Custom of Prayer
Please read along with me the beginning of Daniel 6- especially v. 10, where we learn about Daniel’s custom of praying. Read on for a few verses to see the trouble that praying got Daniel into. Daniel had a custom of praying. He was known for praying and people even knew something of his schedule for praying. It was a good reputation and was, wonderfully, the only kind of thing that unbelievers had to look at to find some devious way to get at Daniel. Peter tells us that if we’re ever going to have unbelievers criticize us, it needs to be over such as prayer, rather than over some breaking of decent laws of the society.
Do you have the custom of praying? How are you using that custom? What value does it have to your life? What value can it have to your life? What can prayer do for your life?
Today, in this season of self-examination and of recommitment, we’ll look at the entire structure of our lives, and see that prayer is the fundamental spiritual discipline for our lives. We’ll see that no other spiritual discipline offers as much to us, in our walks with God. We’ll see that prayer is key to our involvement in the kingdom work of our Father.
Heb. 11.6- without faith, we cannot please God; if we can’t please God, then there’s no possibility for salvation in our lives. Faith is vital to our lives. Since we’re involved with God, who is invisible to our eyes, faith has us looking through, what we can call, spiritual eyes, and perceiving what cannot be perceived through the normal and carnal mind.
Yet, Matthew 17.20- tells us that we lack faith even as big as a mustard seed. Disciples had failed to do some of the things they ought to have done. In their still unspiritual state, though, they lacked even the basic amount/volume/measure of faith to do something simple. Most of us don’t go around throwing mountains into the oceans, fortunately. Perhaps, we’ve learned how to better use faith than to do something foolish or showy like that. Or, maybe, we still lack faith. In either case, we know, too, that even faith is a gift of God that is granted by the Holy Spirit in our lives:
Eph. 2.8- faith is not something we ‘work up’ inside ourselves. It is something given freely to us by our heavenly Father.
So, we need faith to be in relationship with God; we don’t have faith ourselves to be in relationship with God; faith for this relationship is a gift from God.
So, what hope is there to have the faith that allows us into God’s presence? If we don’t have it inside ourselves and we’re not born with it, and if, even after walking alongside Jesus for some months or years, disciples didn’t have even a minimal amount of faith, and if we can’t work it up but must get it from God, how do we go about that, so we can, at least, begin?
Matt. 7.7 gives us an important key to the matter. Each of us must ask and we will receive. Faith, that is necessary to be in relationship with God, is something we can ask for. Faith that will increase our faith bank to even the amount the size of a mustard seed is something we can ask for. Faith, that is a gift from God, is a gift we can ask for. Time-and-time again, we’re told and encouraged to simply ‘ask’. This is one of the most fundamental things to ask for. Yet, I wonder how many of us spend much time asking for faith? How often do we ask God to increase our faith? How much time do we spend beseeching God for faith? Do we ever? Sometimes? Often?
In our lives, God wants a whole package. He is not simply looking for us to assent to Him; He does not just want us to say ‘yes’ to Him, and leave it at that. He is looking for more than belief. In one place, Jesus declared that even the demons believe and tremble, but it doesn’t do them any good. The reason is that there is not the action that needs to spring from the belief. There isn’t the willingness to change what they are doing in order to do God’s things. They want to do their own. They know that God is supreme. They know that God is light. But they are unwilling to change themselves and to change the side of their commitment or devotion. They are committed to overruling what God is doing.
For us, Christians, it is hard to be a Christian in mind but not in body, too. Again, we have passages that indicate that some might have ‘thought’ themselves Christians for years, but, in the kingdom, are told that Jesus never knew them. This is a passage that strikes a bit of godly fear into me. I don’t want to be there. I don’t want to be one who simply had the beliefs in my head- even in my heart. I want to be the whole package that God is looking for. That package includes works.
Jas. 2.17, 20, 24- we’re told that faith without works is dead. It isn’t productive. So, the faith that we don’t have inside by birth, and the faith that we need even a small amount of, and the faith that we can ask from God, because it is a gift from God, leads to actions. If it doesn’t, then it’s not living faith. It’s simply held in a nice corner for some reason, and is called ‘dead’.
Jesus expects action. When he is involved in giving us such a wonderful gift as faith, he expects us to do something with that. We’re not simply to have a certain body of knowledge, as if the knowing is enough. It isn’t.
Matt. 19.17-19- so there is a standard that Jesus set- a standard that isn’t easy, in particular. We know that his expectation is for us to live the spirit of the laws. Don’t get bogged down in what was written down. That was only temporary and wasn’t the beginning of the law. It was a ‘dumbing down’ of the law for unspiritual people. (I was in Chapters recently and saw a book entitled “Bible for Dummies”- just like the computer, and other books, written in that genre- I didn’t look at it, yet.) Jesus’ expectations are very high. He puts the requirement out there for us.
But, then, we’re confronted with what James writes us:
Jas. 2.10- if we keep the whole thing and offend in even one point, we are guilty as if we had broken every point of every part of Jesus’ law. So, where we might feel encouraged, we can feel discouraged again.
We have incredible human weakness when it comes to serving God. Our humanity gets in the way, as long as we’re in this flesh. It’s impossible to get it entirely out-of-the way.
Ro. 3.20- we aren’t made right in God’s sight by our works of Jesus’ law.
Ro. 7. 14-23- there’s a spiritual component that even Paul wrestled with. We want to do the right, but find ourselves being dragged down and back to the darkness we want to be rid of. All of us identify with that. All of us have that happen. It’s a constant in our lives, sadly. This is not news to us. I’m not bringing any new truth today. I know this. But it’s important to review this reality, so we can get to the encouragement of the Word, too.
What hope is there, then, for helpless and hopeless humanity? How can we do it? How can we ever attain to relationship with God? How can we ever be all that we’re supposed to be? How can that faith gift be translated into action that is pleasing? How can we do what we need to do so that we don’t face ‘I never knew you’ when we come to the fullness of the kingdom in our individual life?
James, Jesus’ brother, tells us:
Jas. 4. 1, 2- we’re unable only for as long as we do not ask and do not pray. We identify with these qualities in ourselves. How often do we lust/desire something we shouldn’t? How often do we get into fights, even in our minds, with others? How often do we talk about wanting to hurt someone? It’s common…inside all of us. Let’s be honest about this. We know the emotions we wrestle with. Yet, there IS an answer, and that answer lies in prayer. Prayer is the key to the battle we fight. Prayer is the key to winning the battles we fight every single day- and most minutes and seconds of each day. Often, we’re not nearly as aware of the battle as we likely need to be. But, it’s there.
John 15.5- without Jesus we can’t do anything.
v. 4- we need to abide and bear fruit.
John 14.14- we need to continually know His presence and unceasingly ask in His name. REPEAT that. We do that through prayer. This reality- of our potential victory through Jesus- raises prayer to a higher plane in our lives and tells us of our personal need for the custom of prayer. In the battles we fight, we often do not know the victory we can know because we fail to simply pray and increase the presence of Jesus at that moment. Jesus never sinned, while on earth, and Jesus never sins now, when He’s not and is in heaven intervening for us. When we bring Him into the situation/battle/crisis, victory occurs.
So, scripturally, it is through prayer that we acquire the ability to perform good works. They are needed. They are not within us. They are the result of Jesus at work in us. Jesus is at work in us as we invite Him into our lives situation by situation, moment by moment- not simply once in the morning, and that’s it for the day. We need to be constant and often in contact with God.
Let me read one paragraph from an excellent book I was given for my 50th birthday, last year. It is called “The Way of the Pilgrim” and is an excellent book about prayer, but in a quite different and, for me, challenging environment. The book is written more from an eastern Orthodox perspective, and there is more of a mystical and spiritual tone and practice in the east, in general, than in the west.
Read- p. 147.
We can note these occurrences. In 2 Cor. 12. 8f, Paul records having prayed three times for the ‘thorn in the side’. We, already, saw where he took delight in God’s law in the inner man, but there was another law at work to counter this (Ro. 7).
1 Thess. 5.17- this is the only spiritual discipline about which this is said. God does not tell us to study always, or to meditate continually. We’re not told to fellowship or to sing continually. But, we’re told to pray unceasingly.
Prayer is fundamental. It gives life to faith, and through it, all spiritual virtues are acquired. Really, everything can be achieved through prayer; without it, no Christian works can be performed. It’s necessary for us to pray always, at all times, and in all places.
Conclusion
Scripturally, we cannot acquire either faith or good works without prayer. Even true prayer is beyond our personal and human power. God, without question, is looking for quality of prayer but, understanding us, it’s necessary to have quantity of prayer in the midst of which, that quality will occur. (We wrestle with the quantity/quality argument. Especially, in the child-care area, this is true. Some parents argue for their great quality time with their children. From experience, I argue that it takes quantity, in which there will be some true quality time. But if your 15 minutes is supposed to be quality time, chances are that it’s mentally dominated with what is happening after or before the 15 minutes. Thus, I argue that, in all fields where there needs to be quality, there is a certain amount of quantity that is necessary, in which to find the true quality.)
Ro. 8.26- give time for the Holy Spirit to communicate with God from heart-to-heart.
Heb. 13.15- need to continually offer the sacrifice of praise to God…giving thanks and praise to his name.
We’re quite used to the ‘quick’ and the ‘instant’ and we’ve brought our western approach to the subject of prayer. But this is not what the Church fathers encouraged or practiced. This is not what Jesus did; this is not what his disciples did; this is not what the early church did. All practiced LONG seasons of prayer. There is great power in unceasing prayer.
Understanding this, plan time for prayer that is deeply personal prayer.
Plan reminders to prayer through the day- maybe at the top of the hour, or when you change an activity. The more we keep God before us, the harder it is to sin, and the more each of us will progress in our personal relationships with God.
Daniel practiced the custom of prayer. If you have been, like Daniel, terrific! You are seeing ongoing progress in your spiritual development. If you have not been, then, please, use today, and this next week, to begin to establish this custom in your life. You and I cannot go forward without constant- unceasing- prayer- the custom of prayer. It’s not too late to begin. Start now!
