Alone With God: Rediscovering the Power and Passion of Prayer

by John F. MacArthur Jr.

Martyn Lloyd-Jones once wrote, “Prayer is beyond any question the highest activity of the human soul. Man is at his greatest and highest when upon his knees he comes face to face with God.”1

The essence of prayer is simply talking to God as you would to a beloved friend—without pretense or flippancy.

communion with God is so vital and prayer so effective in the fulfillment of God’s plan, the enemy attempts constantly to introduce errors into our understanding of and commitment to prayer.

For many, prayer has been replaced with pragmatic action. Function overrides fellowship with God;

busyness crowds out communication.

others, prayer lacks a sense of awe and respect. Their efforts are flippant, disre...

for some, prayer is nothing more than a routine ritual.

There is nothing that tells the truth about us as Christian people so much as our prayer life.…

man discovers the real condition of his spiritual life when he examines himself in private, when he is alone with God.…

many believers spend brief amounts of time with Him, or don’t go to Him at all, because they have so little to say.

prayer is like breathing.

Too many believers become satisfied with physical blessings and have little desire for spiritual blessings.

When programs, methods, and money produce impressive results, there is an inclination to confuse human success with divine blessing.

Continual, persistent, incessant prayer is an essential part of Christian living, and it flows out of dependence on God.

Jesus habitually rose early in the morning, often before daybreak, to commune with His Father. In the evening, He would frequently go to the Mount of Olives or some other quiet spot to pray, usually alone. Prayer was the spiritual air that Jesus breathed every day of His life. He practiced an unending communion between Himself and the Father.

Unceasing, incessant prayer is essential to the vitality of a believer’s relationship to the Lord and his ability to function in the world.

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.

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.

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.

Throughout his life, the believer senses his insufficiency; thus he lives in total dependence on God.

For prayer to accomplish what God wants in our lives, it must be an all-consuming practice that makes alertness and perseverance its most valuable commodities.

specific prayer is so important.

you are not alert to the specific problems and needs of other believers, you can’t pray about them specifically and earnestly. But when you do, you can watch for God’s answer, rejoice in it when it comes, and then offer Him your thankful praise.

How do you make your prayers consistent with the Spirit? By walking in the fullness of the Spirit. As

Sin leads us to take shortcuts in all the Christian disciplines,

hypocrisy is such a subtle and destructive danger

The Pharisees, through their rabbinic tradition, had succeeded in corrupting and perverting all the good things God had taught the nation of Israel, including their practice of prayer.

Men may become tired of listening to people, but God’s ears are never satiated; He is never wearied by men’s prayers.

Loving Praise

Gratitude and Thanksgiving

Reverence

Patient Obedience

Confession

Unselfishness

their prayers encompassed the good of the community and were not isolated to the individual.

Many of us come to God with personal pronouns in our prayers: I, me, and my. We tell the Lord about our needs and problems without thinking of others in the body of Christ. But we need to be willing to sacrifice what seems best for ourselves because God has a greater plan for the whole.

Humility

A true Jew went before the Lord in prayer to submit himself to the will of God.

When we pray, instead of asking the Lord to do our will, we should conform ourselves to His will. We are to ask Him to work His will through us and give us the grace to enjoy it.

Perseverance

Moses prayed for forty days in a row that God would forgive them (Deut.

Prayer Became Ritualized

Prayers easily became a routine, semiconscious religious exercise, able to be recited without any mental or passionate involvement by the individual.

I’m sure their original intent was to bring every aspect of their lives into God’s presence, but they undermined that noble goal by compartmentalizing the prayers.

turned prayer into a habit that focused on a prescribed topic or situation, not on genuine desire or need.

The religious leaders esteemed long prayers, believing that a prayer’s sanctity and effectiveness were in direct proportion to its length. Jesus warned of the scribes who “for appearance’s sake offer long prayers” (Mark 12:40).

One of the Jews’ worst faults was adopting the pagan religions’ practice of meaningless repetition, just as the prophets of Baal in

Be Seen and Heard by Men

Jesus condemned the Pharisees’ practice of prayer in two specific areas: self-centered prayer and prayer that had no meaning. Each

Prayer that focuses on self is always hypocritical because every true prayer focuses on God.