Why We Pray

I realize every person is unique, and we all have individual things we enjoy and the things we count as simply nothing worse than drudgery. Prayer is one of the things I’m thinking about this morning. As a child, we learned to pray over our foods, at the end of the day before sleep, and at church – and then it was often someone else “leading” in prayer.

But if you think about your beliefs, and what prayer actually is, then the action of communicating with our God is more than simply the act of contrition and supplication at set times and for specific reasons.

In reality, prayer is conversing with God and listening to His response. It’s more than a time and place, it becomes our hourly and continual conversation with God. Moment by moment, a choice we make to include God, or not.

The Early Church

One of the key ingredients of the early church that seems to be lacking in the modern church is the act of prayer. Repeatedly, in the book of Acts, we find that they prayed about every issue you could imagine. From making decisions about where to go, or what to do, or how to have victory – I believe their prayers made them a powerful church.

Prayer was not the only thing they did, they involved themselves in discipleship, fellowship, and communion! (Acts 2:42) What would our lives be liked if we had prayer as the main event when we learned to be disciples or had fellowship, or before we enjoyed communion.

They were not connected with worldwide events through technology, but they were very connected to God for everything they did.

What Is Prayer

To many, the word prayer has become an “adjective” to modify another word … Prayer… Chains, rooms, requests, calendars, bracelet, pendant, bible, etc.

Have we made prayer a thing that only is done in conjunction with some other “process.” It’s not an act that requires a room, a calendar, a partner, or a bracelet. It’s not something that can only be done in tandem with a worship service, a bible study, or a meal. It is an activity which ought to be engaged, all by itself, as an all-consuming, all-out passion and top priority of every believer.

Prayer is simply “dialogue” with God.

Dialogue (Latin, “converse with“) is meant to be a two-way process – we have one tongue and two ears, Could it simply be that we ought to listen more than we talk? Perhaps this also shows the problem in many conversations. where someone dominates and everyone else has to sit back and listen. When that happens, I suspect we can think of the person doing the talking as if they were giving a speech, telling a long story, or reading aloud from a book…

Prayer involves talking to God
and then listening for His direction and answers!

What I have to share is not new, rather, I think it’s something we need to keep before our mind and eyes so that prayer is our focus more than just about any other way we connect to the world!

Praying in One Accord

These all continued with one accord in prayer and supplication,
with the women and Mary the mother of Jesus, and with His brothers.
Acts 1:14

The Greek word for “with one accord” is translated as “with one mind.” This one word describes the harmony of the early church! As of this scripture, there were no schisms, no divided interests, and no discordant purposes. That comes later as the church became more complex, but if we think about it, even in a convoluted world this is a missing harmony that I believe can be found when the church gets into one mind.

Too easily we draw the line between our schisms, theology, doctrine, and practices. Imagine David writing to Israel in one of his Psalms.

Behold, how good and how pleasant it is
for brethren to dwell together in unity!
Psalms 133:1

The apostles felt that they had one great focus – prayer. They suffered through their grief at the loss of their master, along with their doubts and perplexities, they prayed with one mind!

A Little History

Think about all the struggles they encountered during the 3.5 years of being the disciples of their Master, Jesus. Include the arrest, persecution, trial and death sentence. Now, imagine the Risen Christ.

• They had spent the past 40 days with the resurrected Jesus. (Acts 1:3)
• They gather with Jesus on the Mount of Olives (hence my blog picture) and Jesus told them they would receive power when the Holy Spirit comes upon them (Acts 1:8).
• Jesus ascends into heaven, leaving the disciples looking up. (Acts 1:9)
• They are told by two men (angels), don’t gaze into heaven. He will return! (Acts 1:10-11)

Returning to the upper room, I’m sure they nudged each other, “Now, what?” Equally, I’m sure they looked to Peter for direction. He addresses the followers (Acts 1:15-22) and they prayed for the replacement of Judas. (Acts 1:23-24) For the next number of days (estimated to be about 10 days), they spent time together preparing themselves to “receive the spirit”.

I wonder what they did? Life kept moving forward. The Feast of Pentecost was upon them. I’m sure they stayed together, praying, and waiting!

Skip Ahead a Few Years

The Apostle Paul is now the outreach evangelist to the Gentile world and he continues this theme in many ways, but none more so than in one of his letters.

Be anxious for nothing,
but in everything by prayer and supplication, with thanksgiving,
let your requests be made known to God;
Philippians 4:6

Praying in one accord speaks does not remove your individual passion to prayer, rather is brings all individual strengths into the full assembly of praying people and the joint prayer is stronger than their single prayer.

The early church will eventually fade from the written word that we call our Bible, but we know through historical writings that Prayer was first a foremost a priority in everything the church did.

Bring It To Today

If we are going to be effective in the work of God and our collective and individual witness for the kingdom… We need corporate prayer! Without corporate prayer we are perhaps weaker, having the entire burden of the need carried upon a single individual. It would almost be like a person in a sports stadium who is the only one to stand and do the “wave” – it is so much more effective when all participate!

Remember. After these days of prayer together the presence of God descends upon that group and the Church is Born! (Acts 2:1-4) I believe we see the fulfilled promise of Jesus to His Church … Empowerment by the Spirit, as a result of  “with one accord” praying!

Praying Before Making Decisions

And they prayed and said, “You, O Lord, who know the hearts of all,
show which of these two You have chosen to take part
in this ministry and apostleship…”
Acts 1:24-25

They gathered together … now 120 strong (Acts 1:15) … to pray about the replacement of Judas. The choice was between two men – Joseph called Barsabas (Justus) and Matthias. What a decision to make! Who would you have chosen? They were both godly good men. Rather than deciding by themselves, they prayed! Together! They did not want man’s desires, favor or intellect to lead to an answer! Still, they voted individually trusting that the Lord was leading them to the correct choice.

As individuals and church, we constantly have to make decisions that not only impact our lives but those around us. How are we to decide what to do? Let us follow the example of the early church.

• Decisions need to Bible-based. (Acts 1:20)
• Examine the alternatives. (Acts 1:21-23)
• Pray for wisdom and guidance. (Acts 1:24)

This was a New Testament Focus

James approaches this concept of praying for wisdom with a command that we are to ask of God when we have no wisdom in the matter.

If any of you lacks wisdom,
let him ask of God, who gives to all liberally and without reproach,
and it will be given to him.
But let him ask in faith, with no doubting,
for he who doubts is like a wave of the sea driven and tossed by the wind.
For let not that man suppose that he will receive anything from the Lord;
he is a double-minded man, unstable in all his ways.
James 1:5-8

Doesn’t it stand to reason that the decisions we make should be based upon the wisdom and guidance of God rather than the whims and notions of man? We stay constantly prayed up, and thusly, our choices are better!

Think About This Example

One pastor noted that it seemed to be common for someone in the church to come and state that they felt it was time for them to move on (out of state), and they had been praying about it. “Pastor, will you pray with us?” Peeking into the parking lot, the pastor sees the car packed, the trailer attached to the car, the kids tussling in the back seat, and the spouse is looking at her watch wishing the husband would hurry back out to the car…

This sort of makes you wonder how many prayers went into the decision, how much advice was sought before the car was packed, and it makes you question the stability of the person in all the areas of their life! Read again that last verse of James…

Rash decisions call into question all decisions!

Purposeful and prayerful decisions bring a sense of stability to the person who is asking of God!

Praying Until Something Happens

And when they had prayed, the place where they were assembled together was shaken; and they were all filled with the Holy Spirit, and they spoke the word of God with boldness.
Acts 4:31

The disciples went from praying for power and discernment to praying for boldness. The world is always trying to silence the witnesses of the Lord Jesus.

• The early disciples are threatened to not speak or teach in the name of Jesus. (Acts 4:18)
• Peter & Co. say they cannot help but to speak the things they have seen and heard. (Acts 4:19-20)
• Prayer meeting like no other shook the place. (Acts 4:24-30)
• This prayer meeting equally asked for “holy boldness” to Speak the Word! (Acts 4:28-29)

“And when they had prayed …”  The place was shaken (stirred up; to be moved). God physically shook the building they were in. But more than the building was shaken that night!! I believe their hearts and souls were shaken and became the hotbed of Christianity that may be missing from many churches today.

What’s Missing

I believe Prayer is the missing ingredient in many individual churches today, and in Christianity as a whole. We have “formalized” our lives to keep prayers over our food, before we sleep, and led times of corporate prayer, but we have missed the ongoing effect of constantly praying for God’s will in everything we do! We seldom have a “moving and a stirring” of the Spirit. Our prayers are not fervently offered, nor righteously utilized. Without these two keys, how can we be the witness and do the work for the Lord Jesus?

The ironies of prayer are evident:

• God knows our needs, yet we must ask.
• God is ready to answer, yet we must patiently persist.

It is in the book of James that we are reminded that we do not have because we do not ask (James 4:2) and that we ask for incorrect things (James 4:3) so that it satisfies our own lusts. As well as having the wrong motives in our time of prayer, we often limit prayer to a single event or a few moments of time.

But it is the Apostle Paul who tells us to “pray without ceasing” (1 Thessalonians 5:17) This tells me prayer is an ongoing process constantly connected to God for everything that is going on around and in us. Paul emphasizes the persistence of prayer, as did Jesus in His teaching

Then He spoke a parable to them,
that men always ought to pray and not lose heart,
Luke 18:1

Persistence is the key!

Wait! Hold the presses! What parable did Jesus teach to make the emphasis of persistent prayer a focus for us? Simple. It was a widow woman who persistently came to a judge asking for justice! She asked often, and “troubled” the judge! She didn’t let it go and finally, the judge gave in to her requests.

I’ll have to give her justice.
Otherwise, she’ll keep coming to me until she wears me out.'”
Luke 18:5 GW

This is not my teaching! It’s straight from the framework of prayer as presented by Jesus! Persistence is the key!

Finally!

We live in a day where decisions are based upon too little prayer and too much working it out for ourselves. Still, we do not want to be stymied by indecision.  As one person states it, “Making no decision is truly making a decision…” We get caught up into “analysis paralysis” and we are good at analyzing everything to the -nth degree, but never making a decision to move in one direction or another. “Lead, Follow, Or Get Out Of My Way…” is a favorite bumper sticker. We get stuck behind our own inability to make decisions and create a traffic mess around us with those who are struggling with their own choices! We have created a traffic jam!

I am encouraging all of us to make Prayer a strong statement in our personality of daily life and its myriad of decisions. Do not try to time your prayer to some clock, nor try to make all the nifty little reminder attachments to our schedule to remind us to pray…

Just Pray.
By yourself and with others.
With One Accord.
Without Ceasing.
About Everything (unless you have the wisdom to act).
And God… Will Give…