How to Pray

Over the past couple of weeks, I have been discussing prayer and how it has been the primary catalyst that has spawned every revival throughout history. I have also touched on the power of prayer in the life of the believer.

This week, I wanted to spend some time discussing how to pray or what we should be saying to God when we are alone in our prayer closet. Do not feel embarrassed or ashamed if you have come to this blog without a good understanding of how to pray. Many have asked this same question, including the apostles in the Gospel of Matthew chapter 6. Jesus responded by giving them the Lord’s Prayer, which is also known as the “Our Father.”

This prayer that Jesus shared was not meant to be a ritualistic saying that would be recited verbatim daily to God but was given as the pattern for our prayer life. God Himself has said that He is not interested in the vain repetition of words (Matthew 6:7) but in our heart attitude toward Him when we pray.

John MacArthur has a wonderful series of messages on the Lord’s Prayer in which he breaks down the prayer line by line and explains how to incorporate each wonderful truth into your prayer life. I would highly recommend you spend some time reading these messages so you can better understand how the Lord Himself told us to approach the throne room of God.

I also wanted to mention that prayer by nature is designed to bring us into the presence of the Living God that we may be transformed by Him. Prayer should never be approached with the thought that God is some type of sugar daddy waiting to give us every want and desire as some so called Christian movements would have you to believe.

Even a cursory reading of the Bible will reveal that when God’s people prayed, they most often reminded God of His words and promises to His people. Very rarely do you find a man or woman of God in the Bible praying anything that was not somehow related to God's Word or nature. And this is why the relationship between prayer and God’s Word is so critical. The Word of God enables us to know the mind of God which then transforms our prayers into petitions that are in accordance with His will.

I have often thought of how many prayers God hears on a daily basis from unbelievers asking for protection, healing, finances, etc. While God does answer these requests at times from non-believers, he is not obligated to answer them. He is, however, obligated by His very Word to answer believers when they pray.

It is God Himself who has set up the institution of prayer. It is Him who commands us to pray unceasingly, fervently, and earnestly for all things. E.M. Bounds states in his book, The Weapon of Prayer, “Prayer puts God’s work in His hands, and keeps it there. It looks to Him constantly and depends on Him implicitly to further His own cause. Prayer is but faith resting in, acting with, and leaning on and obeying God. This is why God loves it so well, why He puts all power into its hands, and why He so highly esteems men of prayer.”

I truly believe the way to have a more fruitful prayer life is to immerse yourself in the Word of God. The two just cannot be divorced from each other. If you are trying to figure out where to begin, I would suggest you start with the Book of Psalms which is found in the Old Testament. The Psalms are songs and prayers to God. I often pray them myself to God when I find that I do not have any words of my own. Psalms 23 and 91 are wonderful Psalms that speak of God’s protection and sovereignty.

You could also read the gospels (Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John found at the beginning of the New Testament) if you want to know Jesus’ words so you can remember and recall them when you are praying. The more you know God’s Word, the more you will be able to effectively pray for God’s will in all things.

Please feel free to comment to let me know how your prayer life is progressing. I hope and pray that these last few blogs on prayer have been a blessing.

Considering the Literary Brilliance of the Bible

I have always been a lover of literature since I was a child and consider myself a lifelong student of the English language. Two years ago I took a Bible course called Hermeneutics, which is a fancy name that simply means the study of interpretation theory. In this case, it was the study of how to interpret the Bible. I found the course fascinating because it broke down the Bible into several categories that needed to be considered when approaching the interpretation of any portion of Scripture. These categories included the text’s historical setting, geographic location, cultural aspects and its use of linguistics. It is this last category that I wanted to spend some time discussing.

It is an amazing thing to consider that the Bible, written over a period of fifteen hundred years, has a common theme - the redemption of sinful man by a gracious and loving God. Approximately forty men, from Moses to the Apostle John were Bible writers from circa 1500 BC to 100 AD.

The Bible is what one person has called a "linguistic incarnation" as it is 100% the word of man and 100% the word of God, as God used men to write down His thoughts in the same way a businessman uses a secretary. He allowed them to put these thoughts in their own words, but the men themselves were inspired (2 Peter 1:20-21). The authors differed in many ways. Some were Pharisees, including the Apostle Paul. Others were fishermen, such as Peter and John. Matthew was a tax collector. David was the King of Israel. Amos was a shepherd from Judah. Although their backgrounds and occupations were vastly different, God used these men to accomplish his will as each one used their life experience and individual talents to pen their respective books.

It may surprise you to know that the Bible contains 8,000 figures of speech! A figure of speech is simply a word or a sentence thrown into a peculiar form, different from its original or simplest meaning or use. If we say "It is raining hard," we are using a normal, plain statement. But if we say, "It is raining cats and dogs," we have used a sentence that means the same thing but is a more unusual or colorful way of expressing the same thought. The Bible is filled with metaphors, similes and other figures of speech to convey God’s message to its readers in a palatable and memorable way.

The Bible also employs several genres or literary writing styles, including narratives, legal writings, poetry, wisdom literature, gospel writings, epistolary (letters), and prophetic literature.

The Book of Psalms, often called the hymn book of the Bible, is its most poetic. William E. Gladstone, who was prime minister of England during the 18th century, had this to say about the Psalms, "All the wonders of Greek civilization heaped together are less wonderful than is the simple Book of Psalms."

There may not be a more captivating and thrilling chapter in the Bible than Ezekiel chapter one, where the prophet describes in explicit detail his vision of the Lord coming in a whirlwind. The entire book of Revelation uses wonderful imagery and symbolism to convey the Great Day of the Lord and Christ’s triumphant return to the earth. The four synoptic gospels all detail the life and ministry of Jesus Christ as each writer skillfully depicts a different aspect of the Savior, from His deity to His humanity to His coming kingdom. Then there is the Book of Ruth, a love story from other days, which moves the reader from tragic heartbreak at its outset to overflowing joy at its conclusion in just four short chapters.

Alas, I do not have the time or space to touch on the literary brilliance of each book of the Bible, but would encourage you to begin reading it if you never have in the past. So many people believe the errant perception that the writers of the Bible were old men that offer nothing of value for our present age. This statement could not be more false. Quite simply, the Bible is the divine communicating to the human, conveying His message of salvation through every genre of the human language.

"If I were asked what has been the most powerful force in the making of history, I should have answered figurative expression. It is by imagination that men have lived; imagination rules all our lives. The human mind is not, as philosophers would have you think, a debating hall, but a picture gallery. Remove the figurative expressions from the Bible and its living spirit vanishes…the prophets, the poets, the leaders of men are all of them masters of imagery, and by imagery they capture the human soul." - W. MacNeil Dixon, Professor of English Literature at the University of Glasgow