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Prayer 101
Warren W. Wiersbe
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eBook - ePub
Prayer 101
Warren W. Wiersbe
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About This Book
The disciples once asked Jesus, "Teach us to pray." Like us, they had questions about why and how God calls us to pray. In Prayer 101, Dr. Warren Wiersbe addresses our deepest questions about prayer and gives us practical tools for incorporating prayer into our lives. He explores God's will, how our relationships with God and others affect our prayers, and what it means to pray for our enemies. Throughout this deeply spiritual book, Dr. Wiersbe points us away from legalism and toward joy as we practice the daily rhythm of conversation with God.
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Topic
Theology & ReligionSubtopic
Religion1
Defining a Mystery
âWe all know what light is,â Samuel Johnson told his friend James Boswell, âbut it is not easy to tell what it is.â He might have said the same thing about prayer, although he did mention that âto reason philosophically on the nature of prayer was very unprofitable.â Ponder that statement.
What, after all, is prayer? Can we define it? Do we really have to define it? And if God is an all-powerful God, why doesnât He just do what needs to be done? Does He really need our help, through prayer, to accomplish these things? And if Heâs an all-knowing God, why do we need to pray at all? Even Jesus taught that the Father knows what we need before we ask Him (Matt. 6:8), so why ask? If Heâs a loving God and knows what we need, must He wait for us to pray before He can act on our behalf? Is God our servant?
The more you think about prayer and try to explain it, the more baffling it becomes. It reminds me of the fable of the centipede and the beetle. The beetle asked the centipede, âHow do you know which legs to move next?â The centipede replied, âTo tell the truth, Iâve never thought much about it.â And the more the centipede pondered the question, the more confused it became, until finally it was so bewildered that it became paralyzed.
To make things even more challengingâand I have a good reason for asking this, so please be patientâhow does God, who dwells in eternity, relate to the prayers of His people, which are offered in the midst of time? Did He decree the prayersâ answers even before the creation of the world? How do we define time and eternity? âWhat, then, is time?â Augustine asked. âI know well enough what it is, provided nobody asks me; but if I am asked what it is and try to explain it, I am baffled.â 1 Both the lowly centipede and the great bishop warn us that, in some matters, analysis can lead to paralysis.
The esteemed devotional writer Oswald Chambers pondered these questions and wrote, âWe are all agnostic about God, about the Spirit of God, and prayer. It is nonsense to call prayer reasonable; it is the most super-reasonable thing there is.â 2 Note his careful choice of words: prayer is not unreasonable but super-reasonable, that is, above the greatest thoughts we might think. Like faith, hope, love, joy, and a host of other precious spiritual and emotional experiences, prayer canât be put into a beaker and carried into the laboratory to be testedâbut that doesnât make it any less real. To quote Chambers again, âPrayer is not logical, it is a mysterious moral working of the Holy Spirit.â 3
So from the unbelieverâs point of view, the question is, âWhy pray?â But from the believerâs point of view, the question is, âWhy not pray?â Weâre the children of God, and as such, we need to speak to our Father as well as listen to what He says. In fact, the Christian life begins with the Holy Spirit speaking in our hearts and giving us the assurance of salvation by saying, âAbba, Fatherâ (Gal. 4:6), and we echo those words in our own witness (Rom. 8:15). When the ascended Lord wanted to assure Ananias of Damascus that it was safe for him to go minister to Saul, He said to Ananias, âHe is prayingâ (Acts 9:11). That was all the evidence Ananias needed.
Most of us donât understand the functioning of our own minds and bodies, and yet weâre able to live somewhat normal lives in a difficult world. I canât explain the workings of my car and yet I can drive it, and even though the operating mechanisms of my computer completely baffle me, I can turn the computer on and off and use it to write letters and books. I hear you saying, âBut wait a minute. The better you understand both your car and your computer, the better youâll relate to them and use them.â Agreed. And the better I know the Lord and His Word, the better Iâll be able to pray and see God answer. But I donât have to wait until I have a PhD in prayer to be able to come to the throne of grace. Even a baby Christian can cry, âAbbaâPapaâFather!â
Someone asked Mrs. Albert Einstein, âDo you understand Dr. Einsteinâs mathematical equations?â She replied, âNo, but I understand Dr. Einstein.â Do I understand the eternal equations involved in praying to my Father? No, but I am getting to understand the Father better, and this helps me to pray.
Many of the Pharisees Jesus met knew their theology, but they didnât know God. The scribes counted the letters of the words written on their sacred Old Testament scrolls, but they overlooked learning about the God who wrote those words through His servants. Thirty years after his conversion, Paul prayed, âI want to know Christâ (Phil. 3:10)âand Paul had already been to heaven and back! Paul knew that knowing God better is the open secret of a successful Christian life, including a successful life of prayer. Certainly, thereâs an important place for systematic theology in the Christianâs curriculum, but only if it leads to a better knowledge of the Lord Himself.
Why, then, do we pray? Because prayer is Godâs ordained method for glorifying Himself by meeting our needs so that we can do His will and His work. âYou do not have because you do not ask Godâ (James 4:2). The same God who ordains the end also ordains the means to the end, and prayer is an important part of that means. When God wants to accomplish something, He raises up a man or a woman, or perhaps a group of believers, to pray about that very matter, and through their prayers He accomplishes His work.
It was Godâs plan that David become king of Israel and that from Davidâs family the Redeemer would be born, so He raised up Hannah to pray for a son, and that son, Samuel, anointed David to be king.
God had a timetable for His people and ordained that they would be delivered from captivity after seventy years. When Daniel understood this promise, he immediately began to pray that the Lord would fulfill it, and God did (Dan. 9).
It was Godâs will that the promised forerunner (Isa. 40:1â5; Mal. 4:5â6) introduce the Redeemer to the nation of Israel. So He moved Elizabeth and Zechariah to pray for a son, and John the Baptist was born (Luke 1). Before Jesus was born, godly people like Anna and Simeon were praying for the promised Messiah to come (Luke 2:21â38), and God answered their prayers.
âWhether we like it or not,â said Charles Spurgeon, âasking is the rule of the Kingdom.â Asking humbles us, and it glorifies God.
It hasnât been granted to us to understand fully the mysterious relationship between the eternal counsels of God, the promises of God, and the cries of His people, nor is it necessary that we understand. God is âover all and through all and in allâ (Eph. 4:6), and His providence, power, and presence guarantee that His purposes will be accomplished. But in His grace, He has given us the privilege of prayer so that we might share in His great work of saving sinners and building His church. âWe have not the remotest conception of what is done by our prayers,â wrote Oswald Chambers, ânor have we the right to try and examine and understand it; all we know is that Jesus Christ laid all stress on prayer.â 4 Godly Robert Murray McCheyne wrote, âIf the veil of the worldâs machinery were lifted off, how much we would find is done in answer to the prayers of Godâs children.â 5
If you need a definition of prayer, hereâs one to consider:
Prayer is the means God has ordained to glorify Himself by sharing His love with His children, meeting their needs, and accomplishing His purposes through their lives and the lives of others.
This suggested definition covers some of the various aspects of prayer:
worshipâglorifying God
communionâloving God
petitionâasking God for what we need
intercessionâasking God for what others need
A balanced Christian life begins with a balanced prayer life.
Prayer is serious business, and it must be founded on the character and the promises of God. Unfortunately, we sometimes pick up unbiblical and ungodly ideas that influence our prayers and hinder the Lord from answering us. Unwittingly, we imitate the way others pray, and these ideas stick in our minds and take over. A. W. Tozer used to remind us, âThe essence of idolatry is the entertainment of thoughts about God that are unworthy of Him.â 6 No professing Christian would deliberately bow before a pagan idol, but many of Godâs children ignorantly ask God to give and to do that which is completely contrary to His character and His written Word.
In the first section of this book, we will think together about some of these popular âroutine religious statementsâ that are often used when Godâs children pray, and we will find out why they are dangerous. Before we can plant the seeds of prayer and cultivate healthy plants that bear fruit, we have to pull up a few of the weeds.
2
âHe Done Prayed My Hot Dog Cold!â
Here is a generic version of a story that was told to me by a man who was at the event (the details have been deleted to protect this author and the people who were involved):
At the annual conference of an evangelical mission board, while the women were at a fancy tea, the men and children gathered to enjoy an old-fashioned outdoor wiener roast. As we all know, at informal picnic gatherings, protocol demands that somebody ask the blessing before the guests visit the tables and fill thei...