Dear Church Family,
God has given many gifts to His people – one of the greatest is prayer. Terry Johnson in “When Grace Comes Home” gives two reasons as to why those saved by grace are to pray.
The first is “Prayer changes us.” Prayer is a humbling action that “brings us to the posture of spiritual prostration.” He quotes Robert McCheyne who said, “What a man is, is what he is on his knees before God, and no more.” As we grasp the depth of God’s grace, we realize, “There is no God so sovereign, so powerful, so awesome, and so inscrutable. Prayer to this God changes our stance in life from autonomous agents of self-will to humble supplicants of Almighty God.” Our focus is on our Heavenly Father and His holy rule over us. “Prayer is not a quick list of ‘gimmies’ addressed flippantly to God. Prayer is the changing, not of the mind of God but of our whole orientation from one absorbed with our own concerns, to one focused on God and his glory and will.”
Prayer further “changes us by building our faith. A quick study of the prayers of the Bible shows a focus on giving praise to God. As God’s people pray about the greatness of God they “fortify their faith and believe in the midst of trials that God, the great God, is able to do” what He has promised.” Consider using the words of 1 Chronicles 29:10-13 to start your next prayer:
“Praise be to You, O Lord; God of our father Israel, from everlasting to everlasting. Yours, O Lord,
is the greatness and the power and the glory and the majesty and the splendor, for everything
in heaven and earth is Yours. Yours, O Lord, is the kingdom; You are exalted as head
over all. Wealth and honor come from You; You are the ruler of all things.”
Prayer also “changes us by cleansing our souls. This God-centered approach leads inevitably to the confession of our sins.” Too often in our prayers we want to change God, when in reality, faithful prayers with the focus on the glory of God will change us.
Terry’s second reason is that “prayer changes history. The sovereign God somehow works through the prayers of His people. “God does foreknow and foreordain all things, and we have to get out of bed, and we do have to pray.” Throughout the Bible, the writers make note of how God’s people prayed and something supernatural happened. Two examples are Moses praying “and a battle goes well. Moses stops praying and the battle goes poorly (Exod. 17:11) Elijah prays and the rains stops for three years. He prays and the rain starts up again (Jas. 5:17, 18). We may not feel like we are spiritual equals to Moses or Elijah. But James 5:16 teaches, “The prayer of a righteous man is powerful and effective.” If you are in Christ, you are righteous. So pray and see what God does in and through you.
With great hope in His grace,
Pastor Gillikin