Praying Together: The Priority and Privilege of Prayer: In Our Homes, Communities, and Churches

by Megan Hill

But it would be only half the story to say that our new relationship with God through Christ simply enables us to pray. It is perfectly correct (and even necessary) to say that Christ’s blood and righteousness secure our right to pray, but that legal term—right—doesn’t begin to describe the emotional intensity of a believer’s longing to pray. In truth, our new relationship with our God compels us to pray.

“People who know their God are before anything else people who pray,”8 writes J. I. Packer. And the kind of knowing Packer has in view is nothing less than the intimate, mutual, self-revealing, other-embracing knowledge of relationship. A relationship with our God not only enables us to pray but presses us toward it. God opens his hands, reveals unimagined treats, and tells us to ask for them.

What is praise but telling God who he is? What is thanksgiving but savoring aloud the things he has done? What is confession but lamenting to God that we have sinned against him and how far short we fall of being like him—he who is awesome in holiness? And what is supplication but requesting that God would do those things he most delights to do? What joy! We who know our God, we who belong to him just like children belong to a father, love to pray.

By its commitment to praying together at all times, the church stands in stark contrast to the godlessness around her. Jude writes, “But you, beloved, building yourselves up in your most holy faith and praying in the Holy Spirit . . .” (Jude 20). Jude implores the church to pray in a manner that marks them as different from the surrounding godlessness. Christians today ought to be like the Sethites (Gen. 4:26) and like Daniel’s friends and like Esther’s maids, turning together toward God in a culture of great wickedness.

By our united praises, says Matthew Henry, we invite all people “to yield themselves his willing subjects and so put themselves under the protection of such a mighty potentate.”6 When we pray together, God glorifies himself among all who hear.

But certainly that expression of “seeking the Lord,” is very commonly used to signify something more than merely, in general, to seek some mercy of God: it implies, that God himself is the great good desired and sought after; that the blessings pursued are God’s gracious presence, the blessed manifestations of him, union and intercourse with him; or, in short, God’s manifestations and communications of himself by his Holy Spirit.7

We unite in Jesus’s name—through his merit, at his bidding, under his authority—and with the assurance of his presence. Abiding in him and meditating on his Word (John 15:7), we bring our hearts into agreement with Christ.

Our prayer meetings have the power of Christ’s presence and of his intercession so that anything that pleases Christ, anything that fulfills his purpose, anything that glorifies him, anything he commands or promises or loves, we ask with one voice together with Christ in confident expectation that the Father will answer. Brothers and sisters, how could we stay away?

Is anyone among you sick? Let him call for the elders of the church, and let them pray over him, anointing him with oil in the name of the Lord. And the prayer of faith will save the one who is sick, and the Lord will raise him up. And if he has committed sins, he will be forgiven. (James 5:14–15)

Similarly, gathered around the bedside of a sick person, groups of some professing Christians may declare their conviction that healing will certainly happen and demand in prayer that God do it. As one best-selling author asserted, “I am confident that you are only one prayer away from a dream fulfilled, a promise kept, or a miracle performed.”11 Though this expectation might sound good, such people demonstrate misplaced faith too—in the power of prayer to bring about the result they want. These examples are not the kind of faith James is talking about.

That’s because the Christian’s faith is never placed in circumstances. While non-Christians might have faith in medical techniques, and professing Christians might have faith in their own boldness, the true “prayer of faith” expresses faith in a person. It is faith in the triune God,

It is faith in the Father who did not spare his own Son and therefore does not begrudge us anything else that is best for us (Rom. 8:23; Ps. 84:11). And it is faith in the God who, as we saw in chapter 1, always answers our prayers with either “Yes” or “Let me give you something better.”

We can pray together for physical healing and for spiritual renewal, for freedom from disease and for forgiveness of sins, for whole bodies and for rebirthed souls. By our prayer together, God brings many people who have been laid low by illness to repentance and faith. And he promises that his suffering children will be raised to glorious resurrection bodies at the last day

Because of this encouragement, we are not afraid that our prayers might be too big or suspicious that our big prayers might receive the wrong answer. We have absolute confidence in a God who promises to use our united prayer of faith to do the very best thing.

I almost didn’t go back. Every person in that room was at least fifteen years older than me, and some were closer to fifty. They were married, they had kids, they even had grandkids. While I was parsing lines of Chaucer and Spenser, they were plowing rows of soil. While I was thinking about Difficult Questions, their difficulties had moved in and unpacked. While I was planning The Future, they were planning dinner. What could we possibly have in common?