John MacArthur once said: “It is the highest activity of the human soul, and therefore it is at the same time the ultimate test of a man’s true spiritual condition. There is nothing that tells the truth about us as Christian people so much as our prayer life.…”1 I love how Leonard Ravenhill described prayer: “The Sunday morning service shows how popular your church is. The evening services show how popular your pastor is. Your private prayer time shows you how popular God is!”2
Prayer, is perhaps the most powerful way we can make an impact on our broken and sin sick world as well as advance the kingdom of God. Prayer, coupled with sharing the gospel, is often the key that can open the blind eyes of sinners. Prayer is the main way we can invoke the Holy Spirit to send conviction to individuals, which is the starting point to leading them to salvation. And prayer can do the impossible – saving souls who are totally dead in their sins and trespasses.
While I believe apologetic arguments can give the unsaved some powerful things to think about concerning the Bible and Jesus, without prayer, the spiritually dead individuals often will remain spiritually dead. For you see prayer is often the only way to unleash the power of God to do the impossible – resurrect the spiritually dead to newness of life in Christ!
While prayer is an essential part of evangelism, it often can restore broken relationships, heal the sick, change attitudes, and most importantly glorify Jesus.
Sadly, while prayer can do amazing things, many Christians spend little time in serious prayer. The reasons are many. One, prayer is hard work. To have a consistent and vibrant prayer life we must practice self-denial and discipline our minds to seek the Lord daily. Two, Satan, knows how powerful prayer is and will constantly cause one to be distracted with a thousand-and-one other activities. Three, many believers fail to make prayer a high priority, and as a result prayer often is put on the backburner. Four, we often allow distracting and wandering thoughts to take our minds off of prayer. And five, we live in an instant culture and when we don’t see immediate results from our prayers we give up and abandon the need to be insistent in our prayers.
My friends without consistent and believing prayer souls may not be saved, broken relationship may not be mended, the sick may not be healed, attitudes may never be changed, and most importantly our God will not be glorified. In my book these are important reasons to do everything we can to make our prayer closet the most important room in our home, to make prayer our most important activity of the day, and to ask Jesus to change prayer from a duty to a delight.
Several years ago the Lord convicted me to be more consistent in my prayer life. Since that time I have used an ever growing daily prayer list to help me to be consistent in my prayer life. As a result it helps me make prayer a daily priority, helps eliminate wandering thoughts, and praise God has been daily transforming my prayer life from one of duty to one of delight!
If your own personal prayer life is not what you know it should be why not have a serious talk with the Lord and ask Him to begin the process of transforming your time of prayer from duty to delight. Why not make a daily prayer list and commit to pray for the needs on that list for one month, every day. If you make this a priority then I believe God will honor your commitment and supply you with the ability to be consistent in your prayer life – and don’t be surprised if he changes prayer from a mere duty to a wonderful delight. And not only that, as God begins to answer many of your prayers, watch how God gets the glory – and what can be more precious than that!
1 Inspirational Quotes by John MacArthur – page 2
2 Prayer shows how popular God is – Leonard Ravenhill | Deeper Christian Quotes