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We do not drift into spiritual life; we do not drift into disciplined prayer. We will not grow in prayer unless we plan to pray. That means we must self-consciously set aside time to do nothing but pray.
The reason we pray so little is that we do not plan to pray.
A slight variation of this plan is to adopt as models several biblical prayers. Read them carefully, think through what they are saying, and pray analogous prayers for yourself, your family, your church, and for many others beyond your immediate circle.
true spirituality can never be coerced.
you can greatly improve your prayer life if you combine these first two principles: set apart time for praying, and then use practical ways to impede mental drift.
my parents were not hypocrites. That is the worst possible heritage to leave with children: high spiritual pretensions and low performance.
It is difficult to pray faithfully for a large spread of people and concerns without developing prayer lists that help you remember them.
“Christian prayer is marked decisively by petition, because this form of prayer discloses the true state of affairs. It reminds the believer that God is the source of all good, and that human beings are utterly dependent and stand in need of everything.”
the wise father is more interested in a relationship with his son than in merely giving him things.
is exceedingly important to remember that prayer is not magic and that God is personal as well as sovereign.
we must think in personal and relational categories. We ask our heavenly Father for things because he has determined that many blessings will come to us only through prayer. Prayer is his ordained means of conveying his blessings to his people. That means we must pray according to his will, in line with his values, in conformity with his own character and purposes, claiming his own promises.
when we pray, when we ask God for things, we must try to tie as many requests as possible to Scripture.
think through, in the light of Scripture, what it is God wants us to ask for.
Praying is not like carpentry or cookery; it is the active exercise of a personal relationship, a kind of friendship, with the living God and his Son Jesus Christ,
what we most frequently give thanks for betrays what we most highly value.
For what have we thanked God recently? Have we gone over a list of members at our local church, say, or over a list of Christian workers, and quietly thanked God for signs of grace in their lives? Do we make it a matter of praise to God when we observe evidence in one another of growing conformity to Christ, exemplified in trust, reliability, love, and genuine spiritual stamina?
Christians are not masochists; they do not want to suffer out of some forlorn but stupid belief that suffering is intrinsically good. They are prepared to suffer and to endure because they keep their eye on the goal.
Paul is constantly telling people, in effect, to become what they are; that is, since we already are children of God because of his free grace to us in Christ, we must now become all that such children should be.
The Christian’s whole desire, at its best and highest, is that Jesus Christ be praised.
if we take on Christian service and think of such service as the vehicle that will make us central, we have paganized Christian service; we have domesticated Christian living and set it to servitude in a pagan cause.
On the last day, Jesus Christ will be glorified in us on account of what we have become by his grace, and we will be glorified in him on account of what he has done for us.
The best Christian leaders will constantly assess all proposals—no matter how aesthetically pleasing or academically respectable—in terms of their power to serve people, not the other way around.
They will construct sermons that are designed to help people—to nurture them, instruct them, admonish them, rebuke them, encourage them, challenge them.
we will ask the questions, “What kind of leader will best bring people to Christ? What kind of leader will best nurture the people of God and thus build the church? What is best for the people of God?”
Sermons and programs and leaders are not ends in themselves; properly understood, they are designed to serve the people of God.
if we learn to pray with Paul, we will learn to pray for others. We will see it is part of our job to approach God with thanksgiving for others and with intercessions for others. In short, our praying will be shaped by our profound desire to seek what is best for the people of God.
If you are serious about reforming your prayer life, you must begin with your heart. Unconfessed sin, nurtured sin, will always be a barrier between God and those he has made in his image.
In any Christian view of life, self-fulfillment must never be permitted to become the controlling issue. The issue is service, the service of real people.
if we are to improve our praying, we must strengthen our loving.
How much would our churches be transformed if each of us made it a practice to thank God for others and then to tell these others what it is about them that we thank God for?
there is no prayer we can pray for others more fundamental than this: that God might strengthen their hearts so that they will be blameless and holy in the presence of our God and Father on the last day.
deepening grasp of Scripture is bound to have a reforming influence on our praying.
Suppose, for example, that 80 or 90 percent of our petitions ask God for good health, recovery from illness, safety on the road, a good job, success in exams, the emotional needs of our children, success in our mortgage application, and much more of the same. How much of Paul’s praying revolves around equivalent items?
Prayer is God’s appointed means for appropriating the blessings that are ours in Christ Jesus. Many of the best of those blessings we need again and again, and so we must constantly ask—like the child brought up in a home stamped with courtesy, where the means of obtaining things, even necessary things, is a respectful request.
What God has mandated is his will; our responsibility is to do it.
They are not to live a life worthy of the church, but rather to live one worthy of the Lord.
in Paul’s world, to be a Christian, to confess Jesus as Lord, meant to adopt a worldview in which you are bound to please him in every way. Not to do so would be to bring shame on him whom you have confessed as Lord.
If God had perceived that our greatest need was economic, he would have sent an economist. If he had perceived that our greatest need was entertainment, he would have sent us a comedian or an artist. If God had perceived that our greatest need was political stability, he would have sent us a politician. If he had perceived that our greatest need was health, he would have sent us a doctor. But he perceived that our greatest need involved our sin, our alienation from him, our profound rebellion, our death, and he sent us a Savior.
The idea is not that by our act of forgiving others we somehow earn the Father’s forgiveness, but that by our forgiving others we demonstrate we really want the Father’s forgiveness.
we are not yet what we ought to be. But by the grace of God, we are not what we were.
Martyn Lloyd-Jones was one of the most influential preachers of the century. A few weeks before he died, someone asked him how, after decades of fruitful ministry and extraordinary activity, he was coping now that he was suffering such serious weakness that it took much of his energy to move from his bed to his armchair and back. He replied in the words of Luke 10:20: “Do not rejoice that the spirits submit to you, but rejoice that your names are written in heaven.”
