Prayer is one of the exercises of our Christian life that requires more discipline, perhaps, than any other exercise of faith. We confess that “prayer is the most important part of the thankfulness that God requires of us.” John Calvin called it “the chief exercise of faith.” [Institutes of the Christian Religion]
When you're being prayerless; you're not being faithful. Faith proves itself in prayer.
Prayer is not a duty; it's a privilege and something we can enjoy.
When we say “prayerless,” It does not mean completely prayerless. I mean relatively prayerless. I mean that we aren’t anywhere close to “pray[ing] without ceasing”. We aren’t communing with God in prayer, so prayer feels like a burdensome, boring, perhaps futile exercise that we rush through in a perfunctory way or avoid. When we do pray, our prayers seem feeble and powerless, which just leads to less praying. We don’t have it in us “to pray and not lose heart”
"Prayer is the soul's sincere desire unuttered or expressed". In other words, what you will in your heart is eloquent, and God is always listening to what you are willing, what you are determining to do, and what you plan.
No comments:
Post a Comment