Transparent moment: For years I have struggled in the area of prayer. Dont get me wrong I do pray, but I was conditioned by other saints as to how one should pray to allow God to work on your behalf. I think what we have ultimately done is turned something so powerful into a cheap monologue. In the past week Ive realized how much I need to step up my prayer life. Just to confirm what I was sensing God allowed a friend to confirm my very thought without me having said anything about it. I want to share with you something I came across in my efforts to increase my prayer life. This is an expert of the introduction to A.W. Pinks book A Guide To Fervent Prayer. The Brevity and Definiteness of Apostolic Praying Next, we note their brevity. The prayers of the apostles are short ones. Not some, or even most, but all of them are exceedingly brief, most of them encompassed in but one or two verses, and the longest in only seven verses. How this rebukes the lengthy, lifeless and wearisome prayers of many a pulpit. Wordy prayers are usually windy ones. I quote again from Martin Luther, this time from his comments on the Lord’s prayer directed to simple laymen: When thou prayest let thy words be few, but thy thoughts and affections many, and above all let them be profound. The less thou speakest the better thou prayest. . . . External and bodily prayer is that buzzing of the lips, that outside babble that is gone through without any attention, and which strikes the ears of men; but prayer in spirit and in truth is the inward desire, the motions, the sighs, which issue from the depths of the heart. The former is the prayer of hypocrites and of all who trust in themselves: the latter is the prayer of the children of God, who walk in His fear. Observe, too, their definiteness. Though exceedingly brief, yet their prayers are very explicit. There were no vague ramblings or mere generalizations, but specific requests for definite things. How much failure there is at this point. How many prayers have we heard that were so incoherent and aimless, so lacking in point and unity, that when the Amen was reached we could scarcely remember one thing for which thanks had been given or request had been made! Only a blurred impression remained on the mind, and a feeling that the supplicant had engaged more in a form of indirect preaching than direct praying. But examine any of the prayers of the apostles and it will be seen at a glance that theirs are like those of their Master’s in Matthew 6:9-13 and John 17, made up of definitive adorations and sharply-defined petitions. There is neither moralizing nor uttering of pious platitudes, but a spreading before God of certain needs and a simple asking for the supply of them.
Posted on: Thu, 05 Jun 2014 03:45:40 +0000
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