Spiritual Disciplines - Prayer
Notes
Transcript
Spiritual Disciplines - Prayer
Spiritual Disciplines - Prayer
Introduction
Definition
Eerdmans Bible Dictionary (PRAYER)
PRAYER (Heb. tep̱illâ; Gk. proseuchḗ, déēsis, aítēma).† Any form of communication with God on the part of believing people in response to situations that may arise in life. Prayer is marked, therefore, by variety and encompasses petition (including intercession for others), complaint, praise, thanksgiving, confession, imprecation (e.g., Num. 16:15; Ps. 69:22–28 [MT 23–29]), nonverbal communication (Rom. 8:26), and glossolalia (1 Cor. 14:14–15). As speaking to God rather than about God, prayer expresses most clearly what is believed about God and serves to effect the personal relationship that exists between God and his people.
We could simply sum of the word prayer to be the many forms of communication between us and God. We should also understand the purpose of prayer as a change agent to our own lives. We recognize we need to change. We need to remove things in our lives and add other things to our lives. We need intercession. We need God’s help to change our hearts and minds to be more like Christ.
“To pray is to change. Prayer is the central avenue God uses to transform us. If we are unwilling to change, we will abandon prayer as a noticeable characteristic of our lives.”
Foster, Richard J.. Celebration of Discipline: The Path To Spiritual Growth (p. 33). HarperCollins. Kindle Edition.
But it is easy to become frustrated when we don’t see the results we want. However, do we believe God hears and answers prayers? Do we believe God can intervene and intercede in our lives? Then praying is how this change happens. If you don’t ask, if you don’t tell God, do you expect change?
When we lack prayer or lack conviction that prayer has any effect on life, then we notice life is unchanged. There are many instances of prayer in scripture, of people praying for God to interceded, to intervene, advocating for others. It is an integral part of Scripture. It has been an integral part of many spiritual leaders such as Martin Luther who spent 3 hours a day in prayer and John Wesley who devoted two hours a day in prayer.
Learning to pray
First and foremost, prayer is a discipline and as we mentioned with meditation, it takes practice, practice, and practice to become better at it. We cannot simply will ourselves to be better at communicating than to communicate again and again with God to become better at praying.
“Real prayer is something we learn. The disciples asked Jesus, “Lord, teach us to pray” (Luke 11:1). They had prayed all their lives, and yet something about the quality and quantity of Jesus’ praying caused them to see how little they knew about prayer. If their praying was to make any difference on the human scene, there were some things they needed to learn.”
Foster, Richard J.. Celebration of Discipline: The Path To Spiritual Growth (p. 36). HarperCollins. Kindle Edition.
Have you had the experience of feeling like you have prayed and prayed but can’t seem to see results? Foster shared the same experience so he went back and put together all of the teachings where Jesus was praying or teaching about prayer. He said in no part could he find that phrase “if it be your will”. The point being if we are spending time in meditation with God, learning to understand, then we will know more how to pray in his will. This is where when we pray, as we said earlier, we must practice it and we don’t always do it perfectly, and so we also don’t get the results.
Foster suggests to change our way of praying that you simply expect change in that person’s life. When the purpose of prayer is to seek a change in their life, then we are on the right track with understanding what intercessory prayer is about.
Critical Aspect
“One of the most critical aspects in learning to pray for others is to get in contact with God so that his life and power can flow through us into others.”
Foster, Richard J.. Celebration of Discipline: The Path To Spiritual Growth (p. 38). HarperCollins. Kindle Edition.
If we believe God can cause change in this world by prayer, then it is critical we learn to pray, that is communicate with God. When we communicate effectively with God, then we can start to see these changes from praying for others.
Foster also points out though that we have a tendency to start out big and skip over the small ones. However, if we are learning to pray, and we are learning to effectively communicate and listen to God, then starting out smaller, you will have a better chance of success.
Second key is that we think faith is what we lack but often, it is compassion. Jesus had compassion for people
“Frequently our lack is not faith but compassion. It seems that genuine empathy between the pray-er and the pray-ee often makes the difference. We are told that Jesus was “moved with compassion” for people. Compassion was an evident feature of every healing in the New Testament. We do not pray for people as “things,” but as “persons” whom we love. If we have God-given compassion and concern for others, our faith will grow and strengthen as we pray. In fact, if we genuinely love people, we desire for them far more than it is within our power to give, and that will cause us to pray.”
Foster, Richard J.. Celebration of Discipline: The Path To Spiritual Growth (pp. 39-40). HarperCollins. Kindle Edition.
We must have compassion for others and not simply treat them as things or tasks that we need to handle. Having genuine compassion for the person you are praying for is praying as Jesus did, this is acting as Jesus did. This is being Jesus like in this world!
Sometimes we have a hard time with what we are praying for. We don’t know how to pray for what we are asking for.
A technique suggested by Foster is to use our imagination to help us to pray. It works like this. You can picture Jesus who lives in us being beside you. You can imagine the compassion and love he shares for the person you are praying for. You can imagine his reaction when you ask out of that love and compassion, that change comes about. If they are sick, those germs or disease is being slowly removed by the light of Christ pouring into them. If they are struggling with temptation, then pray and imagine their minds are no longer seeing the temptation as a lure but as repulsive to them. If there is evil or harm being done in someone’s life, then you are praying that evil and harm retreating from that person’s life.
The point is not that you are conjuring up something to happen by your imagination but your imagination gives you that image to focus on while you pray.
Today we have focused more on intercessory prayer. There are many other kinds of prayer and I do not mean they are not just as important as this kind of prayer. My intent today is for us to learn the power of prayer to affect change in the lives of others by our compassion and effective communication with God.
Practice
Today I want us to spend a couple minutes in prayer at closing. I want you to think of someone on your heart that has need of God changing something in their life. This may be a sickness, a disease, a battle with depression or temptations. This may be loss in their life. This may be loneliness. This may be fear and and anxiety. This may be change in their career or direction in life they are seeking. There are no limits to what we bring before God. The caveat I do mention now is that as mentioned earlier, this is a person you have love and compassion for. This is key to bringing them before God in prayer. The second thing is that we are not trying to manufacture this scene with our imagination into reality but the imagination just helps our minds to picture Jesus caring for them.
Now, I want us to close our eyes and picture Jesus with us in this room. Imagine Jesus smiling and a light radiating from him listening to our words as we pray.
I want you to think of that person you want to pray for and silently pray for them over the next couple of minutes. I want you to picture them next to Jesus in this room. I want you to bring their affliction, struggle, disease, sorrow or whatever you are praying for to Jesus. Pray through the specifics of what you are praying for and as you are imagine how the light radiating from Jesus is pouring over them. Imagine how Jesus’ light is healing their disease or giving their mind peace or setting them free from temptation. Keep picturing this in your mind. Perhaps if they have a disease, you picture Jesus’ light that is warming up their body and getting rid of each germ or each cancer cell one by one. Perhaps if their mind is struggling with depression or anxiety or uncertainty in life, you see Jesus’ light warming their bodies and giving them a sense of peace where they are now smiling at Jesus. Perhaps if they are struggling from loss of loved ones, you can see Jesus wiping away the tears from their face and the light of Christ is warming their hearts and giving them comfort.
Lets spend 2 minutes praying for them to try this out. Remember prayer is a practice so we must do this over and over to get good at communicating with God and having compassion for others.