Psalm 63:1-11 NIV
A psalm of David. When he was in the Desert of Judah. O God, you are my God, earnestly I seek you; my soul thirsts for you, my body longs for you, in a dry and weary land where there is no water. 2 I have seen you in the sanctuary and beheld your power and your glory. 3 Because your love is better than life, my lips will glorify you. 4 I will praise you as long as I live, and in your name I will lift up my hands. 5 My soul will be satisfied as with the richest of foods; with singing lips my mouth will praise you. 6 On my bed I remember you; I think of you through the watches of the night. 7 Because you are my help, I sing in the shadow of your wings. 8 My soul clings to you; your right hand upholds me. 9 They who seek my life will be destroyed; they will go down to the depths of the earth. 10 They will be given over to the sword and become food for jackals. 11 But the king will rejoice in God; all who swear by God’s name will praise him, while the mouths of liars will be silenced.
Acts 6:3-4
3 Brothers, choose seven men from among you who are known to be full of the Spirit and wisdom. We will turn this responsibility over to them 4 and will give our attention to prayer and the ministry of the word."
“Intimate Conversations”
It’s an easy thing to do… to forget.
Especially if praying isn’t a habit for you. You know it is something you should do, but you never really pray. You think it is important, but when the most important things happen to you… you may forget to pray entirely. In fact… you may go days and days without praying simply because it never occurs to you. Are you the forgetful Christian?
It’s an easy thing to do… to get too busy or too tired.
You get busy and fill your life with so much stuff that God gets pushed to the fringe. Instead of being a priority… God becomes an afterthought… something you do “if you have enough time left over. You want to pray, you really do, but it is reserved now for mealtime and bedtime. That is when you have time to eat. And at night… well the nights you don’t pass out the second your head hits the pillow you might make actually make it to… and God bless before you pass out in exhaustion. Are you the busy and tired Christian?
It’s an easy thing to do… to get too legalistic and proud of your prayers.
You are part of the 60% of Americans who pray every single day. You take pride in the fact that your prayer track record is so impressive. You pray regularly and for all the right stuff. The forgetful Christian and the tired Christian make you angry and you do not hesitate to take the opportunity to offer to teach them everything they wish they knew so that they could be more like you. In fact, you have been so diligent in prayer, you believe that you know the very best and most effective position to pray in.
Take this story of three ministers. They were out for a walk together discussing the effective positions for prayer. As they were talking, a telephone repairman was working on the phone system in the background. One minister shared that he felt the key was in the hands. He always held his hands together and pointed them upward as a form of symbolic worship. The second suggested that real prayer was conducted on your knees. The third suggested that they both had it wrong--the only position worth its salt was to pray while stretched out flat on your face. By this time the phone man couldn’t stay out of the conversation any longer. He interjected, "I found that the most powerful prayer I ever made was while I was 40 feet off the ground, dangling upside down by my ankles." Are you the proud Christian?
It’s an easy thing to do… to only pray for yourself.
You are not tired, nor forgetful, nor particularly proud of your prayers. However, your focus has gotten a little narrow. You will pray 20 times a day… but it is all about you. Help me with this problem. Help me find more money in the budget. Help me! Are you the selfish Christian?
Perhaps… you can’t see yourself in any of these descriptions… perhaps you deserve a new category all your own! Either way… it is easy to see there are definitely ways NOT to pray. Now let’s take some time to look at some ways TO pray.
It’s an easy thing to do… to really pray.
It doesn’t take much to talk to God… you just talk to God. You don’t need a special formula or a special pose. You don’t need to be in a certain place or have a certain time… you just talk. We need to remember that God is not some far off… distant entity. He is close… closer than any of us really ever knows. It is just a matter of making that connection with him so that when we pray… we really pray, and focus our attention on the right thing… which leads us to:
It’s an easy thing to do… to focus our attention on God.
Some may argue that this isn’t easy at all. However, it isn’t so very hard when we try. The first thing we need to do is realize that left completely unchecked… our natural tendency is to focus on ourselves.
How many of you… have ever been to a party… where there is a plate of goodies in the center… and then you do the math. How many heads in the room… how many snacks on the plate. And you panic a little. Surely some of us will do the right thing and not take a treat… but it’s just one example of how that initial instinct is still within us.
Now take this… if you are a parent… you know how absorbed in your child’s happiness you become. Christmas isn’t all that far away. What happens… when the only thing your child wants is an Ultra Lightning Quad Shooting Turbo Charged MegaZord! Which just happens to be the most popular toy in the world and they are sold out everywhere in a three state radius! How many of us… would go to the extreme to find it. Perhaps this isn’t exactly a fair illustration… because may be far too easy for us to say “tough.” But what if it wasn’t a toy… suppose it was heart your child needed. All of a sudden the focus isn’t on you anymore… is it?
Once you make something more important than yourself… you’ll find just how easy it is to make that thing our main focus. Once we start making God a priority in our lives… we’ll find that our attention goes towards him in more ways than just in prayer.
Beyond our focus… perhaps the biggest obstacle… is that we don’t know how. Not only that… but we don’t know that we don’t know. We have to learn.
It’s an easy thing to do… to learn to pray.
You would think that the Disciples would know everything there was to know about prayer… I mean… they followed Christ for three years and heard countless prayers that would have been awesome examples. And yet they could recognize that Jesus’ prayers were so much better than theirs, that they actually got up the courage to ask Jesus “Teach us to pray.” … And that is how we get the Lord’s prayer, and the example of all the different parts to prayer.
Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name. (Adoration)
T
hy kingdom come, thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven. (Intercession)
Give us this day our daily bread (Petition)
And forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors. (Forgiveness)
And lead us not into temptation but deliver us from evil (Petition)
For thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory forever. Amen. (Adoration).
1) Adoration
2) Intercession
3) Petition
4) Forgiveness
5) Thanksgiving
A perfect prayer from an eight your old boy: "Dear God, this is Jimmy. You… are so totally AWESOME. I’m sorry I was bad and broke that chair… please don’t tell mom and dad. Would you please help my sister… she can be such a pain. Or if it is possible God, you could help me and send a new sister! Thank you for books and TV and video games. Thank you for loving us. Oh, yeah. And God… take care of yourself, because without you, we’re sunk. Amen."
It’s an easy thing to do… to have a personal relationship with God.
Stewardship (So What?)
Called as Christians
Everything else falls into place
