Note: I am making two presentations at the Prayer Workshop at Calhoun Church of Christ. This is the first of two. So you will get two posts from me today. It’s an unusual day at Hope Remains, but I hope you will enjoy it. Thanks always for liking and sharing! JED
Audio of the presentation (not just reading the post):
Introduction
“Prayer can move mountains. It can change human hearts, families, neighborhoods, cities, and nations. It’s the ultimate source of power, because it is the power of the Almighty God. This power is available to the humblest Christian.” - Alvin VanderGriend
I not only want to be a person of prayer, I want to be someone who loves to pray. It’s one of those ‘Lord I believe, help my unbelief’ situations. I love to pray, and I want to learn to LOVE to pray! That’s why I was attracted to Alvin Vandergriend’s book entitled Love to Pray. Oswald Chambers said that “Prayer is hard work.” Prayer requires our intentional efforts. It requires our attention. It requires our heart. How do I go from prayer being a work, a duty, a difficult journey to the feeling of loving to pray? It all begins with a relationship.
1. Your Relationship With God
Your relationship with God has many different aspects: God is your Creator and Maker, Lord and Master, Judge, Redeemer, Father, Savior, and much more. But the most shocking truth is this: Almighty God yearns to be your friend!
Only a few people in Old Testament times had the privilege of friendship with God. Moses and Abraham were called “friends of God,” David was called “a man after my own heart,” and Job, Enoch, and Noah had intimate friendships with God. Developing a friendship with God is the beginning of learning to love to pray.
“Loving to pray is really about loving the One to whom we pray. And we who know and love the Lord can all do that.” -Alvin Vandergriend
“Since we were restored to friendship with God by the death of his Son while we were still his enemies, we will certainly be delivered from eternal punishment by his life” -Romans 5:10 NLT
Human beings are created to live in fellowship with God. God loves us and wants us to have a personal relationship with Him. God loves us even if we haven’t loved him.
“In this is love, not that we loved God, but that He loved us.” -1 John 4:10
God’s ultimate invitation to fellowship with Him was in sending His Son to pay the price for our sin so that we who believe could be called His children. To the unbelievers at the Areopogas, Paul affirmed that God was at work in human history.
Acts 17:27 “God did this so that they would seek him and perhaps reach out for him and find him, though he is not far from any one of us..”
Prayer is the way we get in touch with God and the way we keep in touch with him.
What is Prayer Anyway? Defining Prayer through the years evolved for A.V.
Talking with God - the idea of a relationship emerged; prayer is the talking part of a relationship with God.
The talking part of a love relationship with God.
The talking part of the most important love relationship in our lives.
Finally: Prayer is the conversational part of the most important love relationship in our lives, our love relationship with the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit.
A loving relationship with God allows us to be filled with Joy in the presence of God.
Psalm 16:11 “You have made known to me the path of life; You will fill me with joy in your presence, with eternal pleasures at your right hand.”
What’s the good of prayer? It helps us to grow into and live out of the most important of all love relationships.
2. Ways You Can Grow Your Friendship With God - Raphael Zhang
*Make time to draw close to Him. Exodus 33:11 “The Lord would speak to Moses face to face, as one speaks to a friend”. Nothing fosters my intimacy with God more than spending time with God alone—meeting Him face to face, as it were. Isn’t that how we would cultivate closeness with our friends, too? Likewise, we need to regularly meet with God and spend quality time to get to know Him more intimately.
*Revere Him. Psalm 25:14 ESV “The friendship of the Lord is for those who fear him, and he makes known to them his covenant.” Imagine what it’s like to make friends with a king. Have you ever been friends with someone who is famous? When we have God on our minds all the time He becomes part of our vocabulary and thinking. We are his friend, but we also have a deep reverence for Him, not forgetting who He is.
*Listen to Him tell us what’s on His heart. John 15:15 “I no longer call you servants, because a servant does not know his master’s business. Instead, I have called you friends, for everything that I learned from my Father I have made known to you.” Just as friends would listen attentively to what each other are saying, so we, too, can cultivate our friendship with Jesus when we pay close attention to what He reveals to us about the Father’s business.
*Rejoice at His counsel and trust His corrections. When we read the counsel of God in the Bible, we delight in His wise instructions to us! Proverbs 27:9 “Perfume and incense bring joy to the heart, and the pleasantness of a friend springs from their heartfelt advice.” When our close friends give us good, sincere counsel, we appreciate them deeply for it. The counsel of God brings us joy because:
It instructs on the best path to walk in our life.
It corrects us when we veer off the path.
*Obey what’s on His heart. It’s not just enough to listen to God tell us what’s on His heart—including His counsel and corrections for us—we also must do what He tells us. John 15:14 “You are my friends if you do what I command”. We build our friendship with God when we obey what God commands us to do.
*Have a pure heart and speak with grace. Proverbs 22:11 “One who loves a pure heart and who speaks with grace will have the king for a friend”. Since God is the King of heaven and earth, this verse may tell us what God is looking for in our friendship relationship!
*Love Him sacrificially. John 15:13 “Greater love has no one than this: to lay down one’s life for one’s friends”. He proved His love for us by laying down His life on the cross, so that we can be made alive with Christ. Would we, in our love for our Friend, love Him self-sacrificially, too?
We will never love to pray until we begin to see God as our friend in whom we can confide, spend time with, and learn from.
“Now we can rejoice in our wonderful new relationship with God—all because of what our Lord Jesus Christ has done for us in making us friends of God” -Romans 5:11 NLT
Friendship with God is possible only because of the grace of God and the sacrifice of Jesus. 2 Corinthians 5:18 GNT “All this is done by God, who through Christ changed us from enemies into his friends.” An old hymn says, “What a friend we have in Jesus.”
Prayer is the conversational part of the most important love relationship in our lives, our love relationship with the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit.
3. Love to Pray By Understanding the Welcoming Presence of God
Hebrews 4:16 “Let us then approach the Thorne of grace with confidence, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need.”
Access to the throne of God is the foundation of all prayer.
All prayers must approach the throne.
Every true believer is welcome there.
God’s throne is a throne of grace, not a throne of judgment. We come to him through the blood of Christ. God doesn’t screen out unworthiness. He extends a hand of welcome. John 3:17 “For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him.”
Approach with confidence. We do not have to beg or grovel to get in. God is expecting us. He is glad we have come.
Approach with Imagination. Can you imagine yourself right in the throne room of heaven … glory filling the room…angels all around. God recognizes you … knows your name… smiles…extends a hand of welcome. You are an adopted son or daughter, you have a place in the royal family.
Approach with your own concerns … and also as an intercessor, praying for the needs of family, friends, neighbors, and co-workers. God wants to change us, and he wants to change our world.
Approach with praise. Praise God for making his grace and mercy available for the asking. Thank God that he welcomes you into his throne room. Ask God for the mercy and grace he generously offers you, and for the confidence you need so that you can pray effectively for yourself and others.
God is eager for us to pray! He provided a way for sin to be removed through Jesus’ blood. 1 John 1:9 “If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness.” Confess anything in your heart that is not of God. You can be confident that God will hear and answer your prayer.
We will learn to love to pray when we see what kind of relationship we have with God and how to grow in that relationship and to understand the welcome that God gives us in prayer.
4. When We Love to Pray, We Pray Persistently. Luke 18:1-8
We need this encouragement to pray with persistence because prayer is not always easy. In the face of delayed answers or personal difficulty, prayer can fall to the wayside. To pray persistently is to press our requests upon God with urgency and perseverance. It means praying boldly and with determination until the answer comes.
When Delay to Prayer Happens…
It is always with good reason.
It may be to deepen our faith and develop our character.
There may be a Divine timetable that seems slow to us.
It may be that we are asking from selfish motives.
Vandergriend “God has much to accomplish through you - In your world, in your church, in your family, and in your neighborhood. I urge you to partner with God through passionate, persistent prayer.”
Watchman Nee in Let Us Pray says that there are three components to prayer:
We ourselves
The God to whom we pray
Our enemy, Satan.
“Every true prayer is related to all three aspects.” In his book, he wrote about the parable in Luke 18:1-8, the persistent widow. “If there is no adversary, would this widow find it necessary to go to the judge? Yet she is driven to seek out the judge because she is oppressed by the adversary.” Asking for vengeance reveals that there are wrongs. They come from the oppression of the adversary: and thus is uncovered the deep enmity which exists between him and the widow. She has suffered at his hands. She asks for vengeance because of those wrongs.
“In one sense this adversary is the central figure of the parable. Without him there would be no disturbance created under the judicial rule of the judge; nor would the widow be troubled - she could live in peace.” - Nee
“We cannot stress too strongly how Christians today are wronged by the devil….what a pity that many of God’s children are still unaware of the oppression of Satan.” - Nee
Satan is often at work behind the scenes, through people or things.
Sometimes he weakens believers’ bodies, causing sickness and pain. Acts 10:38 “He went around doing good and healing all who were oppressed by the devil, because God was with him.”
Sometimes the enemy incites people of this world to persecute believers. Revelation 2:10 “Do not be afraid of the things you are about to suffer. The devil is about to have some of you thrown into prison so you may be tested, and you will experience suffering for ten days. Remain faithful even to the point of death, and I will give you the crown that is life itself.”
Sometimes the evil one works in the environment, involving believers in hardships and dangers.
Sometimes he will create misunderstandings among Christians so as to separate the dearest of friends and cause much heartbreak and tears.
Sometimes Satan will attack our appointed time of prayer, both private in the church. … Having our time of prayer fully occupied with other things, he will see to it that we do not have real prayer at that time.”
Nee lists many other ways that the enemy is at work and then says, “It is just impossible to exhaust the list of all the works the devil does.” He concludes this section by saying “In this parable the Lord Jesus teaches us the best way to overcome the adversary, which is to pray day and night to God - asking Him to avenge us of our enemy by judging him.”
Two examples of prayers that resist Satan: (Nee)
“O God, Your Son was manifested to destroy the worlds of the devil. How we thank you, for He has destroyed the devil’s works on the cross. But the devil is now again working. Please destroy his work in us, destroy his manipulation of our work, destroy his devices in our environment, and destroy all his works.”
“O Lord, we now stand on the foundation of the cross, asking You to again put the devil to shame.”
“Satan cannot deny but that great wonders have been wrought by prayer. As the spirit of prayer goes up, so his kingdom goes down.” – William Gurnall
The anonymous author of “The Kneeling Christian” “Do you realize that there is nothing the devil dreads so much as prayer? His great concern is to keep us from praying. He loves to see us ‘up to our eyes’ in work - provided we do not pray. He does not fear if we are eager Bible students - provided we are little in prayer. Someone has wisely said, ‘Satan laughs at our toiling, mocks at our wisdom, but trembles when we pray’”.
Conclusion
Prayer is the conversational part of the most important love relationship in our lives, our love relationship with the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. It is important to grow in that relationship. It is important to enter into his welcoming presence. It is vital to pray persistently, especially when the enemy seeks to prevent it.
Pete Grieg: “Prayer …at its simplest and most immediate…means asking God for help. It’s a soldier begging for courage, a soccer fan at the final, a mother alone in a hospital chapel.” God asks us to ask for at least three reasons: (Grieg)
The act of asking is relational in a way that mere wishing is not. Jesus is always more interested in friendship than in dispensing blessings to faceless souls.
Asking is necessary because it is vulnerable - it admits to some area of personal need.
Asking is intentional. It involves the activation of our wills. God comes where he is welcomed and waits to answer until he is called.He is not bothered by our asking, even when we come to him with the smallest details of our lives.
Jesus urges us to pray. Luke 11:9-10 “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; the one who seeks finds; and to the one who knocks, the door will be opened.” God likes to have his children ask.
“When I sit in my favorite chair for my morning devotions, I imagine my prayers ascending to the throne room of heaven, and I imagine God, in response, moving his hands in the places where my prayers direct. I imagine his power being released on the West Coast as I pray for family members, in our nation’s capital as I pray for government officials, in foreign lands as I pray for mission enterprises, and in the homes and hearts of my neighbors as I pray for them. My prayers can release a blessing or bring change anywhere in the world without my moving from that chair. What an awesome power God has given us!” - Alvin VanderGriend
That is what happens when we learn to love to pray.
Resources
Grieg, Pete. How To Pray: A Simple Guide for Normal People. NavPress, 2019.
Nee, Watchman. Let Us Pray. Christian Fellowship Publishers, 1977.
VanderGriend, Alvin. Love to Pray. PrayerShop Publishing, 2008.
Warren, Rick https://pastorrick.com/you-can-experience-friendship-with-god/
Zhang, Raphael https://ymi.today/2018/04/8-ways-to-build-a-friendship-with-god/
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