PRAYER A FARCE OR A FORCE? A POSE OR A POWER?
1 John 5:14 MKJV
(14) And this is the confidence that we have toward Him, that if we ask anything according to His will, He hears us.
Matthew 7:8 MKJV
(8) For each one who asks receives; and he who seeks finds; and to him who knocks, it shall be opened.
In scripture we find reasons for praying.
First: PRAYER WAS REQUIRED OF CHRIST.
Hebrews 5:7 MKJV
(7) For Jesus, in the days of His flesh, when He had offered up prayers and supplications with strong cryings and tears to Him who was able to save Him from death...
In his daily life and times of crisis Jesus talked with God.
I like what Charles Spurgeon said, ''Whether we like it or not, asking is the rule of he Kingdom. 'Ask and you will receive' is never to be altered in anyone's case. God has not relaxed that rule for Jesus Christ the Elder Brother. If the royal Son of God cannot be exempted from this rule of asking that he might have, you and I cannot expect this rule to be relaxed in our favor. Why should it be? lf you have everything by asking and nothing by not asking you can see how vital prayer."
Christ is still at the right hand of God making intercession for us. Prayer was and is still his lifestyle.
Second: PRAYER IS NECESSARY BECAUSE OF WHAT WE ARE.
If we are conscious that we are made ''in the image of God'' then two dynamic aims pervade our lives: I would be perfect even as my Father in heaven is perfect (Matt. 5:48) and ''to me to live is Christ'' (Phi1. 1:21, KJV).
If we say we can get along without prayer, then we are not getting along at all. If we are prayerless, then our egotistic humanity ought to rub its eyes and become conscious of its moral and spiritual inadequacy in the sight of God.
You can get along without prayer-without speaking to God or letting God speak to you- but without his help, don't undertake anything other then what is strictly material. Don't try to do much for the church or the world; don't ever try to be different from the people in the world out there. Just go about your business, making a living, though not a life. Travel a mediocre road. lmagine you are living when you are just existing, and you'll get along without God and prayer.
But try to be what he asks you to be, different and mighty; try to beat down selfishness for greatness of heart; try to master that temper and most of all yourself; try to live a life that will be shockingly different because of its purity and courage; try to be a model for your children -then you will cry out to God, all right, and find yourself singing, ''Leaning on the Everlasting Arms."
Third: WE NEED PRAYER BECAUSE OF WHAT THE CHURCH IS.
The main aim of the church collectively is the same as your aim personally-''seek ye first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness'' (Matt. 6:33, KJV). However we may be making a living -this is what we are living for. Without the help and guidance of prayer, we are like a train without tracks, a car without a driver, a ship without a compass, a scholar without a teacher. The early church had little to brag about. Its budget seemed trivial although the giving of its individual members shocked the Roman world by its selflessness. Lts membership was not outstanding across the board for its wise men, kings, emperors, rich folks, and the mighty. These would come later, many of them. He chose ''the foolish to confound the wise." For the most part they were fishermen, tax collectors, housekeepers of Bethany; mixed here and there with a Paul -a triple-A scholar, a wealthy woman named Salome, or a Lydia, or a Centurion. But its vitality lay not mainly in its people, but in their prayer power. As to buildings, often they had none. They met in homes, on hillsides, in caves, in catacombs, cellars -in a ''city beneath the city'' of Rome. But because they praised and prayed, they soon emptied the thrones of Rome and placed a Christian Caesar there.
The Church is the Body of Christ. What breath is to the body, prayer is to the soul. When we stop breathing , physically we die. When we stop praying, spiritually we die. A prayerless Christian is a breathless Christian, and breathless people never do their best work. The church at its best must use its prayer power.
The prayerless Christian is like the boatman who had been frantically rowing his sailboat for hours. At last, with blistered hands, he breathlessly grasped the dock. A friend on the wharf helping him tie up his boat, glanced at the furled, unused sails lying on the boat bottom. In dismay he exclaimed, ''Man, why didn't you put up the sails and use the wind?" Sheepishly he exclaimed, "I forgot."
How often does a church, depending upon programs, teeming with talent, proud of its members, balancing its budget, enlisting its converted crew, earnestly teaching and trying, preaching and persuading, find itself exhausted simply because it forgot to unfurl the sails of prayer and use fully the mighty winds of God. ''More things are wrought by prayer than this world dreams of'' -or more than some Christians are aware of.
Fourth: PRAYER SHOULD BE OUR NATURAL HABIT
Prayer should be as natural as breathing. Some people use God only as a ''divine aspirin."
They only run to him in times of pain, heartache and danger. Such was the case in the following shipwreck incident:
One of the lifeboats from the already sunken ship was crammed with frightened passengers, fearful of being swamped. One of them said to the officer in command of the lifeboat, ''You are first in command here, and it's your duty to care for all the needs of the passengers. Say a prayer, man. Say a prayer!'' Bewildered, the officer, unused to praying or any religious exercise, blurted out, ''God, you know I've never talked to you before, but I promise you this: get us out of this mess, and I'll never bother you again!" Tragic escapists like this officer unfairly call upon a God whom they have never permitted to call upon them.
We shall never be able to be ''men for all seasons" or "women for all situations" or "youth for all occasions'' until our ability to call upon God and God's ability to call upon us, become the alternate beats of the vital heart of our faith.
The vitality of the early church, as we have said, was found not so much in its budget, its size, its membership, its program, or in the structure that housed it; but in its prayer life.
When Peter was miraculously delivered from prison and ''the doors opened of their own accord," he was swift to guess the cause of his release. He went immediately to his company and found that they had been praying.
Is it easy to get people involved in prayer? Certainly not. It was one of the most difficult requests Christ made of his disciples.
When preparing for the Gethsemane experience and his own prayer-struggle, Christ asked his favorite disciples to tarry in prayer while he went alone to talk with the Father. But when he came back an hour later, he found them asleep -his most faithful disciples. It seemed they would march for him, talk for him, witness for him, work for him, suffer for him, and even die for him - everything but pray for him.
No amount of organization, ecclesiastical stewardship, or experience -no program- can take the place of prayer.
One man said, ''In my church, we are so well organized, there is 'so much harness you can hardly find the horse.' '' It is no little thing when a member says to a pastor " I am praying for you.'' It's a Christian's pastor greatest gift. It usually happens that a puny preacher is backed by a prayerless pew, while a powerful preacher is backed by praying pews.
May God teach us how to use this greatest privilege 'the power of prayer' to weigh our successes, appraise our failures, enlarge our influence and increase our hearing the voice of God
Then prayer shall never be merely a farce, but a force; not simply a pose , but a mighty power.
