Category Archives: Prayer

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Be Much in Prayer

Pray Persistently

In one of the most helpful books on striving against Satan, Precious Remedies Against Satan’s Devices, Thomas Brooks laid out ten special helps for fighting the enemy. Special help number ten is, “If you would not be taken in any of Satan’s snares, then be much in prayer.”

Ephesians 6:18 is perhaps the most comprehensive one-verse statement on prayer in the Bible. Paul says, “[Pray] at all times in the Spirit, with all prayer and supplication. To that end keep alert with all perseverance, making supplication for all the saints.” Four adverbs show the apostle’s comprehensiveness:

  • Pray constantly, we are to pray at all times.
  • Pray diversely, we are to pray with all prayer and supplication.
  • Pray persistently, we are to pray with all perseverance.
  • Pray universally, we are to pray for all the saints.

In this post I want to focus on what is means to pray persistently, what Paul intends when he says, “To that end keep alert with all perseverance . . .”

PERSISTENT PRAYER

What we have here is a statement of means, in other words, “What will enable us to pray constantly and diversely?” Alert persistence. In our prayers we are encouraged to keep alert – ἀγρυπνοῦντες.  The word has the basic meaning of staying awake and was used of shepherds staying awake at night to watch their sheep, because of the presence of wolves and other wild beasts that threatened the flock.  The church grows and is built on territory surrounded by the enemy, thus we must keep alert with all perseverance. The enemy knows prayer is a missile of profound effectiveness, thus he must war against it.

In Ephesians 6:11 we were told that Satan’s schemes against the church and here Paul is reminding us to pay attention in our praying, for Satan will scheme against it. Satan seems to use three particular schemes in an effort to keep you from praying.

SATAN’S 3 SCHEMES AGAINST PRAYER

Satan schemes to keep you from prayer.  He will tempt you in a condemning tone, “What you pray?  Could such a hypocrite like you pray to God and be heard?”  Praise the Lord that He delights in the prayers of his often hypocritical and sinful children, should they be offered through the intercession of Christ Jesus.  Satan may also suggest that you don’t have the gift of prayer, so just leave prayer up to the “prayer warriors.”  Remember that prayer is no mere suggestion in Scripture; it is a command for all the children of God.  Satan will suggest various excuses to put prayer off, “This isn’t a good time for prayer, too much distraction.  Just wait for complete silence and solitude to pray.”  We know all too well don’t we that our life is filled with things to excuse us away from the duty and glory of prayer.  Satan will scheme to keep you from praying, but if you resist his first stratagem, he employs a second.

Satan schemes to interrupt your prayer.  We all are quite familiar with device, aren’t we?  He will tempt us unto wandering, vain, or even sinful thoughts as our knee is bowed and encourage us to purse the aimless thought thereby diverting us from the path of powerful prayer. Thus, a single-minded and holy focus is needed in the moment of prayer.  Aim to bow the knee in awe and reverence before the majesty of our great God who hears prayer.  Let us come into his presence with all our attention and affection devoted to the King of Kings and Lord of Lords.  Should you resist his second scheme, he will come with a third.

Satan schemes to hinder the success of prayer. Scripture tells us to pray in faith and according to the will of God. Therefore, Satan will tempt you to doubt and unbelief as you make your requests to God. He also schemes to have us pray in accord with our own will in contradiction to the will we are supposed to pray in, God’s will. Let us pray with faith clinging to promise that God hears the faithful cries of His children. Let us pray according to God’s desires as laid before us in His Word.  Let us focus our prayer on what He says we need, should desire, and should ask for.

Satan knows it is a powerful weapon to stand firm against his attack, so he will scheme against prayer.  Yet, do not grow wary or weary of prayer knowing that the enemy will oppose your praying.  Take it is a wonderful and glorious sign of grace for if Satan schemes against your prayer it is because he knows that you are a child of God and God hears His children who desire to assault the kingdom of darkness.  The means to prayer constantly and diversely is to keep alert with all perseverance.

Pray persistently.

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In Which I Cry “Uncle”

boston

Almost two weeks ago I decided to add a new Endeavor for 2014: read the collected works of Thomas Boston. It was a “go big or go home” Endeavor and I wanted to go big. But now I am going home.

Just yesterday said, “Uncle,” to the great Scotsman.

My reasoning for laying aside the Boston endeavor is quite simple. To read through the twelve volumes in eleven months would mean reading about thirty-five pages a day. If I’m reading fast, those pages would occupy about forty minutes of each day. I spent about ten days attacking the first volume with verve and nearly knocked out the whole thing. But it didn’t take long to realize that this one Endeavor was going to rob time from the other three Endeavors, while also infringing on my afternoon prayers.

Right as I was thinking about laying Boston aside in order to protect prayer time in the afternoon I read this part of Spurgeon’s magnificent lecture on “Earnestness: Its Marring and Maintenance“:

Fan [earnestness] with much supplication. We cannot be too urgent with one another upon this point: no language can be too vehement with which to implore ministers to pray. There is for our brethren and ourselves an absolute necessity for prayer. Necessity!–I hardly like to talk of that, let me rather speak of the deliciousness of prayer–the wondrous sweetness and divine felicity which come to the soul that lives in the atmosphere of prayer. John Fox said, “The time we spend with God in secret is the sweetest time, and the best improved. Therefore, if thou lovest thy life, be in love with prayer.” The devout Mr. Hervey resolved on the bed of sickness–“If God shall spare my life, I will read less and pray more.”

I often think about dying and what I would say on my deathbed. The older I get the more I realize how likely it could be that I would say the same thing as good Mr. Hervey.

And I don’t want to.

So I put Boston back on his venerable shelf in my study and sat down to pray. I think the good Scotsman would commend that endeavor.

A prayerful journey through Boston is still, very much, in the cards . . . just not in 2014.

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A Portrait of Purpose

Pray and Preach

And rising very early in the morning, while it was still dark, he departed and went out to a desolate place, and there he prayed. And Simon and those who were with him searched for him, and they found him and said to him, “Everyone is looking for you.” And he said to them, “Let us go on to the next towns, that I may preach there also, for that is why I came out.” – Mark 1:35-38

In 2010 The Museum of Modern Art hosted artist Marina Abramovic’s performance entitled “The Artist is Present.” For 736 hours she sat immobile in the museum’s atrium while spectators were invited to sit across the table from her. It essentially was an artistic staring contest, but photographers captured incredible shots of people responding with laughter, smiling, and crying to the Serbian’s stares. It’s a fact that we all know from experience, staring at someone ordinarily evokes a response and the response can often be more pronounced than one would have guessed.

Stop and stare at the Savior here in Mark 1:35-38 and those few mornings hours after the Sabbath day. What do you see? What response is bubbling to the surface? What I see in this portrait of Jesus is a pattern for God’s people to hear and heed: Communion with God fuels mission for God. We find in our text Jesus praying, resisting, and preaching and all three points have something essential for us to see tonight as we meditate on the truth that communion with God is essential to mission for God.

3 RESPONSES TO JESUS’ EARLY WAKE UP CALL

First, see the priority of prayer. The start of His ministry has been a resounding success; His authority currently captivates everyone. They clamor for His presence and power, and what is His immediate response? He withdraws to a desolate place in order to pray. Let’s just think about Jesus’ practice of prayer that we observe in the gospels. When He was baptized we are told he was praying (Luke 3:21). When he was transfigured, we are told that His face was transformed as he prayed (Luke 9:29). Before He appointed the twelve disciples, Luke tells us He tells us He continued all night in prayer (Luke 6:12). After feeding the five thousand all the people want to crown Him as king, but He leaves them in order to pray (Mark 9:23). In the moments leading up to His betrayal, arrest, and eventually crucifixion we find Him crying out in prayer. Our Lord is consistently is found praying, it was a priority that fueled His mission.

We would be wise here to be challenged and encouraged by His devotion to prayer. In commenting on this passage, JC Ryle said, “Here is the pulse of our Christianity, here is the true test of our state before God.” How healthy is the pulse of your Christianity? What can we say about those who pray little, what’s the pulse of their Christianity? Let’s confess that this is most of us.  We understand the value of prayer and can even recount blessings untold we have received at the throne of grace, but we progress slowly. What might our prayerless reveal? If prayer, as modeled by Jesus Christ is little more than an act of humble dependence, then prayerlessness is little more than an act of independence. Jesus was dependent on God for strength, wisdom, and assurance, and so He prayed. Might our small progress in prayer be rooted in a soul that finds greater joy in independence from God than dependence on God? We need to see first of all the priority of prayer and . . .

Second, see the pitfall of preoccupation. The disciples cried out, “What are you doing out here praying? The people need you.” We observe here, and will find similar occasions all over the gospels, that a recurring pitfall for Jesus’ mission on earth was preoccupation with earthly concerns. The people’s concern was with health and happiness, not with the King’s demand for repentance and faith. The disciples’ preoccupation with these things not only interrupted Jesus’ communion with God, but also threatened His mission for God. Jesus shows us that no one makes progress in communion with God or mission for God that is not schooled in self-denial. If your life were shot as a documentary for all to see, what preoccupations would the audience see? Any preoccupations that interrupt communion with God or threaten you mission for God? See the priority of prayer, the pitfall of preoccupation, and for this text, most centrally. . .

Third, see the primacy of preaching. This was Christ’s mission, to preach the gospel of the kingdom. Preaching was the God-ordained means to extend the kingdom of grace, and preaching remains the God-ordained means to extend the kingdom of grace. Have you ever thought about how incredible this truth is? That God builds His kingdom on the authority and power of His word? Not through signs and wonders, but through the gospel being preached to the ends of the earth!

Every weekend the church gathers and the element of our worship that gets the most extended time is preaching. You come each week and primarily get to sit and listen to someone speak to you. It’s strange is it not? 1 Corinthians 1:18 says that preaching seems foolish to the world. But let it not be foolish to us! The preacher may not be gifted and the sermons may be meager offerings, but it is God’s chosen grace to extend His kingdom. How then do you think about this chosen grace? Do you even think of it as God’s grace to you? Your commitment to and delight in hearing the word in your church’s gathering is a pretty good place to start your evaluation.

The people in the first century may have thought the Messiah would spend His earthly ministry keeping up the priestly institutions and ceremonies, like the great high priest Aaron. Many thought He would rule and reign in the manner of the great King David. But this Savior defied all expectations and conventions of the day. From the moment of His arrival to the moment of His death, He could be heard preaching, for that is why He came.

Stopping and staring at this portrait of the Savior will evoke a response. Let our responses be renewed interest in the priority of prayer, greater awareness at the pitfall of preoccupation, and strengthened delight in the primacy of preaching. However unexpected this scene was to the 1st century disciples, may the truth of this scene not be unexpected or unfamiliar to us, that communion with God fuels mission for God.

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Spurgeon’s 7 Canons of Public Prayer

Public Prayer

Some might be surprised to hear Spurgeon, the Prince of Preachers, say he would rather give up preaching the sermon than give up his role in another element of worship. What is that element? Public prayer.

In his lecture on public prayer Spurgeon said, “I am not able to see any reason for depriving me of the holiest, sweetest, and most profitable exercise which  my Lord has allotted me; if I have my choice, I will sooner yield up the sermon than the prayer.”

spurgeon_chair1Few documents in church history extol the house such remarkable affection for and counsel on public prayer as this lecture. I have said before that I find public prayer the most daunting, and glorious, privilege of pastoral ministry. To stand in the congregation’s stead and plead with the Lord Most High ought to cause a shiver go up many a pastor’s spine. It sure does for me. So it is no coincidence that I find myself almost monthly gravitating to Spurgeon’s thoughts on public prayer. With characteristic wit and conviction he humbles the heart of every man called to this ministry. But he also inspires the soul.

Let me whet your appetite for this fine feast of a lecture by giving you Spurgeon’s six canons, or rule, to “make our public prayer what it should be.”1

7 CANONS OF PUBLIC PRAYER

First, public prayer should be a matter of the heart. A man must be really earnest in prayer. You can pardon a man’s familiarities and vulgarities too, when you clearly see that his inmost heart is speaking to his Master, and that it is only the man’s defects of education or experience which create his faults, and not any moral or spiritual vices of his heart. Cast your whole soul into the exercise of public prayer. So pray, that by a divine attraction, you draw the whole congregation up with you to the throne of God. So pray, that by the power of the Spirit, you express the desires and thoughts of every one present, and stand as the one voice for hundreds of beating hearts which are glowing with fervor before God’s throne.

Second, public prayer should be appropriate. There is no need to make the public prayer a gazette of the week’s events, or a register of the births, deaths, and marriage of your people, but the general movements that have taken place in the congregation should be noted by the minister’s careful heart. He should bring the joys and sorrows alike before the throne of grace.

Third, public prayer should not be long. John Macdonald said, “If you are in the spirit of prayer, do not be long, because other people will not be able to keep pace with you in such unusual spirituality; and if you are not in the spirit of prayer, do not be long, because you will then be sure to weary the listeners.” Ten minutes is the limit to which our public prayer ought to be prolonged.

Fourth, do not use cant2 phrases. Be done with these vile things altogether. There should be no grotesque mingling of Scripture texts, alterations of Scripture texts, or abuses of Scriptural truth in prayer. It ought always to be a point of honor among ministers always to quote Scripture directly. Make us of an expression fresh from your own mind, and it will be quite as acceptable to God as a scriptural phrase defaced or clipped. Vehemently strive against garblings and perversions of Scripture, and renounce forever all cant phrases, for the are the disfigurement of free prayer.

Five, vary the order, length, and current of your public prayers. Vary the order of your prayers, then, for the sake of maintaining attention, and preventing people going through the whole thing as a clock runs on till the weights are down. Also vary the length of your prayers. Do you not think it would be much better if sometimes instead of giving three minutes to the first prayer and fifteen minutes to the second, you have nine minutes to each? Would it not be better sometimes to be longer in the first, and not so long in the second prayer? Finally, vary the current of your prayers. There are many topics which require your attention; the church in its weakness, its backslidings, its sorrows, and its comforts; the outside world, the neighborhood, unconverted hearers, the young people, the nation. Do not pray for all these every time, or otherwise your prayers will be long and probably uninteresting.

Six, keep from all attempts to work up spurious fervor in public devotion. Do not labor to seem earnest. Pray as your heart dictates, under the leading of the Spirit of God, and if you are dull and heavy tell the Lord so. It will be no ill thing to confess your deadness, and bewail it, and cry for quickening; it will be real and acceptable prayer; but simulated ardor is a shameful form of lying.

Seventh, prepare your prayer. Proper preparation means solemn consideration beforehand of the importance of prayer, meditation upon the needs of men’s souls, and a remembrance of the promises which we are to plead; and thus coming before the Lord with a petition written upon the fleshly tables of the heart. This is surely better than coming to God at random, rushing before the throne at haphazard, without a definite error or desire.

If we wanted to summarize the canons with adverbs we could say, “Spurgeon exhorts pastors to pray soulfully, appropriately, quickly, authentically, variously, and prepared-ly.”

Spugeon’s conclusion of the lecture is a most fitting place for this post to end:

Let your prayers be earnest, full of fire, vehemence, prevalence. I pray the Holy Ghost to instruct every student of this College so to offer public prayer, that God shall always be served of his best. Let your petitions be plain and heart-felt; and while your people may sometimes feel that the sermon was below the mark, may they also feel that the prayer compensated for all.

  1. The following canons and their respective elaborations are either direct or adapted quotations from Spurgeon’s lecture. ↩
  2. Meaning sanctimonious or hypocritical talk. ↩
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A Burning Light

In his incredible lecture on “The Preacher’s Private Prayer” Spurgeon remarked,

It is said of Alleine, ‘He poured out his very heart in prayer and preaching. His supplications and his exhortations were so affectionate, so full of holy zeal, life and vigour, that they quite overcame his hearers; he melted over them, so that he thawed and mollified, and sometimes dissolved the hardest hearts.’

– Spurgeon, Lectures to My Students, 45.

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Choosing What is Excellent

Choosing Excellence

“And it is my prayer that your love may abound more and more, with knowledge and all discernment, so that you may approve what is excellent, and so be pure and blameless for the day of Christ, filled with the fruit of righteousness that comes through Jesus Christ, to the glory and praise of God.” – Philippians 1:9-11

In Philippians 1:9-11 Paul offers a simple prayer  for the Philippians to pursue that which is excellent. If they abound in love they will be able to approve – or discern – what is excellent. The excellent things mentioned in 1:10 are nothing more than the ordinary elements of maturing Christian discipleship. DA Carson says, in his book A Call To Spiritual Reformation, that choosing these excellent things “reflect one’s entire value system, one’s entire set of priorities, one’s entire heart and mind.” Carson then goes on to offer practical examples of choosing excellence . . .

“What do you do with your time? How many hours a week do you spend with your children? Have you spent any time in the past two months witnessing to someone about the gospel? How much time have you spent watching television or in other forms of personal relaxation? Are you committed, in your use of time, to what is best?

“What have you read in the past six months? If you have found time for newspapers or magazines, a couple of whodunits, a novel or two or perhaps a trade journal, have you also found time for reading a commentary or some other Christian literature that will help you better understand the Bible or improve your spiritual discipline or broaden your horizons? Are you committed, in your reading habits, to what is best?

How are you relationships within your family? Do you pause now and then and reflectively think through what you can do to strengthen ties with your spouse and with your children?

Do you make time for personal prayer? For prayer meetings? Have you taken steps to improve in this regard?

How do you decide what to do with your money? Do you give a set percentage, say, 10 percent, of your income to the Lord’s work, however begrudgingly, and then regard the rest of your income as your own? Or do you regard yourself as the Lord’s steward, so that all the money you earn is ultimately his? Are you delighted when you find yourself able to put much more of your money into strategic ministry, simply because you love to invest in eternity?

Has your compassion deepened over the years, so that, far from becoming more cynical, you try to take concrete steps to serve those who have less than you do?

Is your reading and study of the Bible so improving your knowledge of God that your wholehearted worship of the Almighty grows in spontaneity, devotion, and joy?

At what points in your life do you cheerfully decide, for no other reason than that you are a Christian, to step outside your ‘comfort zone,’ living and serving in painful or difficult self-denial?

Behind your answers to all these questions are choices. The last thing I want to do is generate a load of guilt because of the choices constantly before us, choices we frequently fail to exploit for the glory of God . . . Feeling of guilt will not by themselves help us to make the right choices; they may simply increase our stress and resentments.

But if our love abounds more and more, shaped all the while by knowledge and moral insight, then these are the kinds of choices we will be wanted to make – and we will be wanting to make them well. They are the kinds of choices that cannot be made on the basis of mere law. They spring from a heart transformed by God’s grace.”

– DA Carson, A Call to Spiritual Reformation: Priorities from Paul and His Prayers, 128-129.

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Excuses for Not Praying

National Day of Prayer_wide_t

In A Call to Spiritual Reformation: Priorities from Paul and His Prayers D.A. Carson spends an entire chapter answering common excuses for not praying.

I find his answers to be simultaneously strong and comforting, so I am replicating his summaries to each excuse in hopes they will challenge you as well.

5 COMMON EXCUSES FOR NOT PRAYING9780851109763-carson-call-spiritual-reformation

Excuse #1: “I am Too Busy to Pray”

It matters little whether you are the mother of active children who drain away your energy, an important executive in a major multinational corporation, a graduate student cramming fro impending comprehensives, a plumber working overtime to put your children through college, or a pastor of a large church putting in ninety-hour weeks: at the end of the day, if you are too busy to pray, you are too busy. Cut something out.

Excuse #2: “I Feel Too Dry Spiritually to Pray”

God insists that we learn not to hide behind our feelings of dryness, behind our chronic unbelief, behind our lapses into discouragement. He wants us to learn to trust him, to learn to persevere in prayer. In short, in prayer as in other areas of life, God wants us to trust and obey.

Excuse #3: “I Am Too Bitter to Pray”

We can look at this matter of bitterness not only from the vantage of those who need forgiveness, but from the vantage of those who have received it. The Bible tells us, “Let all bitterness and wrath and anger and clamor and slander be put away from you, along with all malice. Be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, as God in Christ forgave you” (Eph. 4:31-32). In light of the matchless forgiveness we have received because Christ bore our guilt, what conceivable right do we have to withhold forgiveness?

Excuse #4: “I Am Too Ashamed to Pray”

Our sense of shame can scarcely be an adequate ground to excuse our prayerlessness. Rather, it ought to be a goad that drives us back to the only one who can forgive us and grant us utter absolution, back to the freedom of conscience and the boldness of prayer that follow in the wake of the joyful knowledge that we have been accepted by a holy God because of his grace.

Excuse #5: “I Am Content with Mediocrity”

Some Christians want enough of Christ to be identified with him, but not enough to be seriously inconvenienced; they genuinely cling to back Christian orthodoxy but do not want to engage in serious Bible study; they value moral probity, especially of the public sort, but do not engage in war against inner corruptions; they fret over the quality of the preacher’s sermon but do not worry much over the quality of their own prayer life. Such Christians are content with mediocrity . . . God’s response is utterly uncompromising: “Submit yourselves therefore to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you. Draw near to God, and he will draw near to you. Cleanse your hands, you sinners, and purify your hearts, you double-minded. Be wretched and mourn and weep. Let your laughter be turned to mourning and your joy to gloom. Humble yourselves before the Lord, and he will exalt you” (James 4:7-10).

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What to Do on Weeks When You Don’t Preach

When You Do Not PreachOne of the greatest things a pastor can do for his own health and that of his congregation is to take regular weeks off from preaching.

I began this year, my first of full time preaching, with the goal of preaching no more than forty times. Should the remainder of this year’s preaching calendar go according to plan I will have preached exactly forty times at the end of 2013. You don’t have to be a math wiz to realize that, on average, I have one week off from preaching each month.

Everyone’s sermon preparation time differs, but I seem to average about twenty hours for sermon prep on those weeks when I preach. That is quite a good chunk of time to redeem on weeks when sermon prep isn’t a pressing task. So, the question I want to try to answer in this post is, “How can a pastor wisely redeem the time on the weeks he does not preach?” Let me suggest three things . . .

Pray. Of course, a pastor should be praying “always and for everything” (Eph. 5:20), but weeks off from sermon preparation provide a preacher with the unique ability for extended prayer. I suspect that every preacher devotes specific blocks of the week’s time to the sermon, so why not just dedicate these blocks to earnest intercessory prayer? Prayer is the first half of our job description and gives power to the other half, so use these weeks to refill your ministerial tank in prayer before the Father.

Study. A week off from sermon preparation represents an excellent time to devote your mind to matter that needs unique study. Are there any particular texts coming up in you sermon series that would benefit from detailed preparatory study? Are there any pressing theological matters unique to your congregation in which you need to solidify biblical convictions? If so, use these weeks for those specific studies. Or you might find such weeks provide wonderful opportunities to knock out several books you have toiled through for some time.

Meet. I tend to use weeks off from preaching to meet with many people from the congregation I haven’t checked in with recently. It also seems to be a good idea to schedule longer leadership or admin meetings for these weeks when they won’t suck energy from soul soon to preach.

Be purposeful and diligent with your time on the weeks you don’t preach. I often find that these weeks are usually the most busy and I think that’s a good thing. You may be “off” from preaching, but you are not “off” from ministry.

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The 3 Commandments of Corporate Prayer

prayer_std_tOne of the “things we want to be true” about our church plant is that we would be “a praying church.”

1 Timothy 3:15 says the church is “the household of God,” and we know from Isaiah 56:7 that God expects his house “will be a house of prayer.”1 One way we try to reflect that reality in our life together is by hosting a monthly prayer night where the church can gather with nothing on the agenda other than prayer. But anyone who has been a part of prayer meetings knows they don’t always go so well – for a variety of different reasons. So let me provide the “Three Commandments of Corporate Prayer” in hopes they might brighten and enliven your prayer meeting.2

3 COMMANDMENTS OF CORPORATE PRAYER

Be bold. Pray with the bold confidence we have through faith in Christ our mediator (Eph. 3:12). The humility we are called to in Christ doesn’t remove the fact that we can approach the throne of grace with confidence (Heb. 4:16). Such assurance necessarily means we can pray boldly for those things we know to be in God’s will. Pray boldly for God to use the church to convert people unto Christ, for holiness to mark the corporate witness of the church, for sin to die within the hearts of church members, and for pastors to passionately declare the gospel of God. On an extremely practical level, praying boldly also means praying loud enough that those around you can hear your petitions.

Be biblical. Faithful prayer will always be thoroughly biblical. When we pray we want to saturate our thanksgivings, confessions, and requests with biblical language and biblical priorities. Furthermore, there are times in prayer where you might not know specific things to pray for underneath a given topic, and this is where an open Bible is a great friend. For example, if you are praying for a church plant that your fellowship supports, but you know little about its ministry or leaders, use the Bible to pray for things you know God’s word prioritizes in every church. Also, it’s not a cop-out to read Scripture as a prayer; this is one way you can be certain you are praying with the will of God in view.

Be brief. Everyone has experienced prayer groups or prayer meetings dominated by one long-winded church member. Brief prayers not only allow more people to pray, but allow more requests to be offered. It’s one thing to ask a small group of members to prayer for eight minutes on a particular topic and have two people occupy that time. It’s a completely different – and better –  thing to see those same eight minutes saturated with 8-10 different prayers. You’d be surprised how much you can pray for in 45 seconds. There are times, to be sure, when longer prayer is advisable, but I generally think corporate prayer meetings should allow every individual church member to pray at multiple junctions.

Be bold, biblical, and brief.

  1. Matthew, Mark, and Luke all recount Jesus’ application of God’s desire that Isaiah expressed. ↩
  2. If you are a pastor, the three commandments should be: plan, plan, and plan. ↩
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The Hardest Study

In volume one of his collected works the forgotten Puritan George Swinnock offers several hopes for his ministry. His ninth hope is that he would be a diligent preacher of God’s word, and he understands the necessity of prayer to the task:

Luther saith, He the prayeth hard, studieth hard. Lord, let all my sermons, as dew be heaven-born, that they may drop down upon my people like rain upon the mown grass. Let prayer be the key to open the mysteries of Christ to me, and let prayer be the turning of the key, to lock them up safe within me. Let prayer open and shut all my books, form and write, begin and conclude every sermon. Ah, now should he pray both for his preaching, and before he preacheth, who, by every sermon, preacheth his beloved neighbors into eternal burning, or eternal pleasures!

– George Swinnock, The Works of George Swinnock Vol:1, 324-325.