Prayer
“Then He spoke a parable to them, that men always
ought to pray and not lose heart.”
Luke 18:1
The next tool to overcome this epidemic is prayer. For some reason many in the modern church and many modern Christians feel that praying is doing nothing. The value of prayer is no longer recognized nor is its power. We have lost faith in its effect on our lives and on the world. Our Lord said men ought to pray always and gave a parable to illustrate the point. He spoke of a woman who cried out for justice from an unjust judge and because of her constant pleas he granted her request. He goes on to say, “And shall God not avenge His own elect who cry out day and night to Him, though He bears long with them? I tell you that He will avenge them speedily. Nevertheless, when the Son of man comes will He really find faith on the earth.”[1]
So we are to pray continuously. We are to put our case for others before God day and night. This is part of our surrender to God that we do not rely on our own efforts. We should allow God to fix this fallen world and not think that our efforts will succeed without the guidance of God. We should not think that our wisdom and our ways are better than the wisdom and ways of God. God has a plan for this world and our job is to not attempt to substitute our plan for God’s, but to follow God’s plan. The problem for many is that God moves too slow for them. They require speedy results. The parable speaks of God bearing long with us or being patient with us. The thing is that we do not have patience to see God work. If God does not work on our timetable, we go with plan B. We have already discussed earlier how our plan B’s have worked out for us. For an example let us look at the abortion question, there are those who feel they have a right to bomb clinics and kill innocents. Where does God say that we have the right to kill to save? The people doing the violence proclaim to be born again Christians. They have replaced the Word of God with the passion of man. Is it wrong to abort a fetus? In my opinion, the answer is yes. God says to pray for them not to kill them.
One of the main reasons prayer has lost its power is because we have lost our faith in prayer. Our Lord was continuously in prayer.[2] The Bible speaks of Abraham who prayed and a whole family was healed.[3] Not only have many lost their faith in prayer, many no longer have the obedience to pray. So many today believe that Christ did not have any commandments, so there is no need for obedience. Many in the modern church should realize that there is power in obedience. We can do all the things that Christ said we would be able to do if we could only learn to obey. The reason Christ was able to accomplish all He did was that He obeyed the Father in all He did. He only did what the Father commanded Him to do. Today because of our “so-called” medical and social professionals, many have diluted the Word of God. There is now this “easy gospel” where if you do not agree with the Word of God keep shopping until you find a church that says what you want to hear. The pitfall of creating your own religion is you can make it anyway you want it to be. Prayer has become the lost gift of the church. In the beginning everything was done by prayer. The scriptures say that, “And they continued steadfastly in the apostles teaching and fellowship, in the breaking of bread and in prayers.[4] So we see that the earliest believers were steadfast in prayer and following the teachings of Christ through the apostles. Why do many today think it will be any different for us. I do not think we can overestimate the power of prayer for changing not just the world, but our hearts and minds.
Prayers most important work is not to change the world, although it does that. Its most important work is changing us. It is to bring our thoughts and hearts into the will of God, that we may serve Him and not the other way around. Many prayers today are not for us to be of service to God, but to have God be of service to us. Oh God we need this or that, we need a miracle or some blessing. The apostle Paul did not pray for wants he said, “…whatever state I am in I need to be content.”[5] Do not change the world God, change me. How many of us pray in this fashion? And we wonder why we do not have any power.
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