The Importance of Prayer

I am continually challenged by God about the importance of prayer. It started when I was preparing to lead a church for the first time, over 30 years ago. I realised my prayer life was not strong enough to sustain a church. I spent months reading about prayer and seeking to rebuild my prayer life.

Periodically I have felt called to encourage others to review their prayer life and to preach about prayer. I have recently been speaking to a friend of mine who is serving God in another nation about their prayer life, I am concerned for them that they are not developing their relationship with God in a way that will sustain a long-term ministry. There are already signs of strain.

Over the Summer we will be returning to the subject of prayer with a series of sermons inspired by this verse in Luke 11.

11 One day Jesus was praying in a certain place. When he finished, one of his disciples said to him, “Lord, teach us to pray, just as John taught his disciples.”

The disciples were eyewitnesses to Jesus’ life and ministry, yet we don’t see one recorded time in Scripture where they petitioned Jesus, “Teach us to preach.” We don’t see one recorded time where they said, “Teach us to heal,” “Teach us to prophesy,” or “Teach us to do miracles.” After spending three and a half years with the Son of God, they requested, “Lord, teach us to pray”.

This verse doesn’t just show us the impact that Jesus’s prayer life had on his followers, it also implies that we can learn to be more effective in prayer. My prayer is that over the next few months we will learn more about prayer as a church and as individuals by studying together Jesus’s prayers and his teaching on prayer.

I have always found the prayer of the early Christians recorded in Acts 4, a helpful model for prayer.

The believers pray.

23 On their release, Peter and John went back to their own people and reported all that the chief priests and the elders had said to them. 24 When they heard this, they raised their voices together in prayer to God. ‘Sovereign Lord,’ they said, ‘you made the heavens and the earth and the sea, and everything in them. 25 You spoke by the Holy Spirit through the mouth of your servant, our father David:

‘“Why do the nations rage
and the peoples plot in vain?
26 The kings of the earth rise up
and the rulers band together
against the Lord
and against his anointed one.” 

27 Indeed Herod and Pontius Pilate met together with the Gentiles and the people of Israel in this city to conspire against your holy servant Jesus, whom you anointed. 28 They did what your power and will had decided beforehand should happen. 29 Now, Lord, consider their threats and enable your servants to speak your word with great boldness. 30 Stretch out your hand to heal and perform signs and wonders through the name of your holy servant Jesus.’

31 After they prayed, the place where they were meeting was shaken. And they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and spoke the word of God boldly.

I am reminded of the importance of filling my mind with the greatness of God, “Sovereign Lord”, before “considering their threats”. Reminding ourselves of all that God has done, and how relatively insignificant the nations are, how men may plot but God is in control. Catching sight of God changes the content of my prayers.

We too face many threats, this passage encourages us to pray, filling our minds with who God is and what he has done and then bringing those threats to our all-powerful God. The passage also points to our need to be doing this both as individuals and as a church.

Over the Summer can I therefore encourage you to pray, to give some attention to your personal prayer life! As well as sermons looking at Jesus’s prayers and his teaching on prayer, we will be republishing a series of blogs on prayer to encourage you in this.