Is prayer important? Well, is it? The obvious answer, the "expected" answer is "yes!" But I think we demonstrate how important we think prayer is by how we "walk our talk!" Consider this:
Some research indicates that the average Christian spends five minutes a day in prayer, and the average pastor only seven minutes.
Wow! No wonder the church is in trouble. How can we expect to be a strong church when we are comprised mostly of Christians who have a weak prayer life? Christians who have a weak prayer life make up a Church who has a weak corporate prayer life. Not good. Not good at all.
So is prayer important? Well let me borrow from Daniel Henderson's message to us at the conference on Saturday. (I use this with his permission.) Why should we pray and pray effectively?
1) Jesus expected His church to pray.
"And He began to teach and say to them, 'Is it not written, "My house shall be called a house of prayer for all the nations"? But you have made it a den of theives.'" (Mark 11:17)
2) Jesus Himself prayed. The Bible tells us in many passages that Jesus was praying, went away to pray, etc. (See Luke 11:1-4, Luke 9:18, Luke 9:28, and Luke 22:39 for starters.) If Jesus (who was fully God Himself) prayed and relied on that connection with Father God, why would we need that any less than he did? The last time I checked, no one among us is God!
3) Prayer is vital to supernatural impact. The church is shrinking. Pastors are leaving the ministry in droves, and the Church's efforts to fulfill the Great Commission are severely hampered because of our lack of committment to effective prayer.
4) Prayer is the key to genuine revival. Check your history books, folks! Whenever there has been revival, it has always begun with a Church that prayed in unity.
It is important that we all learn to pray individually and corporately in effective ways. I pray that you will all join me in a commitment to not only pray more, but to learn to pray effectively. This is our only hope for us as individuals, as a church, as The Church, and as beacons of light to a lost world. When you think of it that way, it is a pretty staggering responsibility.
I'd like to see our fellowship be known as a people of prayer. How awesome would that be! Who knows how God would use us in this community if we would begin to be serious about prayer? No amount of outreach is going to do the job if we don't front load the outreach project with a train load of prayer.
Who is with me? Send me an e-mail or give me a call to tell me you're on board to learn to pray effectively. Or, if you like, you can post a comment! I'd love to hear your thoughts!
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Yes prayer is vitally important. Over the years that I've been a Christian I've heard countless people praying. Some prayers were pretty cool - big Christian-like words and smooth talking. I can do that, I thought. I can sound like them. I tried - it didn't work. I thought that something was wrong with me. I love praying (when I take the time). I love talking to God and when I pray alone-aloud to God, it's like a regular conversation - nothing fancy - nothing Christian-ese about it - just talking to my Lord. At the prayer seminar with Daniel the Holy Spirit woke up something in me that was not necessarily hidden, but rather faded - you could see what was there, but there was no definition; no depth. I'm jazzed about the revival in my soul to pray. I'm jazzed that we used Daniel's model at Small Group on Tuesday and I am excited to see what God will do on Sunday. We don't have to use the model that Daniel taught, but we do have to pray, and we have to pray as a church - together - as lovers of the Lord, as lovers of the truth, as lovers of the enormous and never-ending possibilities that come with prayer to our Heavenly Father. Let's bow down and worship, let's pray together in Jesus' holy name.
ReplyDeleteThanks Margie... Great post! You are so right on...
ReplyDeletePJ