Beloved Kinney,
As you know, I’ve been doing a blog series on prayer. A few weeks ago, I provided a working definition of prayer. Here’s what I said: Prayer is our word-response to God’s initiating word that expresses our faith-filled dependence on him, as his redeemed children.
We’ve explored what it means that God initiates his word to us. Then we talked about how
prayer is our word response to God. Let’s now briefly press into the part of the definition that says prayer “expresses our faith-filled dependence on him.”
This is not hard to discern from Scripture. Every single prayer you read in Scripture (and there is a whole book of prayers called the Psalms!) demonstrates that prayer is (or at least ought to be) our verbal expression of faith-dependence on God.
Michael Reeves, in his wonderful book Enjoy Your Prayer Life, says it well: “…prayer is the
primary way true faith expresses itself.” (Reeves, 12) One of the key ways we show that we
believe God is all powerful is that we pray. Prayer is essential to demonstrating that we trust
God loves us because we know he hears us and he is inclined to meet our needs. When we prayer, we’re showing we really believe God is omniscient—he knows all things! How could he not, if he can hear my prayer in my head and he can hear the innumerable prayers of people all over the world simultaneously.
Prayer is our faith-filled dependence on God. Now, think of what it means when we don’t
pray. Reeves says, “This…means that prayerlessness is practical atheism, demonstrating a lack of belief in God.” Wow. Convicting. When we’re not praying about what’s going on in our home or in our jobs or in our friendships or in our church, we hare ACTING as if there is no God. Of course, we know God exists! That’s an essential belief to Christianity! BUT far too many Christians pray far too little, and such prayerlessness reveals, in those moments, we are not believing who God is like we ought.
So let us strive to cultivate faith-filled, dependent prayers like we hear in Psalm 63:1, “O God, you are my God; earnestly I seek you; my soul thirsts for you; my flesh faints for you, as in a dry and weary land where there is no water.” Or consider a prayer of the early church in Acts 4, “…they lifted their voices together to God and said, ‘Sovereign Lord, who made the heaven and the earth and the sea and everything in them…’”
May we be a church who prays often and earnestly from hearts of faith-filled dependence on God.
Love,
Pastor Josh
As you know, I’ve been doing a blog series on prayer. A few weeks ago, I provided a working definition of prayer. Here’s what I said: Prayer is our word-response to God’s initiating word that expresses our faith-filled dependence on him, as his redeemed children.
We’ve explored what it means that God initiates his word to us. Then we talked about how
prayer is our word response to God. Let’s now briefly press into the part of the definition that says prayer “expresses our faith-filled dependence on him.”
This is not hard to discern from Scripture. Every single prayer you read in Scripture (and there is a whole book of prayers called the Psalms!) demonstrates that prayer is (or at least ought to be) our verbal expression of faith-dependence on God.
Michael Reeves, in his wonderful book Enjoy Your Prayer Life, says it well: “…prayer is the
primary way true faith expresses itself.” (Reeves, 12) One of the key ways we show that we
believe God is all powerful is that we pray. Prayer is essential to demonstrating that we trust
God loves us because we know he hears us and he is inclined to meet our needs. When we prayer, we’re showing we really believe God is omniscient—he knows all things! How could he not, if he can hear my prayer in my head and he can hear the innumerable prayers of people all over the world simultaneously.
Prayer is our faith-filled dependence on God. Now, think of what it means when we don’t
pray. Reeves says, “This…means that prayerlessness is practical atheism, demonstrating a lack of belief in God.” Wow. Convicting. When we’re not praying about what’s going on in our home or in our jobs or in our friendships or in our church, we hare ACTING as if there is no God. Of course, we know God exists! That’s an essential belief to Christianity! BUT far too many Christians pray far too little, and such prayerlessness reveals, in those moments, we are not believing who God is like we ought.
So let us strive to cultivate faith-filled, dependent prayers like we hear in Psalm 63:1, “O God, you are my God; earnestly I seek you; my soul thirsts for you; my flesh faints for you, as in a dry and weary land where there is no water.” Or consider a prayer of the early church in Acts 4, “…they lifted their voices together to God and said, ‘Sovereign Lord, who made the heaven and the earth and the sea and everything in them…’”
May we be a church who prays often and earnestly from hearts of faith-filled dependence on God.
Love,
Pastor Josh
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