Practical Prayer

Derek Prime

• Publisher: Christian Focus Publication
• Year: 2014
• eBook ISBN: 9781781913932

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Defining Prayer

Prayer is not simply a most important activity – it is the most important. There is no other similar activity upon which every other activity in the Christian life depends. As my pulse is one of the primary indications of my physical life, so my praying is one of the principal proofs of my spiritual life.

Significantly, the Bible does not provide a comprehensive definition of prayer. Prayer is beyond definition in the same way that any important relationship with another person is. Personal relationships are always more meaningful than we can express in words, and this is uniquely the case when the One with whom we have this special relationship is the Infinite God! Nevertheless the attempt to define prayer is helpful if we do so to ensure that we enter fully into this tremendous privilege.

Starting points

Prayer is an activity of the soul or spirit

Sometimes the endeavour is made to distinguish between ‘soul’ and ‘spirit’. From the point of view of prayer there is little profit in doing so, since the two words are used interchangeably in the Bible.

When Mary voiced her praise and prayer to God, in what we know as the Magnificat, she began, ‘My soul praises the Lord and my spirit rejoices in God my Saviour ...’ (Luke 1:46, 47). The soul (or spirit) is the seat and centre of our spiritual life, in all its varied aspects. Capable as it is of receiving God’s salvation and sharing in God’s very nature, nothing we possess is more precious. It is no surprise, therefore, that the Lord Jesus is described as ‘the Shepherd and Overseer’ of our souls. As such He laid down His life for us, His sheep (John 10:15), bearing our sins in His body on the tree (1 Pet. 2:24), making it possible for our souls to be cleansed and then to be made alive to God.

The success or failure of our spiritual life hinges largely on our appreciation of the soul’s value. Since prayer is an activity of the soul, we will not appreciate prayer very much if we do not value our soul’s well-being – it is as basic as that. When God the Father and God the Son come to live with us by God the Holy Spirit residing within us – and this is what new birth involves – our soul (or spirit) is God’s chosen dwelling place. The psalmist had it right when he wrote, ‘My soul thirsts for God, for the living God. When can I go and meet with God?’ (Ps. 42:2).

Prayer is a response to God’s initiative

Whenever we appreciate God’s greatness and glory, it seems presumptuous even to think of trying to approach Him. But the glorious truth the Bible proclaims is that God Himself has taken the initiative. David’s testimony was, ‘To you, O my heart, he has said, “Seek my face!” ’ (Ps. 27:8, see niv footnote). God’s supreme initiative was the Cross of our Lord Jesus Christ. Without the Cross and what it achieved, we would not have any assurance that prayer is heard.

Men and women in the Old Testament period, like David whom we have already mentioned, understood the need for atonement. The duly appointed animal sacrifices they offered could not take away their sin, but their offerings were accepted by God – and counted as effective – on the basis of that one great and final atoning sacrifice which our Lord Jesus Christ was going to offer for the sins of the whole world. This amazing truth explains why they could pray with something approaching the confidence we may know through our Lord Jesus Christ. They prayed – like us – because they had the assurance that God wanted them to do so, and had made it possible.

Prayer is an expression of God’s intimate friendship

Job summed up his relationship with God in this manner (Job 29:4). Prayer is not all talking. Often it is listening. As we pour out our hearts to God, and wait before Him, we may often discern the still small voice of His Spirit speaking to our consciences or stirring us up to appropriate actions or attitudes. More important still, God may provide a new perspective on a situation – His own. David testified, ‘The Lord confides in those who fear him; he makes his covenant known to them’ (Ps. 25:14).

God’s friendship is so real that we can share everything with Him with no fear of ever being let down. We may sometimes share with our best friends only to regret afterwards that we gave such complete confidences. But never so with God.

Prayer is pouring out our hearts to God

The pouring out of the heart expresses the thought of spontaneous and complete unburdening, of prayer marked by feeling, earnestness and sincerity (Ps. 62:8; Lam. 2:19). It may be the pouring out of joys and praise on the one hand, or groanings (Job 3:24), troubled thoughts (Ps. 142:2) and the like on the other.

To pour out our hearts is to unburden our cares com-pletely upon God by telling Him everything as we can to no-one else. Hannah found this. Deeply troubled by great anguish and grief, she poured out her soul to the Lord and found extraordinary relief and deliverance by this means (1 Sam. 1:15, 16).

Have in your mind’s eye two glasses: one is empty, and the other is full of water. I then take the one that is full of water and I pour all that is in it into the one that previously was empty. As we pour out our hearts before God like water, we completely transfer our cares, our anxieties and our needs to Him – and that is what He wants. We are to empty our hearts before Him of everything that concerns and troubles us. We are to have no ‘hang-ups’ about telling God everything. This lovely aspect of prayer reminds us of the intimacy of friendship, the freedom we may enjoy before our heavenly Father. It is the opposite of bottling things up inside. Sadly we can put a lock on our hearts, and then prayer ceases to be free and spontaneous.

Prayer is being with God

I can recall occasions, when our children were younger and of pre-school age, when there would be a knock at my study-door, or a little head would be poked round the door. ‘Yes, what do you want?’ I would ask. ‘Just to be with you, Daddy!’ would be the irresistible reply. No matter how busy I was, I could not decline! I look back to those moments with immense pleasure. Amazingly, our heavenly Father delights in our coming to Him in prayer, just to be with Him; not for what we want from Him but simply that we want Him for Himself.

Prayer is communing with God

To commune is to confer and to share. ‘Fellow-shipping’ is a more contemporary way of expressing it. ‘Our fellowship is with the Father and with His Son, Jesus Christ’ (1 John 1:3). Broken fellowship once summed up the record of our relationship with God but fellowship has been restored.

We may talk to God now, and share His company. That talking takes many forms. We may tell Him how aware we are of His greatness and glory – that is adoration. We may express to Him how much we appreciate His goodness to us – that is thanksgiving. We shall continually feel the need to tell Him of our sorrow for our sins – that is confession. We shall share with Him our personal needs, and our urgent concern for others – that is prayer, supplication and intercession. We may plead with Him about specific difficulties and receive His answer. Paul records such a situation in his own life: ‘There was given me a thorn in my flesh, a messenger of Satan, to torment me. Three times I pleaded with the Lord to take it away from me. But He said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness’’ ’ (2 Cor. 12:7-9). Such experiences are most personal, and memorable.

Prayer is all about access to God

‘Come near to God and he will come near to you’ (James 4:8) is a reassuring promise. Fundamental to our whole under-standing of prayer is the basic truth that before there can be access to God there must be peace with God. Peace could be brought about for us only by the blood of Jesus Christ. As Paul puts it: ‘Since we have been justified through faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have gained access by faith into this grace in which we now stand’ (Rom. 5:1, 2). The Lord Jesus is the sole means of access to the Father for both Jew and Gentile: ‘For through him we both have access to the Father by one Spirit’ (Eph. 2:18). This thought of the Lord Jesus being the secret of our access to God is expressed very powerfully, though simply, in the Lord Jesus calling Himself the door or gate of the sheepfold (John 10:7). There is only one door into God’s presence – Jesus Christ, God’s Son and our Saviour.

The idea behind the word ‘access’ is that of an intro-duction into the presence-chamber of a monarch. In prayer we come before the King of kings, and the One who introduces us is our Lord Jesus Christ. We must not allow our concern to use the right words or to follow the proper ‘mechanics’ of prayer to obscure the sheer wonder and delight of our free access to God through the Lord Jesus.

The New Testament stresses the freedom and boldness with which we may come to God. ‘In him and through faith in him we may approach God with freedom and confidence’ (Eph. 3:12; cf. Heb. 4:16; 10:19; 1 John 5:14). Being a Christian should be synonymous with confident access to God. No human father wants his children to be uncertain of their access to him and of their welcome. How much more is this so with our heavenly Father!

Prayer may express itself in silence before God

Different situations, feelings and emotions make silence appropriate, and we will not always know why. We may feel the need to come into God’s presence, but not know what to say. We cannot always pray to order. We may be lost for words. We should not be anxious about this, since prayer is the business of the heart more than of the tongue, and God reads our hearts as easily as He hears the words of our lips.

There is the silence of confusion, when the storms of life seems to threaten us with disaster, and all we can say is, ‘Lord, Your will be done!’ and then remain quietly before Him until His peace fills our soul, so that we may go out to face the storms with our strength renewed.

There is the silence of confession, when we have been found out by God (as David once was – see 2 Sam. 12:7) and we do not feel that it is enough simply to say, ‘Lord, I have sinned ...’. We need to wait before Him silently in penitence until we are sure that our repentance is genuine and that His forgiveness has been extended to us once again in all its completeness.

There is the silence of worship and praise, when we have caught a fresh glimpse of God’s glory in the face of our Lord Jesus Christ, and we are filled with inexpressible joy. One night George Whitefield, the evangelist, wrote in his diary (Wednesday 9th May 1739): ‘God was pleased to pour into my soul a great spirit of supplication, and a sense of His free distinguishing mercies so filled me with love, humility, and joy, and holy confusion, that I could at last only pour out my heart before Him in an awful silence. It was so full that I could not well speak. Oh the happiness of communion with God!’

Silence may be prompted by a variety of other reasons. While the Holy Spirit may be depended upon to interpret the wordless prayers of our hearts to the Father, our silence may also give God the opportunity He wants to speak to us. Sometimes we may be so busy doing all the talking that we do not give ourselves the opportunity to listen to God.

Prayer involves waiting upon God

Waiting upon God is a familiar expression in the book of Psalms. An obvious and important part of waiting upon God is being still before Him in quiet meditation; as David in one of his songs says, ‘I have stilled and quietened my soul; like a weaned child with its mother, like a weaned child is my soul within me’ (Ps. 131:2).

Sometimes to wait upon God is to make our requests to Him, and then to wait quietly in His presence with the confident expectation that He will act at the right time: ‘I wait for the Lord, my soul waits, and in his word I put my hope’ (Ps. 130:5).

Bible pointers

The Bible expresses the activity we describe as prayer in a number of ways. Each provides a window through which we may see a little more of what prayer is.

Approaching the throne of grace (Heb. 4:16)

‘Let us then approach the throne of grace with confidence’, urges the writer of the letter to the Hebrews, ‘so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need’ (Heb. 4:16). By nature we deserve God’s throne to be one of judgment, where we receive His just punishment for our sins and failures. But through the Lord Jesus’ atoning sacrifice, God’s righteous wrath has been turned away from us, and God is able to be gracious and kind to us, with no detriment to His justice and holiness. Instead of our having to view God as sitting upon a throne of judgment – as our sins deserve – we are encouraged to picture His throne as a throne of grace. He waits to be gracious to us! There is no limit to what He will do for our good, on account of our spiritual union with His Son, the Lord Jesus. A throne is always a symbol of authority: God delights to command blessings and benefits upon us as we come to Him in prayer in His Son’s Name.

Looking to God (Ezra 8:22; Ps. 34:5)

This expresses the dependence we feel upon God, and the expectations we have of Him such as we have of no one else. It is interesting to watch a hungry baby among a group of adults. His eyes are upon one person only – he looks to his mother! She is the one who can satisfy his need.

Calling upon God’s Name (1 Kings 18:24)

This expression emphasises that true prayer is essentially a response to what we know about God Himself, the natural outflow of our knowing Him. God’s Name – in Bible language – indicates God’s character, His total being, all that He has shown Himself to be. He has promised to be the shield of His people, and calling upon His Name, therefore, may mean asking for His protection. He has revealed His love to us, and prayer – calling upon His Name – may appropriately be our casting ourselves upon His love.

Seeking God (Ps. 34:10)

This idea helpfully pinpoints the consulting factor which may be part of prayer. Seeking God equals wanting His advice. To seek God is to lay our lives before Him, wanting and accepting His way before He even chooses to show it to us. On numerous occasions we do not clearly know what to do, although, so far as we can judge, we want to do only what is right. To seek God is to lay our whole situation before Him, wanting to obtain the insight which He can give to enable us to do the right thing.

Seeking God’s face (Ps. 27:8)

This is another delightful Old Testament description of prayer, found most of all in the book of Psalms. Physical sight is not what is meant, but the seeing of God with the inward eye, which is an anticipation of what is before us in a new and wonderful way in the life to come.

The verb from which the noun ‘face’ comes means to turn towards someone, to pay attention to him or her. A person’s face identifies him to us, and often reflects his feelings, attitudes and sentiments. To seek God’s face, therefore, is to come into God’s presence with the deliberate purpose of communicating with Him. Let me illustrate this by means of an opposite. Probably we have all known what it is to give thanks for our food before a meal, or to pray the Lord’s Prayer together with others, and then to wonder afterwards whether or not we have prayed. Plainly that is the opposite of deliberately and genuinely seeking God’s face.

Imagine going into a crowded room in order to establish contact with a friend to enlist his assistance. You know that if you can catch his eye – seek his face – he will get your message and come to your aid. As you see him in the room, you will keep looking his way until he sees you, until you see him turn his face towards you. And then you will know that you have been successful. To seek God’s face is to be occupied with God’s Person before we start asking Him for anything, and then not to stop seeking Him until we know that His face is turned towards us, and that our requests are received by Him with pleasure. It is no surprise that seeking God’s face is a key secret of radiance (Ps. 34:5).

Top of the list

However we define prayer, at the top of the list we have to put prayer as asking. ‘Ask and it will be given to you’, the Lord Jesus promises, ‘seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives; he who seeks finds; and to him who knocks, the door will be opened’ (Matt. 7:7, 8).

Prayer involves making requests to God (Phil. 4:6). In prayer we acknowledge our own impotence and deficiencies, and we ask God to do what we cannot do for ourselves. James gives the example of the need we have of wisdom for daily living. Trials and difficulties are an inevitable feature of life, and it is important to react in a Christian manner so that instead of their becoming disasters they become occasions for triumph. To bring about this transformation we require God’s wisdom. In prayer we may ask for the wisdom we need (James 1:5).

We sometimes speak of prayer as asking as if we should not. But any such sense of apology is unnecessary, and is perhaps a failure to grasp the extent of our Father’s love for His children. Of course, prayer is much more than asking, but that does not diminish the fact that it has asking at its heart. When our Lord Jesus Christ spoke about our asking, seeking and knocking, He went on immediately to say, ‘Which of you, if his son asks for bread, will give him a stone? Or if he asks for a fish, will give him a snake? If you, then, though you are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give good gifts to those who ask him!’ (Matt. 7:9-11). ‘Your Father in heaven’ – that is the key. Born into God’s family, we are His children. He is not just like a father to us, He is our Father. As young children live their lives in dependence upon their earthly father’s resources, and by frequent asking, so we are to live our lives depending upon our heavenly Father’s immeasurable resources, and by daily and frequent asking.

God’s adoption of us into His family, through the Lord Jesus Christ, is the foundation of our prayer and our asking. United to His Son, God always hears us (cf. John 11:41). He is never too busy, or too preoccupied to listen. A child has access to its father when such access may not be granted to anyone else. To assure us of this welcome, the Father and the Son have given us the Holy Spirit, who enables us to cry, ‘Abba, Father’. ‘Abba’ derives originally from baby language. In the Aramaic language a baby learnt to say ‘Abba’ (Daddy) and ‘Imma’ (Mummy). But as time went on, the word widened its meaning and was used in adult language for ‘father’ so that the childish character receded, and it acquired a more warm and familiar ring, such as we find in the words ‘Dear Father!’

In the garden of Gethsemane, the Lord Jesus Himself began His prayer with the words ‘Abba, Father’ (Mark 14:36). For first-century Jews, it was an entirely new expression to use in talking to God. It pinpoints the difference the Lord Jesus Christ brings to our relationship with God. Because we’re sons and daughters, ‘God sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, the Spirit who calls out, “Abba, Father”’ (Gal. 4:6).

As a human father, with four children, part and parcel of my particular relationship with them when they were younger was that they were always asking me for things. Our relationship, then and now, consists of much more than this, but there would be something seriously wrong if it did not also include this. Human fathers – although they may not always admit it – enjoy providing for their children, for it is an essential part of fatherhood. Our heavenly Father tells us that He enjoys providing for us, and that we please Him by asking!

Asking takes many forms. It may be a straightforward cry for help (Pss. 34:6; 39:12) when we are in situations totally beyond our power to control. Sometimes it may be the simple declaration of need when we cannot even see how we should ask God to supply it. When Mary took the initiative at the wedding in Cana of Galilee in going to Jesus and declaring, ‘They have no more wine’ (John 2:3), she was doing what we very often have to do in prayer. We declare our need to God, not presuming to tell Him how He should choose to meet it, knowing that the honest declaration of our urgent need constitutes a request for help which He will not ignore.

A key factor in asking is knowing how we should ask and for what we should ask. Obviously we should aim at asking God for good things (Matt. 7:11). He will not answer our prayers if we ask Him for things He knows will harm us, like a stone in place of bread, or a snake in place of a fish (Matt. 7:9, 10). Where we can be specific in our requests, God is pleased because we then honour Him by our faith through looking for specific answers.

A number of questions immediately surface in our minds. How do we know what we should ask for? Should we pray for physical healing when we are ill? Should we pray for the gifts of the Spirit? How long should we go on asking God for the same things? In fact, why go on asking the Lord for something if we have asked once?

The Bible itself is our best guide as to the things for which we should ask. First, it tells us the things that are good and pleasin...

Table of contents

• Title
• Indicia
• Contents
• Introduction
• 1. Defining Prayer
• 2. Prayer and the Christian Life
• 3. Prayer’s Potential
• 4. Prayer and The Holy Spirit
• 5. Method in Prayer
• 6. Praying for Others
• 7. Praying with Others
• 8. Problems and Questions about Prayer
• Other Books by Christian Focus
• Christian Focus