Privileged to Pray

Prayer is powerful. But the power is found in He who hears and answers them according to His will.

“For with God, nothing will be impossible.” Luke 1:37 NKJV

(Another) one of the things that the Almighty Father has put on my heart lately is a desire to grow and develop in my prayer life. Prayer is yet another way we can draw closer to Him, know Him better, and it is an area I have often neglected.

I have been reading a lot in the Bible as to what the Lord says about how important prayer really is, and have been praying to “get better” at praying. (Ha Ha)

But it’s not really getting better that I seek; it’s more about getting real in my prayer time with my Heavenly Father.

It’s about letting go of all of my preconceived notions of how my words should flow, and the order in which I should approach things, and instead, allow the Holy Spirit to guide me and lead me. Oh yah…..the Holy Spirit is part of God, so there’s power there as well –  (funny how I keep temporarily forgetting that!)

Once again, I am called to let go of the perceived power I thought I had of self,  and asking the Lord to provide me with His supernatural power to see more of Him, who He is, and what He’d like for my prayer time to look like.

It’s about asking Him see my heart and feel my heart – not just my words. The Holy Spirit lives in there – so who better to help me than that?

“Likewise the Spirit also helps in our weaknesses. For we do not know what we should pray for as  we ought, but the Spirit Himself makes intercession for us with groaning which cannot be uttered.” Romans 8:26 NKJV

There are three specific things the Lord has placed on my heart lately about prayer. I am still only at the beginning stages of what He will show me through this,  but I am excited about it all and looking forward to seeing His truth.

First, He has continued to bring me back to the blessed reminder of the fact that we actually have a model for our prayer life in Jesus.  I was just reading this part of scripture last night in my devotions, (Matthew 6:9-13) and then tonight at church, it was this same area of scripture that we went over as a community of believers as our congregation focused on prayer together. (God has been doing that a lot in my life lately, and I think it is so cool!)

Rather than saying the exact prayer as it is in the Bible (which we can do if we want to), I see this passage as emphasizing the fact that there are certain characteristics that our prayer life and our specific prayers should display to the Lord:

• We are to pray in reverence to our Father and His Holy Name….in praise of all that He is and all that we are in Him.
• We are to pray that HIS will be done….here, and everywhere, just as it is in heaven. (This means sometimes we don’t get the answers we were hoping for, but He still will always answer – even if that answer is “no.”)
• We are to pray for our needs and the needs of others for the day (according to HIS will)
• We are to pray with the utmost of faith that He will answer us (again, according to HIS will).
• We are to ask for forgiveness and be transparent with Him about what we need Him to help us to remove from our lives (sin = barriers), and ask for HIS power to help us forgive others that have hurt us.
• We are to pray to be delivered from evil…..in our hearts, in our lives, in the world.

Bottom Line: We are to pray with faith, gratitude, and for HIS glory and HIS will to be done. We are to remember in whom the power of prayer lies.

First order of business is always to get our hearts right – this means making sure they are right in relation to others so they can be right in relation to God. It also means approaching the Lord with a spirit of praise and thanksgiving. Keeping the Jesus model of prayer in mind is really helping me with this.

Second, (and this is related to the getting the heart right part of things) the Lord has really been nudging me to get rid of all the things that are hindering my prayer life and time spent with Him. All the distractions, the peripheral cares and worries of the day or the one that’s coming tomorrow, the noise around me and within my own mind, and the seeds of ugliness that I have been carrying around in my heart that impede me from total transparency – they all need to go.

This is probably my greatest challenge. I would ask that you pray for me in this, my friends. At this point, I have been just looking upon the verse I have been reading in the Bible, then stopping, opening up dialogue with the Lord, and then shutting my mouth and being as still as I possibly can. I am not doing a very good job, mind you, but it’s a process.

This is something also that I truly need the supernatural help of the Holy Spirit in, for I struggle immensely with being still any where, any time. If I cannot be still before the Lord, who can I ever be still with? I am convinced that being still is key to being able to listen. And I need to listen in my prayer life much more than I need to talk or be listened to. One of the verses I say over and over in my head all the time is Psalm 46:10…

“Be still and know that I am God.”

I must need that one – A LOT. I thank God for giving it to me.

Finally, I truly have been moved to pray more effectively and more consistently for others. I have been asking for God to break my heart for other people in the world, to deepen my love for them – so that I can approach my prayer for them with a truly pleading and beseeching spirit. I want to be desperate for others out of love for them, and this too, I am not equipped to be of my own power. I need God’s love and an extra-large dose of it for this!

This last thing isn’t only important to me because it is something I have prayed for in my own life – to want to pray for others – but it is important to God. He actually commands us to pray for others. That always tells me that he deems it to be quite a high priority.

“Moreover, as for me, far be it from me that I should sin against the Lord in ceasing to pray for you, but I will teach you the good and right way.”  1 Samuel 12:23 NKJV

It has helped me to realize that it is not only commanded that I come before the throne of the Lord on behalf of others, but that it is a privilege to do so also. I don’t have to be gifted with special “prayer warrior” abilities to have a heart for the people of the world and go to the Almighty regarding their lives, troubles, heartaches, and needs. I can have faith that the Holy Spirit will help me to pray for them, and that the Lord will be glorified as all will be done according to His will, His timing and His purpose. On top of it all, it’s yet another way we get to watch God’s will come to life outside of ourselves, and in the lives of others around us….that too, is so very awesome!

So today, I “share about prayer” and all that is on my heart about it because it is yet another wonderful reminder of the wondrous sacrifice that Jesus made for us on the cross – which is what is most important in life. Because of the fact that Jesus died for our sins and rose again, the gap that existed between ourselves and God has been closed if we have accepted Christ as our Savior.

Jesus Christ is our ultimate mediator – and He is the reason that we have the privilege to pray. “For there is one God and one Mediator between God and men, the Man Christ Jesus” 1 Timothy 2:5 NKJV

Prayer is powerful. But the power is found in He who hears and answers them according to His will.

Photo Credit sinna_hime_chan via Fanpop

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