your name be kept holy. Let your Kingdom come. Let your will be done, as in heaven, so on earth. Give us today our daily bread. Forgive us our debts, as we also forgive our debtors. Bring us not into temptation, but deliver us from the evil one. For yours is the Kingdom, the power, and the glory forever. Amen.'”
Jesus tells us how it is we should pray. It doesn’t take hours, it takes mere moments.
Our Father in Heaven let your name say set apart. Let your kingdom be now. May what you want to happen, happen. Give us today what we need to feed on. Forgive our sins, as we forgive those who wrong us. Let us not be tempted, deliver us from evil. For all power and glory are from you, and your Kingdom, forever. Amen.
This isn’t how we should start praying, it is how we should pray. This is the prayer. This isn’t anything strange or foreign. Simply pray to God, from your heart.
Comments and Responses:
J. Clark:
A good treatise (or in my opinion the best) is E.M. Bounds series on prayer. There has never been such a poignant and moving testimony of what prayer is.
Your commentary is well taken. I would say that the "closet prayer" command is Jesus' cure for hypocrisy not necessarily a command to always pray that way. I think the "vain repetition is obvious." It is vain. Again, though, I don't think Jesus is saying don't repeat things in prayer but don't let them be words with out "heart" which is your whole point.(he even commands "keep asking, keep knocking, keep seeking) I also wouldn't contend that we shouldn't pray for long periods of times. Sometimes it takes hours just for us to get through the mire into the center of our hearts. Jonathan Edwards prayer three straight days before his sermon "Sinners in the hands of an Angry God." Evan Roberts would pray from 1am-4am for months leading up to the great Wales revival. The disciples in Acts prayed continuously together before the Spirit came down. The most life changing prayer time I've been apart of was at Cannon Beach for the Prayer Summit where ministers pray together all day for 4 days with no agenda(except to be before God)
Thoughts on study and prayer: One thing that has been moving my life in the Spirit is the combination of the two. Reading and meditating on the scripture which then moves me to prayer.
Let me know your thoughts. I love your hunger and thirst. It moves me.
Zack:
I can't give enough time to this reply right now, but just to get started.
I think the scripture goes "Knock and the door will be open, seek and you will find..." There is also "Ask anything in my name and the father will give it to you"
We are to ask, he answers. If you ask your Dad for something and he says no, do you keep asking? What if he says yes? If he says wait, sure you'd at a later point, once the qualifications had been met, ask again, but not till that point.
God always answers, and when we are in the authority of Jesus when we ask, our father grants it to us. If you aren't walking dead, and alive in Christ, you wont get your answer, because your very prayers are an abomination to God.
On a deeper level the answers are in God's book of Grace. Every habit we should have is written in it. It is just and true. In fact it is the Messiah, for the messiah and the Torah are one.
If you walk out the habits of the Torah, covered by the attoinment sacrifice of the true lamb, you will be blessed and everything your new heart desires will be fulfilled.
J. Clark:
A few tad bit on the prayer thing again: the translation of the "ask and it will be given to you," passage is that the Greek tells us that it is present active indicative which means "do it and keep on doing it," so that the passage is better translated "keep asking, keep seeking, keep knocking." There is also the parable of the persistent widow, where the widow hounds the unjust judge till he gives her what she wants. Then there's old Abraham hounding God to save Sodom and Gomorrah. Listen to the Psalmist and they'll tell you a thing about "begging" God and "earnestly" seeking. the Sinking man pleads, he doesn't merely ask.
Zack:
It's all good, although Heather seemed to think there was no 727...anyway.
Matthew 7:7 I'll try and use a little syntax. Now improved, I'm actually using straight Greek, instead of Strongs from the KJV.
Call for so commit you, Worship God so obtain, Knock and open you.
Call for God's will so it will be committed to you, Worship God to obtain his will, knock and his will shall open itself to you.
I'm not a master of Greek by any means, but I do not see an active persistence in any of this.
I actually will take a stand against the unjust judge in reference to God. I would take the unjust to be indicative of a worldly judge, as unjust would be trespass of the Torah, and I doubt God using this as a parable of himself.
Luk 18:6 And the Lord said, "Hear what the unrighteous judge says.
Luk 18:7 And will not God give justice to his elect, who cry to him day and night? Will he delay long over them?
Luk 18:8 I tell you, he will give justice to them speedily. Nevertheless, when the Son of Man comes, will he find faith on earth?
God gives justice speedily. If even an unjust ruler gives justice under persecution, how much more the righteous judge. God will grant justice.
Even with all this, when Jesus comes back, will he find obedience on earth?
In looking at the aspects of prayer and study, we need to see each for what they are. Prayer is when we speak to God, our husband. Study is when we listen to our husband and see what he has for us, what his will is. If we treat prayer as a honey-do-list we are a nagging wife. We need to spend at least half our time listening to our husband. After all if we don’t listen to him, how do we know who we are talking to? In his words are the secrets to who he is. As we come to understand our husband better, we know what to ask, how to ask, and the proper order for doing so. The wife of a King who burst into the throne room yelling and walking around hysterically is liable to get her head removed, only by the mercy of our loving husband has this not been so.
But we need to move beyond the permissible, and into what brings our husband glory. We need to be the Proverbs 31 wife to our husband, God. Not a nagging crone that never listens to a word our husband says, but always having something to tell him. As if he is a simpleton, with no ability to reason or know anything.
Am I saying not to pray? Heaven forbid, but many of us prayer warriors out there, who battle night and day in the spirit, might to well to spend a few days in silence and listening to what the word of God says, and immerse ourselves in this great love letter from the man who rescued us from our assured damnation.
We are constantly bombarded with new idea’s on how to pray: That we should pray in the spirit, worship based prayer, that we should spend hours mumbling uttering things we do not know, that we should spend time in worship – making sacrifice to our God so we can appease him into listening to us, that we should be stirred up with emotion and yell out requests to God, maybe if we first butter him up by telling him how good he is and how bad we are. All these things and more are done on a continual basis and the hearts of people that do these things are only after God, but there is a better way.
Mat 6:5-8 "When you pray, you shall not be as the hypocrites, for they love to stand and pray in the synagogues and in the corners of the streets, that they may be seen by men. Most certainly, I tell you, they have received their reward. But you, when you pray, enter into your inner chamber, and having shut your door, pray to your Father who is in secret, and your Father who sees in secret will reward you openly. In praying, don't use vain repetitions, as the Gentiles do; for they think that they will be heard for their much speaking. Therefore don't be like them, for your Father knows what things you need, before you ask him.”
So the things that this poignant passage in Matthew that God tells us are fairly simple, and should not be the cause of confusion:
When you pray don’t stand up and yell out your prayers in your church or in your community, instead go into your home, into a closed off space where no one is around and secretly pray to God.
Just say what you have to say. Don’t repeat it over and over, God doesn’t have a CB radio that cuts in and out all the time, you don’t have to keep saying it. God knows your every need before you even ask, so just ask and that’s enough.
Using a lot of words will not conjure up some special reward from God, in fact no amount of praying will bring reward to your life.
Mat 6:9-13 “Pray like this: 'Our Father in heaven, may your name be kept holy. Let your Kingdom come. Let your will be done, as in heaven, so on earth. Give us today our daily bread. Forgive us our debts, as we also forgive our debtors. Bring us not into temptation, but deliver us from the evil one. For yours is the Kingdom, the power, and the glory forever. Amen.'”
Jesus tells us how it is we should pray. It doesn’t take hours, it takes mere moments.
Our Father in Heaven let your name say set apart. Let your kingdom be now. May what you want to happen, happen. Give us today what we need to feed on. Forgive our sins, as we forgive those who wrong us. Let us not be tempted, deliver us from evil. For all power and glory are from you, and your Kingdom, forever. Amen.
This isn’t how we should start praying, it is how we should pray. This is the prayer. This isn’t anything strange or foreign. Simply pray to God, from your heart.
Comments and Responses:
J. Clark:
A good treatise (or in my opinion the best) is E.M. Bounds series on prayer. There has never been such a poignant and moving testimony of what prayer is.
Your commentary is well taken. I would say that the "closet prayer" command is Jesus' cure for hypocrisy not necessarily a command to always pray that way. I think the "vain repetition is obvious." It is vain. Again, though, I don't think Jesus is saying don't repeat things in prayer but don't let them be words with out "heart" which is your whole point.(he even commands "keep asking, keep knocking, keep seeking) I also wouldn't contend that we shouldn't pray for long periods of times. Sometimes it takes hours just for us to get through the mire into the center of our hearts. Jonathan Edwards prayer three straight days before his sermon "Sinners in the hands of an Angry God." Evan Roberts would pray from 1am-4am for months leading up to the great Wales revival. The disciples in Acts prayed continuously together before the Spirit came down. The most life changing prayer time I've been apart of was at Cannon Beach for the Prayer Summit where ministers pray together all day for 4 days with no agenda(except to be before God)
Thoughts on study and prayer: One thing that has been moving my life in the Spirit is the combination of the two. Reading and meditating on the scripture which then moves me to prayer.
Let me know your thoughts. I love your hunger and thirst. It moves me.
Zack:
I can't give enough time to this reply right now, but just to get started.
I think the scripture goes "Knock and the door will be open, seek and you will find..." There is also "Ask anything in my name and the father will give it to you"
We are to ask, he answers. If you ask your Dad for something and he says no, do you keep asking? What if he says yes? If he says wait, sure you'd at a later point, once the qualifications had been met, ask again, but not till that point.
God always answers, and when we are in the authority of Jesus when we ask, our father grants it to us. If you aren't walking dead, and alive in Christ, you wont get your answer, because your very prayers are an abomination to God.
On a deeper level the answers are in God's book of Grace. Every habit we should have is written in it. It is just and true. In fact it is the Messiah, for the messiah and the Torah are one.
If you walk out the habits of the Torah, covered by the attoinment sacrifice of the true lamb, you will be blessed and everything your new heart desires will be fulfilled.
J. Clark:
A few tad bit on the prayer thing again: the translation of the "ask and it will be given to you," passage is that the Greek tells us that it is present active indicative which means "do it and keep on doing it," so that the passage is better translated "keep asking, keep seeking, keep knocking." There is also the parable of the persistent widow, where the widow hounds the unjust judge till he gives her what she wants. Then there's old Abraham hounding God to save Sodom and Gomorrah. Listen to the Psalmist and they'll tell you a thing about "begging" God and "earnestly" seeking. the Sinking man pleads, he doesn't merely ask.
Zack:
It's all good, although Heather seemed to think there was no 727...anyway.
Matthew 7:7 I'll try and use a little syntax. Now improved, I'm actually using straight Greek, instead of Strongs from the KJV.
Call for so commit you, Worship God so obtain, Knock and open you.
Call for God's will so it will be committed to you, Worship God to obtain his will, knock and his will shall open itself to you.
I'm not a master of Greek by any means, but I do not see an active persistence in any of this.
I actually will take a stand against the unjust judge in reference to God. I would take the unjust to be indicative of a worldly judge, as unjust would be trespass of the Torah, and I doubt God using this as a parable of himself.
Luk 18:6 And the Lord said, "Hear what the unrighteous judge says.
Luk 18:7 And will not God give justice to his elect, who cry to him day and night? Will he delay long over them?
Luk 18:8 I tell you, he will give justice to them speedily. Nevertheless, when the Son of Man comes, will he find faith on earth?
God gives justice speedily. If even an unjust ruler gives justice under persecution, how much more the righteous judge. God will grant justice.
Even with all this, when Jesus comes back, will he find obedience on earth?
posted by Zack Dawley at 9:55 PM
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