More on this book
Community
Kindle Notes & Highlights
No spiritual exercise is such a blending of complexity and simplicity. It is the simplest form of speech that infant lips can try, yet the sublimest strains that reach the Majesty on high. It is as appropriate to the aged philosopher as to the little child. It is the ejaculation of a moment and the attitude of a lifetime. It is the expression of the rest of faith and of the fight of faith. It is an agony and an ecstasy. It is submissive and yet importunate. In the one moment it lays hold of God and binds the devil. It can be focused on a single objective and it can roam the world. It can be
...more
It is the highest activity of the human soul, and therefore it is at the same time the ultimate test of a man’s true spiritual condition. There is nothing that tells
the truth about us as Christian people so much as our prayer life.… Ultimately, therefore, a man discovers the real condition of his spiritual life when he examines himself in private, when he is alone with God.…
every believer must be continually in the presence of God, constantly breathing in His truths to be fully functional.
Continual, persistent, incessant prayer is an essential part of Christian living, and it flows out of dependence on God.
“Keep on the alert at all times, praying that you may have strength to escape all these things that are about to take place” (Luke 21:36).
Is Jesus actually saying prayer doesn't necessarily avert wrong? because he seems to tell us prayer will only make us escape them.
Unceasing, incessant prayer is essential to the vitality of a believer’s relationship to the Lord and his ability to function in the world.
I think of praying at all times as living in continual God consciousness, where everything we see and experience becomes a kind of prayer, lived in deep
awareness of and surrender to our Heavenly Father.
To obey this exhortation means that, when we are tempted, we hold the temptation before God and ask for His help. When we experience something good and beautiful, we immediately thank the Lord for it. When we see evil around us, we ask God to make it right and to allow us to help accomplish that, if it is according to His will. When we meet someone who does not know Christ, we pray for God to draw that person to Himself and to use us as faithful witnesses. When we encounter trouble, we turn to God as our Deliverer. Thus life becomes a continually ascending prayer: All life’s thoughts, deeds,
...more
This highlight has been truncated due to consecutive passage length restrictions.
Imagine spending an entire workday with your best friend at your side. You would no doubt acknowledge his presence throughout the day by introducing him to your friends or business associates and talking to him about the various activities of the day. But how would your friend feel if you never talked to him or acknowledged his presence? Yet that’s how we treat the Lord when we fail to pray. If we communicated with our friends as infrequently as some of us communicate with the Lord, those friends might soon disappear.
Prayer is not a meaningless function or duty to be crowded into the busy or the weary ends of the day, and we are not obeying our Lord’s command when we content ourselves with a few minutes upon our knees in the morning rush or late at night when the faculties, tired with the tasks of the day, call out for rest.
God is always within call, it is true; His ear is ever attentive to the cry of His child, but we can never get to know Him if we use the vehicle of prayer as we use the telephone, for a few words of hurried conversation. Intimacy requires development. We can never know God as it is our privilege to know Him, by brief and fragmentary and unconsidered repetitions of intercessions that are requests for personal favors and nothing more. That is not the way in which we can come into communication with heaven’s King. “The goal of prayer is the ear of God,” a goal that can only be reached by patient
...more
Prayer is fitting at any time, in any posture, in any place, under any circumstance, and in any attire. It is to be a total way of life—an open and continual communion with God. After having embraced all the infinite resources that are yours in Christ, don’t ever think you’re no longer dependent on the moment-by-moment power of God.
Throughout his life, the believer senses his insufficiency; thus he lives in total dependence on God. As long as you feel that insufficiency and dependence on God, you will pray without ceasing.
Paul’s instruction, both in Colossians 4:2 and Ephesians 6:18, encompasses more than mere physical alertness, however. Believers should also look for those things they ought to be praying about. Evidently Peter learned this deeper truth from his failure to stay awake, for he wrote in his first epistle, “Be of sound judgment and sober spirit for the purpose of prayer” (4:7).
Christians sometimes pray vague, general prayers that are difficult for God to answer because they do not really ask for anything specific. That’s why specific prayer is so important. While general requests can be appropriate in certain instances, it is through His answers to specific prayers that we see God put His love and power on display. Jesus promised, “Whatever you ask in My name, that will I do, so that the Father may be glorified in the Son. If you ask Me anything in My name, I will do it” (John 14:13–14).
If God is specific in his instructions, why should we not be specific in our petitions to him?
the days of His flesh, He offered up both prayers and supplications with loud crying and tears to the One able to save Him from death.” That verse is a commentary on our Lord’s prayer life while on earth—a life characterized by passionate prayers offered with great intensity and agony. Although Scripture does not chronicle the details of His prayers, we can be sure that He persevered in them, even if it took all night (Luke 6:12).
If we would prevail, we must persist; we must continue incessantly and constantly, and know no pause to our prayer till we win the mercy to the fullest possible extent. “Men ought always to pray.” Week by week, month by month, year by year; the conversion of that dear child is to be the father’s main plea. The bringing in of that unconverted husband is to lie upon the wife’s heart night and day till she gets it; she is not to take even ten or twenty years of
unsuccessful prayer as a reason why she should cease; she is to set God no times nor seasons, but so long as there is life in her and life in the dear object of her solicitude, she is to continue still to plead with the mighty God of Jacob. The pastor is not to seek a blessing on his people occasionally, and then in receiving a measure of it to desist from further intercession, but he is to continue vehemently without pause, without restraining his energies, to cry aloud and spare not till the windows of heaven be opened and a blessing be given too large for him to house. But, brethren, how
...more
When Paul commands us to pray without ceasing, he is simply supporting the principle Jesus taught in Luke 11 and 18 that prayer is to be incessant. We are not heard for our many words but for the cries of our hearts. The man who came to his friend to ask for bread did not recite some formula request; he pleaded for what he needed. The same is true for the widow—she cried out for protection to one who had the power to answer her request. Persistent, continual prayer that comes from the innermost part of your being is what moves the heart of our compassionate, loving God.
This qualification has nothing to do with speaking in tongues, nor with some other ecstatic or supernatural activity. To pray in the Spirit is to pray in the name of Christ—that is, to pray consistent with His nature and will. To pray in the Spirit is to pray in complete agreement with the Spirit,
All that you learn about God should drive you into His presence.
It should be concerned primarily with who God is, what He wants, and how He can be glorified.
To believe that God is really like some genie, waiting to grant our every desire, flies in the face of Scripture’s clear teaching.
In fewer than seventy words, we find a masterpiece of the infinite mind of God, who alone could compress every conceivable element of true prayer into such a brief and simple form—a form that even a young child can understand but the most mature believer cannot fully comprehend:
#MoreForGod
This prayer, often called the “Lord’s Prayer,” when it could be more accurately titled the “Disciples’ Prayer,” is not a set group of words to repeat. When Christ said to “pray, then, in this way,” He didn’t mean to pray with His exact words. His intention was to give the disciples a pattern for the structure of their own prayers,
That doesn’t mean we shouldn’t recite it, as we do with so many passages in Scripture. Memorizing it is actually helpful so we can meditate on its truths as we formulate our own thoughts. The prayer is mainly a model we can use to give direction to our own praise, adoration, and petitions. It is not a substitute for our own prayers but a guide for them.
The initial benefit of this prayer is the way it exhibits the believer’s relationship with God. “Our Father” presents the father-child relationship; “hallowed be Your name,” the deity-worshipper; “Your kingdom come,” the sovereign-subject; “Your will be done,” the master-servant; “give us this day our daily bread,” the benefactor-beneficiary; “forgive us our debts,” the savior-sinner; and “do not lead us into temptation,” the guide-pilgrim.
This is enlightening.
This prayer also defines the attitude and spirit we ought to have. “Our” reflects unselfishness; “Father,” family devotion; “hallowed be Your name,” reverence; “Your kingdom come,” loyalty; “Your will be done,” submission; “give us this day our daily bread,” dependence; “forgive us our debts,” penitence; “do not lead us into temptation,” humility; “Yours is the kingdom,” triumph; “and the glory,” exultation; and “forever,” hope.
Never noticed these concerning the Lord's prayer
In similar ways, the prayer can be outlined to emphasize the balance of God’s glory and our need. It can also show the threefold purpose of prayer: to hallow God’s name, to usher in His kingdom, and to do His will. And it details our present provision (daily bread), past pardon (forgiveness of sins), and future protection (safety from temptation).
You prevent your prayers from being hypocritical or mechanical when you focus on God, not on yourself.
It's amazing how the right focus on God captures the right perspective of things.
True prayer comes from humble people who express absolute dependence on God. That’s what our Lord wants in our prayers. The more we think true thoughts about God, the more we will seek to glorify Him in our prayers. Commentator John Stott said, “When we come to God in prayer, we do not come hypocritically like play actors seeking the applause of men, nor mechanically like pagan babblers, whose mind is not in their mutterings, but thoughtfully, humbly and trustfully like little children to their Father.”2
Prayer should always begin with the recognition that God is our Father, the One who gave us life and who loves, cares for, provides for, and protects us.
The fact that God is our Father means that only believers in Christ are children in His family.
Spiritually, unbelievers have another father. In His severest condemnation of the Jewish leaders who opposed Him, Jesus said, “You are of your father the devil”
The apostle Paul made a clear distinction between the children of light and the children of darkness (Eph. 5:8).
Second Peter 1:4 says that only those who believe have been made “partakers of the divine nature.” It is only to those who receive Him that Jesus gives “the right to become children of God, even to those who believe in His name” (John 1:12). Thus we can go to God as His beloved children.
“With weeping they will come, and by supplication I will lead them; I will make them walk by streams of waters, on a straight path in which they will not stumble; for I am a father to Israel” (Jer. 31:9).
It Dispels Fear Missionaries report that, because so many individuals live in fear of their gods, one of the greatest gifts Christianity ever brings to primitive societies is the certainty that God is a loving, caring Father. The invented false gods of false religions are typically characterized as vengeful and jealous, and their worshippers must take desperate measures to appease them. But knowing that the true God is our Father dispels all such fear.
Jesus began with the words our Father because our prayers should embrace the entire community of the faithful.
If God is in heaven then prayer needs to be a thing of the heart and not of the lips, for no physical voice on earth can rend the skies, but sighs and groans will reach the ears of God. If we are to pray to God in heaven, then our souls must be detached from all the earth. If we pray to God in heaven, then faith must wing our petitions.4
If Jesus, as God’s true Son, came down from heaven not to do His own will but His Father’s (John 6:38), how much more are we, as adopted children, to do only His will? Obedience to God is one of the supreme marks of our relationship to Him as children.
OBEDIENCE!!!
When you begin your prayers by calling on “Our Father who is in heaven,” you indicate your eagerness to go to Him as a child, knowing He loves you. And you’ll find that He is eager to lend His ear, His power, and His eternal blessing to the
requests of His children if it serves them best and further reveals His purpose and glory.
There is a sense in which we should take our shoes off our feet whenever we use the name.1
prayer is ever and always, first and foremost, a recognition of God’s majestic glory and our submission to it.
God’s name signifies much more than His titles; it represents all that He is—His character, plan, and will.
When Moses went up on Mount Sinai to receive the commandments for the second time, he “called upon the name of the LORD. Then the LORD passed by in front of him and proclaimed, ‘The LORD, the LORD God, compassionate and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in lovingkindness and truth; who keeps
lovingkindness for thousands, who forgives iniquity, transgression and sin’” (Ex. 34:5–7). The name of God is the composite of all the characteristics listed in verses 6–7.
