Sister Karen Sunday Evening 6/26/16

When I began to look at prayer, God began to work with me on praying for VBS.  It was my intention to pray earnestly and fervently.  He is so faithful.  He answered above and beyond my expectations. 

We all enjoy studying about prayer.  Everyone here could develop a lesson on prayer if I handed you a piece of paper and a pencil.  But the most important thing is to pray and to get a hold of God. 

You could start in Genesis the second chapter when God walked with Adam and Eve in the cool of the day.  You could go to Enoch.  God took him because he walked with God.  You could go to Noah or you could go to the Psalms.  You could start with Matthew and study prayer.

Prayer is a vow.  A man binds himself by a vow to pray to God’s glory.  Pour out our soul.  This comes from the practice of the sacrifices.  They poured out the liquid offerings and the blood.  That is where the Greek word for prayer comes from

To pour out the soul before God; a pouring out of the soul to God as a free will offering solemnly dedicated to Him accompanied by earnest desire.

Prayer is the language of dependence.  He who prays not is endeavoring to live independent of God.  This is of the first curse, Satan told Adam and Eve that they could be wise like God and be independent from God.  They took of the fruit and we are all suffering today because of the curse.

God invites us to pour out our soul to Him.

Mat 6:5  And when thou prayest, thou shalt not be as the hypocrites are: for they love to pray standing in the synagogues and in the corners of the streets, that they may be seen of men. Verily I say unto you, They have their reward.

Not as a hypocrite, our heart has to be in it.  Many pray the Lord’s Prayer without their heart in it.  The Lord’s Prayer is a beautiful example but our heart must be in it. 

They have their reward.  It is not enough to desire that people know that we pray or have a reputation of being a person of prayer.  It is more important to pray. 

When you have shut the door:  he also warns us to not just waste time, go in and think of prayer in the closet, but to pray with our heart. 

Not vain repetitions: 

Mat 7:7  Ask, and it shall be given you; seek, and ye shall find; knock, and it shall be opened unto you:

Mat 7:8  For every one that asketh receiveth; and he that seeketh findeth; and to him that knocketh it shall be opened.

Ask and it shall be given unto you.  It is a command with a promise.  You may not get the answer the first time.  Seek makes you think of something that is lost.  There are lost souls that we want to seek after.

He that asks receives.

Mat 7:9  Or what man is there of you, whom if his son ask bread, will he give him a stone?

Mat 7:10  Or if he ask a fish, will he give him a serpent?

Mat 7:11  If ye then, being evil, know how to give good gifts unto your children, how much more shall your Father which is in heaven give good things to them that ask him?

Oswald Chambers: when thou prayest enter into the closet and pray… Jesus did not say, “Dream about your Father who is in the secret place,” but He said, “…pray to your Father who is in the secret place….” Prayer is an effort of the will. After we have entered our secret place and shut the door, the most difficult thing to do is to pray. We cannot seem to get our minds into good working order, and the first thing we have to fight is wandering thoughts. The great battle in private prayer is overcoming this problem of our idle and wandering thinking. We have to learn to discipline our minds and concentrate on willful, deliberate prayer.

We must have a specially selected place for prayer, but once we get there this plague of wandering thoughts begins, as we begin to think to ourselves, “This needs to be done, and I have to do that today.” Jesus says to “shut your door.” Having a secret stillness before God means deliberately shutting the door on our emotions and remembering Him. God is in secret, and He sees us from “the secret place”— He does not see us as other people do, or as we see ourselves. When we truly live in “the secret place,” it becomes impossible for us to doubt God. We become more sure of Him than of anyone or anything else. Enter into “the secret place,” and you will find that God was right in the middle of your everyday circumstances all the time. Get into the habit of dealing with God about everything. Unless you learn to open the door of your life completely and let God in from your first waking moment of each new day, you will be working on the wrong level throughout the day. But if you will swing the door of your life fully open and “pray to your Father who is in the secret place,” every public thing in your life will be marked with the lasting imprint of the presence of God.

From Adam Clarke on Matthew 6:5:

What is Prayer?

Prayer is the soul’s sincere desire,

Unuttered or expressed,

The motion of a hidden fire

That trembles in the breast:

Prayer is the burden of a sigh,

The falling of a tear,

The upward gleaming of an eye,

When none but God is near

Prayer is the simplest form of speech

That infant lips can try;

Prayer, the sublimest strains that reach

The Majesty on high:

Prayer is the Christian’s vital breath,

The Christian’s native air,

His watch-word at the gates of death,

He enters heaven by prayer

Prayer is the contrite sinner’s voice,

Returning from his ways,

While angels in their songs rejoice,

And say, Behold he prays!

The saints in prayer appear as one,

In word, in deed, in mind,

When with the Father and the Son

Their fellowship they find

Nor prayer is made on earth alone:

The Holy Spirit pleads;

And Jesus, on th’ eternal throne,

For sinners intercedes

“O Thou, by whom we come to God!

The Life, the Truth, the Way,

The path of prayer thyself hast trod,

Lord, teach us how to pray!”

Montgomery