An Effective Prayer Life

Do you pray like this? There is something deep and profound about this prayer. This man has learned how to communicate with his God. When we look at the many prayers recorded in the scriptures by godly men, I feel very inadequate in my prayers. Their prayers just seem to be different; on a higher level than my own.

Why? Why does it seem that my communication to my Creator is inadequate?

Some reasons why our prayer life is not too effective:

I. We just haven’t fully realized the importance of prayer.

1. Jesus

Prayer was important to our Lord. Prayer was so important to our Lord that He prayed at least once all night long before His choosing of the 12 (). And He made sure that he spent time alone with the Father in prayer ().

But Jesus Himself would often slip away to the wilderness and pray. (NASB95)

At the darkest moment of his earthly existence, He spent time in prayer; in the garden before his suffering; while he was on the cross. If you knew that you were going to die tomorrow, would the first thing that you would think of doing is go to God in prayer for a long period of time?

Jesus was transfigured while he was praying. There was just something so different about our Lord’s prayer life that the disciples, men who surely grew up praying as Jews, came to Jesus and asked Him to teach them to pray.

2. The Disciples

What did prayer mean to the 1st century disciples? The Apostles in viewed prayer as an important thing. Widows were being overlooked. What a terrible thing. They came to the Apostles and asked them to take care of this situation, but they responded in v2, there is something more important that we have to do. In verse 4 they say “we will devote ourselves to prayer and to the ministry of the word!” They had something more important to do than wait tables, so they appointed others to do the work.

How would we respond if we went to a preacher in a congregation that we were a member of to tell them of a few widows that have been overlooked in being fed, and the preacher said, I can’t take care of this, I need to spend time in prayer?

Would we respond something like this: What do you mean that you need to spend time in prayer? You can pray at any time! You can pray on your way to help the widows! This is important! The Apostles said “we will devote ourselves to prayer.”

If we were in the situation of the Apostles, we would more than likely put off our time to pray till later to take care of the problem at hand. If you are like me, our time with God in prayer can easily be put on hold if something comes up. We can pray double later, which hardly ever happens when we think that to ourselves.

In we are told many things that the disciples devoted themselves to:

“They were continually devoting themselves to the apostles' teaching and to fellowship, to the breaking of bread and to prayer.”

Prayer was important to 1st century Christians. Prayer just isn’t as much of a priority to us that it was to the Apostles and disciples in the NT.

Is prayer important enough to us that we would be willing to give up things important to us for a period of time to spend time with the Lord in prayer? (Food, Husband and Wife relations ())

Why did they spend all of this time in prayer? They all saw their need for God!

II. Time in the word

Another reason that our prayer lives may not be as effective as they could be is because we don’t consistently spend time in God’s word. I believe that receiving God’s communication to us through His word is vital to our communication to Him. I’ll look at just 2 of the many reasons why:

1. The word reveals to us who God is

We need to know the God who we are talking to so we can learn to trust in this God like we should. If we don’t spend as much time in the scriptures as we should, our prayer life just won’t be up to par. I think it is true to say that the more we allow the Lord to speak to us through his word the more we will desire to speak to Him. The more you know someone, the more you want to talk to them.

We need a daily reminder of who it is that we serve and trust in. He is our Creator, He is in control of what happens in our lives. He is the one that gives hope and forgiveness; and He will be our judge. And the amazing thing about our God is: He cares for us and He wants us to trust in Him and to approach Him as a child does to their Father:

“Therefore humble yourselves under the mighty hand of God, that He may exalt you at the proper time, 7 casting all your anxiety on Him, because He cares for you.” (NASB95)

Knowing about God’s power and what He knows and sees in us should not lead us to hide from Him, but to draw near to Him. I’m sure that we all have had times since we have become a Christian that we have just felt too ashamed to pray to the Lord because of things that have been going on in our lives. But He is the only one that can lift us up out of those situations. Satan loves it when we don’t desire to pray to God. He wants us to deal with our problems and sins alone. But when we pray, Satan has no power over us because we are bringing the Lord into the circumstances of our lives.

Knowing the great spiritual war that is before us in this life, should we not pray to the one who alone can help us win in the battle? The more we learn about who the Lord is the more we will learn to ask the question, “What reasons do we have not to pray to our God?”

2. The word reveals to us who we are

The word of God shows us not only who our God truly is, but also who we truly are. We need to see ourselves as we are. The hard thing to do for us is to honestly examine ourselves and our need for someone other than ourselves. We like to feel independent sometimes, but nothing could be further from the truth! We need the Lord, and the scriptures make that clear. We could look at many verses in the bible to show this, but I think that they are all summed up in the fact that we are sheep in need of a shepherd.

This text is just so loved by all. It just fills us with comfort and joy. God is the shepherd, we are the sheep. I’ve been thinking about this relationship. Have you ever thought of what this says about us as the sheep? Truthfully, that is not too complimentary! Sheep are weak and helpless. They are natural prey. They have no natural defenses. They constantly are going astray. Sometimes a sheep might fall onto its side, and start kicking and screaming because it cannot get back on its feet. It will dig its way into a bush to get one cusp of grass and then get caught there. It will start twisting and turning to get out, usually making the situation worse. It will get to the point where it is just so exhausted and collapse. Sheep are dirty, cannot clean or take care of themselves. They left to themselves would graze the same patch of land until there is nothing left. They will graze the same streams until they are contaminated and full of parasites. Left to themselves, sheep will kill themselves.

is a beautiful psalm about our God and our relationship to him, but it also says something about us, we are sheep. It says something about us that few are willing to grasp and embrace and bring to ourselves. We are in need of care and guidance, and without our shepherd, there is no hope! We would left to ourselves die spiritually! We can fall into the danger of thinking we are doing good on our own, and sometimes we need God to give us that little extra nudge to make us better. But that is not what sheep are like. They are utterly dependant, and we need to be also!

But I am afflicted and needy; Hasten to me, O God! You are my help and my deliverer; O LORD, do not delay.

We are helpless without our Shepherd!

The king is not saved by a mighty army; A warrior is not delivered by great strength. 17 A horse is a false hope for victory; Nor does it deliver anyone by its great strength. 18 Behold, the eye of the LORD is on those who fear Him, On those who hope for His lovingkindness, 19 To deliver their soul from death And to keep them alive in famine.

We just cannot be powerful enough to take care of ourselves against the enemy. Satan will devour us if we think that. We are defenseless and natural prey without the Lord.

We need to be honest about who we are and see our need for God! Knowing that we are only sheep, we need to see our need for prayer

The scriptures are so important to our prayer life because it shows us these things about God and ourselves. If we want to have an effective prayer life, we need to be careful not to choke the word of God out of our lives like we often do.

WE MUST SEE THE IMPORTANCE OF PRAYER AND THE IMPORTANCE OF BIBLE READING AND STUDY IF WE ARE GOING TO BE EFFECTIVE COMMUNICATORS TO OUR GOD

"If you abide in Me, and My words abide in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be done for you. (NASB95)

III. Our Lives aren’t what they need to be

I don’t know about you, but for me, the times when it is the hardest for me to pray, and to do so consistently and fervently is when my life is not up to par, whether that be by sin or by inactivity or laziness on my part spiritually.

A. Sin

We know what sin does to our relationship with the Lord. The Lord speaking to his people in

1 Behold, the LORD'S hand is not so short That it cannot save; Nor is His ear so dull That it cannot hear. 2 But your iniquities have made a separation between you and your God, And your sins have hidden His face from you so that He does not hear. 3 For your hands are defiled with blood And your fingers with iniquity; Your lips have spoken falsehood, Your tongue mutters wickedness. 4 No one sues righteously and no one pleads honestly . They trust in confusion and speak lies; They conceive mischief and bring forth iniquity.

If we are unrepentant, unforgiving, or failing in our relationships with others, especially our families, our prayers are hindered. We need to listen to God if we want Him to listen to us!

God expects His children to be holy. He wants us to lift HOLY hands in prayer. If our hands are dirty because of sin, we should not even expect to be heard by the Lord. Our sins make a separation between us and God. There may be some here that just cannot talk to God today and be effective. If you feel like your prayers are not making it past the ceiling, your life may be why.

You husbands in the same way, live with your wives in an understanding way, as with someone weaker, since she is a woman; and show her honor as a fellow heir of the grace of life, so that your prayers will not be hindered. (NASB95)

If our relationships with our families are not what they should be, our prayers are affected! And I think we can make application of this verse to more than just husbands. Wives, are you fulfilling your responsibilities to your husband? Children are you fulfilling your responsibilities to your parents? Are you obeying them? If not, your prayers may be hindered.

He who turns away his ear from listening to the law, Even his prayer is an abomination. (NASB95)

B. Not having a strong dedication to God’s work

My prayers have always been more effective, more fervent when I am focusing on the work of the Lord. I heard a quote that was very interesting that said “If you want to meet God in your prayer closet, you need to listen to him out of the closet. This is so true. If we have focused ourselves on doing what the Lord wants us to do, we will never run out of things that we can pray for. The many times that we see the Apostle Paul talk about prayer for the brethren or ask for prayers for himself, he was focused on the work that he was doing in sharing the gospel and on the well-being spiritually of those whom he was working with.

and whatever we ask we receive from Him, because we keep His commandments and do the things that are pleasing in His sight. (NASB95)

If we are doing God’s will, we can be assured that God will answer our prayers. It is much more likely that we are praying according to His will because we are doing His will and not ours.

Don’t we usually talk the most to people in conversations about what is the most important to us? If God’s work is the priority that it should be for us, encouraging the brethren and sharing the gospel, we will more than likely be talking about those things when we talk to others, but most importantly, when we talk to the Lord

I heard in a sermon a couple months back (Alan Yeater) another helpful point. Prayer needs to be our calendar. When there is someone that we want to help, it is always helpful to pray for them. The more that you pray for the brethren or for the lost, the more likely you will do something to help them. This will strengthen our concern for those who need the Lord and those who we need to encourage in the Lord. If we pray for others, we will be led to serve others more.

It is just very humbling to think sometimes, “If someone is listening to your prayers, and they were making a judgment about your relationship with the Lord solely on your prayers, how strong of a relationship with the Lord will those who hear you pray say that you have?

Will they say that prayer is important to you? Will they say that it looks like you know the Lord, and that His will is important to you?

Obviously, our prayers are not the best way to make a judgment about our relationship with the Lord, but they can be pretty telling about the kind of time that we spend with the Lord on our own and about how much time we spend in the scriptures and doing God’s will.

But in closing I give us all just one warning: Let’s not give the Lord lip service when we pray! Our prayers just will not be effective if they are nothing but a show for others. If we are praying to the Lord, telling Him that we love Him and that we want Him to use us in doing His will, and that we want to honor Him and Glorify Him, and be like His Son in our lives, we shouldn’t say amen at the end of the prayer and go and do nothing to show that we want to serve the Lord. We need to be careful not to lie to the Lord in our prayers. We need to love the Lord not only in words; we need to show it in our deeds!