How to Pray
Selected Scriptures
We're going to talk about how to pray right now. One of the very basic things about the Christian life is praying. You know, we said that reading the Bible is like eating. Well praying is like breathing. One of the other things that's really helpful to do if you happen to be alive is breathe. It has very redeeming value.
You exist when you come into the world in an atmosphere. And one of the things that the atmosphere does is put pressure on your lungs. And from the very beginning you breathe. And the reason you breathe is because of the air pressure that is exerted against your lungs, it forces your lungs to take air in. That's why it's much more difficult to hold your breath than it is to breathe. You hold your breath for about a minute and you turn purple and your heart starts pounding and you get sweaty because you're resisting the normal pressure against your lung. Well prayer is like that. When you're born into the family of God, when you're born again, when you become a child of God, you enter into God's world there is a sphere in which you live. The atmosphere of God's presence and grace exerts pressure on your life and the normal thing is to breathe and we just say that's prayer, responding to God's pressure and presence in your life. Prayer is as normal to the Christian as breathing is to the human. You live in an atmosphere and you respond to that atmosphere of the presence of God by receiving that presence of God and by taking it in and putting it back out again in response to Him.
Prayer really is important. We talk a lot about prayer and we throw the word around but prayer is a tremendous power. Somebody once said, "Prayer is the slender nerve that moves the muscles of omnipotence." And prayer activates the power of God. That's putting the same thing in a simple term. Prayer activates the power of God. God moves in response to the prayers of His people.
And not only that, prayer lines you up properly with God. When we're told to pray, we are told to pray in the Spirit. Now what it means to pray in the Spirit is to pray consistently with the Spirit of God. So prayer not only moves God to act but prayer is to align us with the will and purpose of God. When we pray in the will of God or in accord with God's will we are lining up with His purposes. And so prayer has a definite effect of lining us up with God's purposes, as well as causing God to act.
Prayer really does change things. I know when I was a little kid we had a deal in our dining room that said, "Prayer changes things." It really does. Prayer is effective.
There was a guy doing some sculpture one time and he was down pounding on the bottom of this thing on the ground. A preacher came in and said, "I wish I could deal such changing blows on the hearts of men." The sculptor looked at him and said, "Maybe you could if you work like me, on your knees." And there's a lot of truth to that. Because prayer can do what all of your teaching can't do. If my experience has taught me anything, and I say this with a very genuine feeling, that what I say you probably won't really understand totally, but from my standpoint in the ministry, I know the difference in my ministry when there is prayer and when there is not. It is very evident to me...both the prayers of people, even people I don't know, and my own faithfulness in prayer makes a very distinguishable difference in my ministry. And I am very aware of it. Prayer is very effective.
We would say that prayer is simply is talking to God. You know, and one of the things that happens when a baby comes into a family is that the first thing you want the baby to do is...what? The first thing that you want out of new life is communication. You want some response, and that's the same as a Christian. The thing that happens when you become a Christian is immediately you're thrown into an environment with God when you have a tremendous desire to communicate with God, to respond and say the things that are on your heart. Now that's all prayer is. Prayer isn't buying a little book and saying, "Now I lay me down to sleep," bleep, bleep and all that. That isn't prayer. Prayer is communing with God. It's just conversation like you talk to anybody. It isn't a whole lot of thees and thous and holy mogus and all kinds of fancy words, it's not a vocabulary contest to see who can say the most theological words without taking a breath. It isn't that at all.
And prayer is not vain repetition. It's not, "Please, oh do this, oh I beg You, I beg You, I beg You, you know, please do this, please." You don't need to beg like that. The Pharisees had endless repetition. Prayer isn't that either. It's not saying 48 Hail Marys in a row, the same thing over and over again. God isn't deaf and He heard you the first time. There isn't any need, there isn't any need for endless repetition, that's Matthew chapter 6, prayer is not endless repetition. Prayer is not begging, begging "O please, O please, O please do this and if You only do this and not only..." It's not that kind of thing, although there is petition and there is earnestness in it. Prayer is simply conversation. And sometimes in your life you may say, "God, it's sure a nice day and I hope You're enjoying it like I am and I just want to thank You for it." That's a significant a prayer as if you stood up in a pulpit and said a bunch of theology because all you're doing is communing with God.
When we read the Bible, God talks to us. When we pray, we talk to Him. And you've got to have both sides or you don't have conversation. Nobody likes a one-sided conversation. Now all Christians pray. We all talk to God sometimes. We don't all pray right. We don't all pray the way we ought to. A lot of Christians pray wrong. In the first place, we spend a lot of time asking for stuff we don't need. Did you ever know that? "Lord, give me this, give me that, give me that," and the Lord knows if He gave it to us it would only mess us up so He doesn't.
And other things we do, we ask for things we already have. Did you ever ask the Lord for peace? The Bible says you have the peace that passes understanding already. You ever ask the Lord for grace? The Bible says His grace is already sufficient. You ever ask Him for love? He says the love of God is shed abroad in your heart, what more do you want? You see, we ask the Lord for a lot of stuff we already have, that's why James says we ought to ask for wisdom, then if we have wisdom that will be the sense not to ask Him for what we've already got.
So, prayer is simply communing with God. But there are some rights and some wrongs and some things about prayer that we need to understand basically. Prayer is simply talking to God. It isn't to be sophisticated, it isn't to be formal or informal, it's just anything. Paul says in Ephesians 6:18, "Praying always with all kinds of prayer." Any kind of prayer. You could be crying out, "O God," you know, in a terrible time of stress. Or you could be saying, "Lord, this is a terrific day, I'm really happy, I just want You to know I'm checking in." You know, that's prayer. Any kind of communion with God at any point, at any level, on any subject...communion with God is prayer.
Now you don't have to close your eyes. Of course, I grew up in a church that was rather provincial and whenever you prayed, you know, you sort of did this little routine, you closed your eyes and bow your head and all that kind of stuff. And it's important to teach kids to do that so they don't look around a room and make little noises and fool around, sneak their dinner, and stuff. So you get them to do this, just so nobody starts before you, see. Or else we hold hands, you know, just to get them to concentrate.
I remember when I used to go out with this bunch of guys and we used to go on the road, we would go to preach and sing and we had a quartet and a lot of funny deals we did. And so we would go out and every time we would go out we would have a prayer meeting, you know. And the first time I went out we went out and everybody prayed with their eyes open, especially the guy who was driving, you know. It was his turn to pray and he just...I mean, we were glad for that, we were...you know, we didn't want to just have him close his eyes and commit everything to the Lord. He couldn't drive well with his eyes open. But anyway, he'd drive along, you know, the first time it happened I thought, "I wonder if the Lord hears, I mean, he doesn't have his eyes closed." And then every time you see somebody pray on television they've always got their eyes wide open. It really doesn't matter, you know, the Bible says you can pray with your eyes lifted up to heaven. It says you can pray with your hands lifted up. It says you can pray kneeling, you can pray bowing, you can lie down and pray, you can stand up, you can pray while you're walking, sitting. You know, it doesn't matter. I know some people who have their devotions in the bathroom, you know, and that's fine. It doesn't matter really. Praying is just conversing with God. And the particular physical position, the particular mode, what you do with your eyeballs, it isn't the issue. That's not the issue at all. The idea is communing with God.
Now let me just talk about prayer very briefly from a standpoint of a couple of points you have in your outline...the necessity, the conditions, the content and the hindrances. We're going to run by them quick.
First of all, the necessity for prayer. It is necessary, number one, because it is commanded. And anything that is commanded of the Christian becomes necessary. Jesus said in Luke 18:1, "I want everybody everywhere to pray and not to faint." You know what most people do when they have a problem? Faint. Jesus said, "Don't faint, do...what?...pray. I want you to pray, not faint."
You know, Peter had a problem, he was always falling asleep in prayer meeting and Jesus said to him, "You know, if you stayed awake and prayed you wouldn't be in the mess you're in. Watch and pray unless you enter into...what?...temptation." You see, Peter didn't pray so he didn't have himself girded really for the temptation. If you pray more than you'd sleep, you be better off. You know, some of us go to bed at night and we say, "Dear Lord...." and we're gone, you know. We wake up the next day and we bomb out all day. Well you know what we did? We went to sleep instead of praying, watch and pray lest you enter into temptation. Prayer