Prayer, Our Secret Weapon

When it comes to praying and observing people who pray, I want to learn how to pray more effectively, and I think you do too, so we will look at the apostle Paul. Paul learned how to pray from Jesus, and Paul’s prayers changed the world.

Paul wrote to a group of Christians in Thessalonica, whom he had led to faith in Christ. What he said to them will help us understand how HE prayed so that we can have a transformative prayer life.

1 Thessalonians 3:10–13 NIV

10 Night and day we pray most earnestly that we may see you again and supply what is lacking in your faith. 11 Now may our God and Father himself and our Lord Jesus clear the way for us to come to you. 12 May the Lord make your love increase and overflow for each other and for everyone else, just as ours does for you. 13 May he strengthen your hearts so that you will be blameless and holy in the presence of our God and Father when our Lord Jesus comes with all his holy ones.

So, how does this conversation with God work.

How should we pray?

Here is the example that Paul gave us.

1. Pray Frequently

Paul prayed night and day for them. Most of us are challenged to pray at least once per day, but Paul says to basically pray all the time… night and day.

Some of you may feel or think that prayer doesn’t work. You have tried it and haven’t gotten results you wanted. Erase all those thoughts and think about prayer like this.

Prayer is a constant dependance on God.

Listen, instead of praying a few minutes per day or even a lot of minutes per day, Paul wants you and I to pray all the time… to depend on Him all the time.

1 Thessalonians 5:17 The Message

17 pray all the time;

If you are ever going to memorize a verse… do this one.

You may have hear it like this

1 Thessalonians 5:17 NKJV

17 pray without ceasing,

Prayer needs to be something we do like breathing. We breathe all day, so have an attitude of prayer … of dependance on God all day. Pray prayers for help… thanks… strength… wisdom…

You pray and pause. Pray even when you are working…

Ephesians 6:18 NLT

18 Pray in the Spirit at all times and on every occasion. Stay alert and be persistent in your prayers for all believers everywhere.

There is no time that’s NOT a good time to pray.

How can you do that? Your spirit prays. Pray in the Spirit. When you don’t know what to pray, the HS will pray with you to the Lord.

You don’t just pray about something one time… keep praying.

You may ask, does my prayer really make a difference? Jesus knew we would struggle with this…

Luke 18:1 NLT

1 One day Jesus told his disciples a story to show that they should always pray and never give up.

IOW, when prayer is not going how you want it, you keep praying. Jesus goes on to tell this story…

Luke 18:2–8 NLT

2 “There was a judge in a certain city,” he said, “who neither feared God nor cared about people. 3 A widow of that city came to him repeatedly, saying, ‘Give me justice in this dispute with my enemy.’ 4 The judge ignored her for a while, but finally he said to himself, ‘I don’t fear God or care about people, 5 but this woman is driving me crazy. I’m going to see that she gets justice, because she is wearing me out with her constant requests!’ ” 6 Then the Lord said, “Learn a lesson from this unjust judge. 7 Even he rendered a just decision in the end. So don’t you think God will surely give justice to his chosen people who cry out to him day and night? Will he keep putting them off? 8 I tell you, he will grant justice to them quickly! But when the Son of Man returns, how many will he find on the earth who have faith?”

Too often we think the judge is God… the judge here is the opposite of God. he did not want to help but heped because of her persistence. God wants to help.

Here’s the point. Jesus is saying if a judge who didn’t want to help... helped a widow because she kept asking, don’t you think that God, who does want to help you, he showed how much he loves you by sending his Son, don’t you think that he’s going to help you?

Persist in prayer with faith and trust. Trust that God will hear you and answer you. Sometimes our prayers are just selfish prayers about ourselves… but when we pray and we pray along the lines of God’s will, and it doesn’t happen quickly, we persist.

Jesus said to pray and not give up.

Persisting in prayer is persisting in trusting God.

While you are waiting, and sometimes it takes God a while to answer our prayer, realize that God is working in you and around you. We are in a hurry… God is not.

Prayer is not overcoming God’s reluctance, it’s laying hold of God’s willingness. Martin Luther

So how do I make prayer part of my day - all day.

Exercise - Pray the first 2 minutes

Pray for the first 2 minutes of everything… the day, meals, when you get to work, when you deal with your children, etc. You are not praying out loud, but in your mind and spirit.

“If in the first waking moment of the day you learn to fling the door back and let God in, every public thing will be stamped with the presence of God.” Oswald Chambers

“The moment you wake up each morning all your wishes and hopes for the day rush at you like wild animals. The first job each morning consists of shoving it all back and listening to that other voice. Taking that other point of view. Letting that other larger, stronger, quieter life come flowing in.” CS Lewis

2. Pray passionately

Pray with all of your heart.

When you see Drew Breeze throw a long ball and the receiver dives for it… and catches it, it’s exciting. I think God gets excited when we go for it in prayer. He wants us to pray … to go for it.

You might pray something like this… I’m not even quite sure what you want in this situation but with all my heart, I want what you want in this situation. Help me to understand what it is.

Or God, I believe this is what you want and with all my heart this is what I want.

Or, God, I’m hurting and I need some hope. Heal me…

I have been driven many times to my knees by the overwhelming conviction that I had no where else to go. Abraham Lincoln

That’s going for it.

Matthew 6:5 GNB

5 “When you pray, do not be like the hypocrites! They love to stand up and pray in the houses of worship and on the street corners, so that everyone will see them. I assure you, they have already been paid in full.

Jesus is not saying to never pray in public. He is saying that you should not pray to be noticed by others. If you think about how you will sound… what people will think… will they think I’m stupid… you are talking to them… not to God.

Pray with passion… and sometimes that passionate prayer may not even have words.

Romans 8:26 NIV84

26 In the same way, the Spirit helps us in our weakness. We do not know what we ought to pray for, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with groans that words cannot express.

You may not even know what to pray in a situation, so pray in the Sprit.

Pray frequently and with passion.

Exercise

Pray out loud

Jesus prayed out loud a lot and so should we. One of the ways to express emotion and compassion is out loud. Find a place where you are alone and pray out loud to the Lord.

Pray through the Psalms

It’s a book mostly of prayers. Those prayers are emotional prayers, a lot of them prayed by David. When you are going through stuff, praying through the Psalms is awesome. It will bring your emotions to the Lord and allow Him to help you work through them.

3. Pray specifically

Don’t pray generic broad things. Pray specifically. Tell god what it is you need and want. Be specific.

Matthew 7:7 NLT

7 “Keep on asking, and you will receive what you ask for. Keep on seeking, and you will find. Keep on knocking, and the door will be opened to you.

You’re asking for something, you’re looking for something; you’re wanting a door to be opened when you pray.

And God wants you to ask. In fact, he tells us to come boldly to him, to come into his presence and ask…

Hebrews 4:16 NLT

16 So let us come boldly to the throne of our gracious God. There we will receive his mercy, and we will find grace to help us when we need it most.

Coming boldly means that you come to God with trust that he will hear you and help you… not because you deserve it or because of who you are, but because of who he is.

Boldly does not mean you order or boss God around. You come humbly, with expectation and faith.

Jesus said that he wants us to pray in his name. That doesn’t mean rattling off some prayer and adding “in Jesus name.”

John 14:13 The Message

13 From now on, whatever you request along the lines of who I am and what I am doing, I’ll do it. That’s how the Father will be seen for who he is in the Son. I mean it.

That’s praying in Jesus name. As we grow more and more like him, our prayers begin to change. We begin to pray for what He wants to happen…

When you get frustrated in prayer, instead of giving up, get specific in prayer.

How do I pray specific prayers that will get answered? I don’t want to waste my prayer time. There are some prayers you know are not going to get answered because we’re praying in opposition to one another. It’s the weather we always talk about. One person is praying for it to get cooler today. Somebody’s out there praying for it to get hotter today. I wish you weren’t doing that. But you were praying that. How’s God going to answer both prayers? Or sports, one person praying for this team to win and another person praying for that team to win. Both prayers couldn’t be answered. Or politics – praying for this candidate to win or that candidate to win. Both prayers couldn’t be answered.

Specific Prayers

1. Pray for God to remove obstacles

Paul prayed like this.

1 Thessalonians 3:11 NIV

11 Now may our God and Father himself and our Lord Jesus clear the way for us to come to you.

Specific prayers recognize that there are specific things that are in the way of God’s will being done. That’s why we are to pray that God’s will is done, on earth, as it is in heaven. It’s always done immediately in heaven. On earth something is in the way. God is all powerful, but he has allowed for a time something to be in the way.

Right now, our sin and our choices can get in the way...

You may be praying that something specific to happen, but maybe you need to pray that the things that are preventing it from happening will be removed.

Someone in your life that you’re concerned about right now. Or that you love and you want to pray for right now. Specifically pray for a barrier to be removed.

For instance, if you’re praying for someone to begin a relationship with God though Jesus, you want them to find his peace and purpose in their daily life because you love them and you know the difference it would make. If you’re praying for that to happen in somebody’s life, pray that they’ll begin a relationship. But also pray that barriers will be removed. Pray specifically. “God remove the barriers of their doubts.

2. Pray for God to increase love

1 Thessalonians 3:12 NIV

12 May the Lord make your love increase and overflow for each other and for everyone else, just as ours does for you.

Love is more important than everything else.

1 Corinthians 8:1 NIV

1 Now about food sacrificed to idols: We know that “We all possess knowledge.” But knowledge puffs up while love builds up.

1 Corinthians 13:1–3 NLT

1 If I could speak all the languages of earth and of angels, but didn’t love others, I would only be a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. 2 If I had the gift of prophecy, and if I understood all of God’s secret plans and possessed all knowledge, and if I had such faith that I could move mountains, but didn’t love others, I would be nothing. 3 If I gave everything I have to the poor and even sacrificed my body, I could boast about it; but if I didn’t love others, I would have gained nothing.

Love is what God does. Pray for love to increase. Do you think that our world could use more love?

3. Pray for personal growth

1 Thessalonians 3:13 NIV

13 May he strengthen your hearts so that you will be blameless and holy in the presence of our God and Father when our Lord Jesus comes with all his holy ones.

God wants to build your character, so pray for it. Don’t just pray for circumstances to change, pray for God to change you… the way you think… As God grows us, our prayers change from selfish prayers to God kind of prayers.

Ask God to change the circumstances… But also ask Him grow our character.

Right now, just utter a quick prayer for your own growth.

4. Pray for God’s ultimate will

1 Thessalonians 3:13 NIV

13 May he strengthen your hearts so that you will be blameless and holy in the presence of our God and Father when our Lord Jesus comes with all his holy ones.

You and me being blameless and holy… that’s His ultimate will for us.

“Man finds it hard to get what he wants because he does not want the best. God finds it hard to give because he would give the best and man will not take it.” George McDonald

God wants to give you the best in life, but we don’t pray for it. Pray for God’s ultimate will. 100% all the way the best.

5. Pray with the end in mind

1 Thessalonians 3:13 NLT

13 May he, as a result, make your hearts strong, blameless, and holy as you stand before God our Father when our Lord Jesus comes again with all his holy people. Amen.

Pray with heaven in mind. Pray for today and tomorrow, but know that we are in the last days.

Pray in ways that have the goal of our lives, to be holy and blameless, in mind. Pray with the end in mind. This will help us focus o what God wants.

Prayer is relying on God all the time.

“When we rely upon organization we get what organization can do. When we rely upon education we get what education can do. When we rely upon our eloquence we get what eloquence can do. But when we rely upon prayer, we get what God can do.” AC Dixon

Here is a pray that has then end in mind.

Ephesians 3:20–21 NIV84

20 Now to him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us, 21 to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, for ever and ever! Amen.

Do you want to change? If you’re going to grow in your prayer life, it’s not going to just happen. It doesn’t accidentally happen. It takes a commitment. It takes a decision. Will you today decide to make a fresh start in your prayer life?