Prayer is a wonderful form of communion with the Lord. Normally when we think of prayer we think of asking, or petitionary prayer, but prayer includes so much more. Worship, adoration, thanksgiving, and confession of sin are also elements of prayer that show how much we love and respect our awesome God. But for purposes of this devotion, I would like to focus on petitionary prayer. And the wonderful thing about bringing our requests to the Lord is that He delights to answer our prayers and wants us to come to Him daily, boldly, and with an expectation that He will answer them.
As one reads the Scriptures we see how God answered the prayers of men like Abraham, Moses, Daniel, Job, and Paul. These men and many other saints of God today can attest that God indeed answers prayer. The question before us is this, does God promise to answer our prayers and if so why do so many Christians spend so little time praying when the answer to our requests are a prayer away.
First, let’s look at the clear teaching of Scripture that God promises to answer our prayers. Consider the following verses:
(1 John 3:21-22): “Dear friends, if our hearts do not condemn us, we have confidence before God and receive from him anything we ask, because we keep his commands and do what pleases him.”
(1 John 5:14-15): “This is the confidence we have in approaching God: that if we ask anything according to his will, he hears us. And if we know that he hears us—whatever we ask—we know that we have what we asked of him.”
(Matthew 7:11): “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 good gifts to those who ask him!”
(Mark 11:22-24): “Have faith in God,” Jesus answered. “Truly I tell you, if anyone says to this mountain, ‘Go, throw yourself into the sea,’ and does not doubt in their heart but believes that what they say will happen, it will be done for them. Therefore, I tell you, whatever you ask for in prayer, believe that you have received it, and it will be yours.”
(John 14:12-14): “Very truly I tell you, whoever believes in me will do the works I have been doing, and they will do even greater things than these, because I am going to the Father. And I will do whatever you ask in my name, so that the Father may be glorified in the Son. You may ask me for anything in my name, and I will do it.”
(John 15:7): “If you remain in me and my words remain in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be done for you.”
With these incredible ironclad promises concerning prayer why do we still pray so little? May I submit five reasons I believe prayer is often not the top item on our agendas.
First, we often treat prayer as a duty, instead of the delight it is meant to be. Imagine, the Creator of the universe gives us the amazing privilege to speak with Him as often as we like – this is no duty but sheer delight! And the more we spend time it talking to God, the more we will see that prayer will become a treasured time of the day for us.
Second, we really don’t believe that God will answer our prayers. Our faith needs to be stronger and the verses I shared above should be committed to memory. We need to study the lives of the biblical prayer warriors as well as those down through history that saw answers to their prayers as a common occurrence. Could it also be that we have too small a view of our great God? I agree with the great man of prayer, George Müller, who once said: “Our difficulty seems to be this: the promise is so ‘exceeding great’ that we cannot conceive God really to mean what he clearly appears to have revealed. The blessing seems too vast for our comprehension; we ‘stagger at the promises, through unbelief,’ and thus fail to secure the treasure which was purchased for us by Christ Jesus.”1
Third, we just plain don’t make prayer a priority and everyone knows what you prioritize you do. If we only realized how powerful prayer can be it just might get us on our knees more. Charles Spurgeon once commented: “Do you know, brothers and sisters, what great things are to be had for the asking? Have you ever thought of it? Does it not stimulate you to pray fervently? All heaven lies before the grasp of the asking man, all the promises of God are rich and inexhaustible, and their fulfillment is to be had by prayer…Thus you see the Lord’s promises have many fulfillments, and they are all waiting now to pour their treasures into the lap of prayer. Does not this lift prayer up to a high level, when God is willing to repeat the biographies of His saints in us, when He is waiting to be gracious, and to load us with His benefits? I will mention another truth which ought to make us pray, and that is, that if we ask, God will give to us much more than we ask.”2
Fourth, prayer takes commitment, diligence, and time and quite frankly many Christians are just too lazy to pray. But if we only understood that prayer is often the gateway to answered blessings and that when the answers do come God can get the glory – and isn’t this what the chief end of life is all about – that God gets the glory?
And fifth, sometimes we think because there is sin in our lives and we are not perfect that God won’t answer our prayers so why pray. While I will admit that unconfessed sin can often stop God from answering our prayers, God never requires us to be perfect. If not having occasional sin was a requirement to answered prayer then none of us would ever get our prayers answered. My comment here is simple, when you know you have sinned confess it to God before you come to Him in prayer.
My friends prayer and reading the Word should be an intertwined priority for all Christians. Each person should find the best part of their day to spend at least an hour alone in prayer and Bible reading. I challenge you to do this for the next 30 days and see how God will bless you. If you say you are too busy to find one hour then you are indeed too busy. Change your priorities and don’t ever shortchange God. And remember God doesn’t need to check His calendar to make time for you – He is always available 24/7. Just choose the time and the place and God will meet you there!
1 George Muller – Our difficulty seems to be this: the promise is… (bibleportal.com)
2 Hazen, Craig J.. Fearless Prayer: Why We Don’t Ask and Why We Should (Kindle Locations 1531-1540). Harvest House Publishers. Kindle Edition.