THE INGREDIENTS OF PRAYER
Jesus' disciples asked Jesus to teach them to pray. As was the Jewish custom every Rabbi would give their followers a prayer. So we see that Jesus gave all of us an example of prayer. Now prayer is personal, not to be just a ritual or some religious ceremony. But in what we call the Lord's Prayer are certain ingredients:
Luke 11:2 Our Father in heaven,
( We must know personally who we are praying to)
Hallowed be your name
(this is offering up our praise for who He is)
Your kingdom come, Your will be done on earth as it is in heaven
(a surrender to praying for His will),
Give us this day our daily bread
( this is our petitions of our prayers)
And forgive us our sins,
(acknowledging our sin in repentance)
For we also forgive all everyone who is indebted to us.
(as we ask God to forgive us, we must acknowledge that we hold no bitterness, no grudges but have forgiven those who have hurt us, this is sharing our brokenness to our Father)
And do not lead us into temptation, But deliver us from the evil one.
(this is asking for God's protection)
In this we find: 1. Adoration 2. Contrition 3. Petitions 4. Thanksgiving & Gratitude 5. Protection.
Later Jesus said that if we ask anything in His name I will do. Found in John 14:12-14.
Psalm 100:4 Enter into His gates with thanksgiving, And into His courts with praise. Be thankful to Him and bless His name.
Our prayers should always be an adoration of who He is as well as thanking Him for what He has done. Both words of thanksgiving and adoration are praise yet they are different from one another. Our praise of thanksgiving is to say His goodness that He has been to us, showing gratitude for His blessings. This takes us into His gates. Adoration is recognizing and declaring who He is, Jesus is our strong tower, our shield & our buckler, our Savior, our Redeemer, our Lord, our Healer, our Hope, our Help, our Teacher, our High Priest, our soon coming King, He is the Alpha and Omega, the fourth person in the fire. Just a few of many; but when we come into His presence we must understand our thanksgiving opens the gate into His court and our praise takes us into His throne room.
Sometimes people are uncomfortable praying out loud, but God gave us voices to speak words of adoration, do I pray silently, yes I do, do I pray out loud, yes I do. There is an anionting of the Holy Spirit that comes on our verbal prayers. Have you ever listened to someone as they are praying and there is a change in the pitch of their voice? It suddenly gets higher perhaps a little louder? That is the Holy Spirit anionting that begins to bring that prayer to where it needs to go. If you are uncomfortable praying out loud in public begin in your home, in prayer time, let your children and grandchildren hear you pray, it witnesses to them.
Hebrews 13:15 Therefore by Him let us continually offer a sacrifice of praise to God, that is, the fruit of our lips, giving thanks to His name.
(Praise becomes a sacrifice when our circumstances don't seem praise worthy. Also notice it says "the fruit of our lips" that means we speak it, to note: everytime you tell someone about God's goodness and faithfulness to you, it is praising and thanking Him)
Sometimes you may not have a petition, make a time just to praise Him, tell Him how much you love Him, remember and thank Him for His faithfulness and goodness in your life, be specific tell Him you remember ___________& _________.
PERSEVERE IN PRAYER
Matthew 7:7-8 Ask, and it will be given to you, seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives, and he who seeks finds, and to him who knocks it will be opened.
Read the account of the Gentile woman who called out to Jesus continuing to be persistent in her call: Matthew 15:21-28
Or blind Bartimaeus in Mark 10:46-52, when he heard Jesus was passing by he kept calling out "Son of David have mercy on me". The more he was told to be silent the more he cried out until Jesus stood still and responded.
When we are heavy burdened and need Jesus to respond, we keep praying, and praying, Daniel prayed for 21 days before God's answer came to him, because demonic angels were fighting God's warring angel to stop the answer from coming. But the enemy did not prevail and God's answer came, yet, Daniel had kept praying. Everything is in God's timing also, there are times we are praying for something specific yet it is being withheld until the right time. Then there are times we pray when it is not God's will for us, yet we keep praying until God says stop praying.
I want to remind us that in 1Timothy 2:1-3 we are told we are to pray, in supplications, prayers, intercessions and giving of thanks be made for all men. It goes on to say to pray for kings (president) and those in authority that this is well pleasing to God.
FERVENT, EFFECTIVE PRAYER
FERVENT: with deep passion and intensity.
EFFECTIVE: the power to produce an effect.
That brokenhearted fervent prayer coming from deep within us, knowing only our God can help. That weeping in the private place.
James 5:16b The effective, fervent prayer of a righteous man (or woman) avails much.
All are in need of God, for without Christ we are nothing and can do nothing. But in Christ we have been given access to the throne room to call on our God to meet our desperation. I often think to myself, have we become too self-sufficient, to be desperate? If we were truly desperate to see the lost saved, especially our loved ones, would we not be a more weeping people, crying out "God we are desperate for You!" As we see scripture unfolding before our eyes, our prayers should be more fervent than ever before. I need to mention here that though we are to persevere in prayer, it not to become "words" we say with no heart in them. Go back and read Matthew 6:7. Never allow just repeating many words that take the place of our brokenness for the one we are praying for.
This has been quiet long, so much to speak about prayer. Next time we look at prophetic prayers, and the power in our prayers (effective prayers)
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