How to Establish a Consistent Prayer Life
(Fifty Days of Consecration #3)[1]
Luke 11:9-13[2]
4-03-05
Intro[3]
I want to introduce the sermon this morning with a brief clip from the movie, The Passion. Jesus is in Gethsemane knowing that the hour of his suffering is rapidly approaching. He is praying and he has asked his disciples to pray.
The Passion (0:00:34 to 0:02:50)
Many of you know this story. Jesus has asked the disciples to pray and instead of praying they sleep. Can anyone besides me identify with the struggle these disciples had in being faithful in prayer? I’m glad the Bible records their struggles because it gives me hope. They eventually rose above their failure and became mighty in prayer. We see that in the book of Acts.
The question that we want to address is how we can enter into greater victory in this area of our lives. What is it going to take for us to develop and maintain a strong, consistent prayer life? I’m sure if great persecution broke out against Christians, or if we were experiencing some horrific problem we would pray more. But I don’t want to enter into it that way. I want to be a child of God who learns to come to his heavenly Father with all his needs and enjoy the interaction. I want to learn how to live in the presence of God and live in prayer. How can we do that?
We do it much the same way we do anything? It happens first and foremost because we decide to do it. One reason we struggle in this area is that we over-spiritualize it so to speak. We think that it’s going to happen some happy day when an outside force, maybe God, just kind of thrusts it upon us. But if that were reality, then why does God tell us to do it. The Bible is filled with commandments to pray. As a general rule, prayer is not something that happens to us. It is something we do by a choice of will.
Every Christian “wishes” he/she would pray more—enjoy it more—be more consistent in praying. We all want that. But wanting something is not the same thing as choosing something.[4] I may want a new car. I may dream of someday having a new car. I may even go to the dealership and test drive a new car. But at some point I have to count the cost and “decide” to have a new car. One reason I have not chosen to have a new car is that I know when I choose that, I will have to give up having something else. So there is something else that I have in reality chosen over having a new car. I still “wish” I had a new car. But wishing has never gotten me one.
We all live pretty much with what we’ve chosen. It’s hard to say and hard to hear; but the truth is my prayer life and your prayer life is what we’ve chosen it to be. The good news is we all have the power to choose something different. That means we have right here this morning opportunity for a better prayer life if we choose to have one.
We enter into that the same way we enter into other things. How did you enter into the career you currently have? How did you enter into sports when you were in High School? How did you enter into your marriage? In every case there was a process of choice. What is that process?
1st We must conclude that it is genuinely worth the investment. We are rational being who have limited time and resources. The most valuable thing you have is your time. “Time is money” as they say. If you invest your time wisely you can convert that into money. It’s called a job. Every day we are faced with hard choices: how will we invest our limited, most precious resource (time)? Bottom line is this: all of us are investing our time where we have decided to invest it.
So the first question we must deal with is this: is it a good investment of your time to pray? The devil has a thousand different ways of suggesting “no” as the answer to that question. He will tell you that it’s really not doing any good anyhow. “Maybe somebody else’s prayers work—but not mine. I prayed for this and for that and nothing happened.”
Have you ever felt that way? Sometimes it comes to our mind in a more subtle way than that. But the devil is actively trying to convince you and me that prayer is mostly a waste of time. Why do you think he might do that? Perhaps it’s because the opposite is true. One way for me to gauge how much I have bought into that lie is to inventory my prayer life. I invest in what I think is a good investment of my time. So do you.
Beyond telling us to pray, what does the Bible say about the value of prayer? Look with me at Luke 11:9-13. After teaching the Lord’s Prayer and illustrating God’s willingness to answer prayer, Jesus says to you and me, “So I say to you: Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you. 10 For everyone who asks receives; he who seeks finds; and to him who knocks, the door will be opened.
11 "Which of you fathers, if your son asks for a fish, will give him a snake instead? 12 Or if he asks for an egg, will give him a scorpion? 13 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 the Holy Spirit to those who ask him!”
The point Jesus is making is that God answers prayer. When you pray the infinite, a
Almighty Creator of heaven and earth responds to the request. The rhetorical question is asked to the fathers. “Suppose your son (that you love) comes to you asking for fish sticks. Would you trick him and give him a snake instead. Suppose he was hungry and asked for an egg. Would you cruelly hand him a scorpion instead?” No father would do that. He would give his child what the child needed. But those natural fathers don’t even come close to the love and tender care that God, the Father, has for His children. Either Jesus is a liar or God answers prayer.
Heb 11:6 “And without faith it is impossible to please God, because anyone who comes to him must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who earnestly seek him.”
Do you believe that God rewards those who earnestly pray and seek him? Only to the extent that you believe that will you pray. Just praying because you ought to will not sustain itself. You have to believe that the rewards are really there.
What will be my experience in prayer? It will be according to the principle of sowing and reaping. Do you remember what the Bible says about that in 2 Cor 9:6 “Remember this: Whoever sows sparingly will also reap sparingly, and whoever sows generously will also reap generously.” It works that way for every one of us; nobody beats the system.
Until a person comes to realize the value of prayer, he/she will not have much of a prayer life. We are all good at calling on God in a crisis. But I’m talking about daily communion with God in prayer.
Once we’re convinced of the value of prayer what do we do next?
2. We must establish it as a priority in our lives.
Have you noticed how hard it is to have more than one first priority? As finite creature we can only have so many top priorities. Everything can’t be a priority. So if we are to take charge of our lives, we have to choose what those priorities will be. That’s what will get done and a whole lot of other things will not get done. The trick is to choose the right priorities.
Fortunately, God gives us some guidance in that matter. For example, in Matt 6:33 Jesus tells us to make the spiritual a priority and the material things will follow. “But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well.” Are you seeking first the kingdom of God or has something else preempted that?
In Luke 12 Jesus told the parable of the man who spent his life gathering material things. And he was quite successful at it. He was a farmer and the crops flourished and filled his barns. So what did he do? He decided to build bigger barns. He decided to live comfortably, eat, drink, and enjoy himself as much as possible. Luke 12:20 “But God said to him, ’Fool! This night your soul will be required of you; then whose will those things be which you have provided?’” The moral of the story, Luke 12:21 "So is he who lays up treasure for himself, and is not rich toward God." NKJV
I want to encourage you this morning to not allow circumstances to dictate priorities in your life. Do not allow immediate and urgent concerns to eclipse important and eternal matters. The cares of life[5] can rob us of God’s best if we are not very intentional about how we will invest our lives.
I have talked about two decisions: 1st the decision that an investment of time with God in prayer is a good investment and 2nd the decision to make prayer a priority. Without those two decisions the rest of what I am about to say is meaningless. But with those two decisions what must happen next?
3rd We must develop a plan for accomplishing our priority.
Have you noticed the importance of a plan in all other enterprises? When a building gets built, long before that happens a detailed plan for the construction has been engineered. I doubt there are any major league football teams who just show up for the game. They show up with a plan and a strategy for winning the game. Over the years Jeanie and I have been very good at planning work. As a result, a lot of work has gotten done during our lifetime. On the other hand, we are not good at planning recreation or vacations. Without a plan, a lot of years rolled by with no vacation at all. Whose fault was it? We have to take responsibility for not planning on it. Whatever is not planned gets squeezed off the calendar. At any rate, that has been my experience.
So, what is your plan for praying? When will you do it? Where will you do it? How will you protect the time? I have found that a predetermined time and place for prayer is a powerful factor in it actually getting done. Vague, general good intentions usually accomplish very little. A written plan is better than a verbal plan. But a plan that is realistic and executable is essential.
Listen to David in Psalm 55:17 “Evening and morning and at noon I will pray, and cry aloud, And He shall hear my voice.” NKJV David had a plan for praying three times a day. In Acts we see the apostles going to the temple a 3:00 pm for the scheduled prayer meeting. Acts 3:1, “One day Peter and John were going up to the temple at the time of prayer-at three in the afternoon.” What happened on their way to prayer? The cripple man is healed, revival broke out and about 5,000 people got saved. It all happened on the way to a routine, scheduled prayer meeting.
When and where will you be praying this year? What else do we need for a strong, consistent prayer life?
4th We must discipline ourselves to continue doing what we’ve committed ourselves to do.
Gal 6:9 “Let us not become weary in doing good, for at the proper time we will reap a harvest if we do not give up.” That verse address something we will encounter in this process of being faithful in prayer—the time gap between praying and seeing the answers. We understand that principle in the area of farming. If I plant an apple tree today, I can not expect to go out tomorrow and pick apples off that tree. I will have to water that seed and nurture the twig that comes up for a long time before there are any apples to eat. If we don’t understand that principle we will conclude that prayer isn’t working. Prayer works; but it doesn’t always work as fast as we would like for it to work. I think that is one reason Jesus made it so clear in Luke 11 that God does answer prayer. Listen to His words again. Luke 11:10 “For everyone who asks receives; he who seeks finds; and to him who knocks, the door will be opened.” Who receives? Everyone who asks receives. Who finds? (Everyone who sincerely seeks.) Turn to your neighbor and say to that person, “Jesus said everyone; that includes you.”
Before we finish let me share with you three helpful keys to perseverance in prayer.
a. Accountability. In Acts 3, Peter had a prayer partner. Who was Peter’s prayer partner? It was John, wasn’t it? Acts 3:1, “One day Peter and John were going up to the temple at the time of prayer-at three in the afternoon.” There is something about a commitment to another person to meet together and pray that helps us follow through with our intentions.
Somehow in our culture we are conditioned to keep commitments to other people and feel like we need to do what we told them we would do. A prayer partner is a great way to keep encouraged in prayer. One caution: agree to pray and not just talk with one another. Pray your requests out while the other prays in agreement.
b. Proper balance of routine and variety. The time and place of prayer needs to be routine enough that it becomes a habit. But learn a variety of prayer expressions. In Luke 11:1 the disciple asked Jesus to teach them to pray—and Jesus did just that. Why, because prayer is something that has to be learned. Don’t be satisfied with your current knowledge about prayer. Pray with people who can model expression you don’t have and follow their example. Be a life long learner of how to pray.
c. Keep yourself motivated. Go back to step one and remember why you are doing this in the first place. Do not allow feelings to determine what you will do. Stay committed to the biblical principle regardless of the ups and downs in your emotions. Celebrate answers to prayer. Don’t just celebrate the huge, earth-shattering answers. But thank God for each and every answer. Find other things that stir your passion for prayer. For some it is music; for some it may be tapes or books. Find out what fans the flame for you and fan it. Amen?
d. Don’t allow interruptions to divert you from your commitment. Daniel prayed three times a day. He encountered a pretty serious reason for breaking the commitment. He was told that he would be thrown in the lions den if he continued with his prayer time. Now I have had things come up that threatened to disrupt my prayer routine, but nothing as pressing as that. So, what did Daniel do? Did he regretfully concede? No, he kept his appointment with God and got thrown into the lions den. But that’s not the end of the story for even in that lions den Daniel kept praying and some pretty wonderful things happened as a result.
What God has done for others, He will do for you. Will you pray? If you do, you will find Him to be indeed a rewarder of those who diligently seek Him.
Let us pray.
Richard Tow
Grace Chapel Foursquare Church
Springfield, MO
www.gracechapelchurch.org
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[1] The Devotional material distributed last week to be used in preparation for this sermon is available at www.GraceChapelChurch.org
[2] All Scripture quotes from New International Version unless otherwise indicted.
[3] As a application of last week’s teaching we began one of our services by having everyone write down three things for which they are thankful and then people spent time telling a friend what they were thankful for. This was done (as taught last week using Psalm 103) as a preparation of the heart for worship.
[4] The significance of this distinction was impressed upon me while reading some of Charles Finney’s theology. I have found it to be powerful in the process of evangelism as well as discipleship.
[5] Luke 8:14
