The Practice of Prayer

I am currently in the midst of a sermon series on the practice of prayer and how prayer works according to what God has revealed to us in the Bible.

The first sermon dealt with two fundamental points:

Point 1: We must pray because the will of God is not released for action until we do.

In Matt. 16:19, Jesus told His disciples, “I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven, and whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven.” (ESV) He repeated these words in Matt. 18:18.

2 Chron. 7:14 If My people who are called by My name will humble themselves, and pray and seek My face, and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin and heal their land. (NKJV)

Notice the contingency in the verse: If my people…pray…then…I will heal their land

We do not command God to do anything, but God seems to be willing to wait to see His will carried out based on our obedience to His command to pray.

I heard about a room is Heaven that will surprise all of us when we see it. The room has within it large boxes, each neatly decorated with a lovely ribbon on top, and with a label with each of our names on them. The label reads, “Never delivered to Earth because never requested from Earth.”

Point 2: We must pray according to God’s will and not our own.

In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus taught His disciples how to pray. He said, “Pray then like this: ‘Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name. Your kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.’” (Matt. 6:9-10, ESV)

So, we must pray to release God’s will, and we must pray according to God’s will.

The question, then, is “How do I pray God’s will?”

The short answer is that you must know God’s will – a subject for another lesson actually. We come to know God’s will by spending time with Him in prayer and by spending time studying His word.

Yet even then, we may struggle to know that we are praying God’s will. But God already knew that we would have this challenge. So He made provision for it, as He did for every other aspect of spiritual growth.

Romans 8:26-27 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 groanings which cannot be uttered. Now He who searches the hearts knows what the mind of the Spirit is, because He makes intercession for the saints according to the will of God.

How do we pray God’s will? We submit ourselves completely to the Holy Spirit who fills us and carries out the task of molding us into the image of the Son (Rom. 8:29). He who knows the thoughts and purposes of God (1 Cor. 2:10-11) brings to us the mind of Christ (1 Cor. 2:16).

As the Holy Spirit intercedes for us, He always prays according to the will of God.