Spiritual Formation in Prayer
Main Concepts:
We pray to glorify God, be partakers in His Glory through Christ, develop our relationship with the Holy Spirit, and become a vessel through which God acts in the world (consciously and unconsciously witnessing to others God’s beauty and unending grace).
If we choose to submit wholly and completely to God, He (according to His Will) fills us with His Spirit.
The Holy Spirit sanctifies us and shapes our desires through prayer and communion with Him.
In Christ, we have faith and confidence that all of our requests are heard by God, and that God will answer us in His timing and according to His Will.
God equips us in prayer through grace and also holds us accountable for every word we speak.
Satan continuously tries to thwart our prayers through devices of deception, however God grants us complete competence to prevail in prayer through His Holy Spirit and truth revealed in His Word.
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What is the point? Why do we pray?
1 Peter 4:11 (NIV) points to a guiding principle behind our existence as human beings - that we were created to glorify God:
If anyone speaks, they should do so as one who speaks the very words of God. If anyone serves, they should do so with the strength God provides, so that in all things God may be praised through Jesus Christ. To him be the glory and the power for ever and ever. Amen.
God in His infinitely loving nature, created us to not only glorify Himself, but to also become more like Him:
His divine power has given us everything we need for a godly life through our knowledge of him who called us by his own glory and goodness. Through these he has given us his very great and precious promises, so that through them you may participate in the divine nature, having escaped the corruption in the world caused by evil desires. (2 Peter 1:3-4)
Through prayer, in Christ, we develop a deep relationship with God. Specific requests in prayer are a means through which God acts in the world. To quote E. M. Bounds, “Walking with God down the avenues of prayer we acquire something of His likeness, and unconsciously we become witnesses to others of His beauty and His grace.” The unseen becomes seen: “By faith we understand that the universe was formed at God’s command, so that what is seen was not made out of what was visible” (Hebrews 11:3).
It is an honor to be considered one of God’s servants on earth. Jesus tells us, “For even the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many”(Mark 10:45). Not only does this passage show us, through example, that in purest form we should ultimately strive to be God’s servants on earth, but that Christ’s indwelling in us, granted by God through the Holy Spirit, also makes us God’s servants by nature.
What are the prerequisites for power in prayer?
God must place his Spirit in us, in order for us to witness a deep and enduring love for God and others, through Christ’s “eyes” and “heart”: “I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit in you; I will remove from you your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh” (Ezekiel 36:26). God fills us with His Spirit (and gives us direction) when we use our free will to submit wholly and completely to God: “Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding; in all your ways submit to him, and he will make your paths straight” (Proverbs 3:5-6). Also, receiving direction implies that we must pay attention and listen. This listening posture is sanctifying - it allows us to experience communion with God and quiets our ego which battles to direct God instead of Him directing us:
It is, then, because Christians do not know their relation to God of absolute poverty and helplessness, that they have no sense of the need of absolute and unceasing dependence, or the unspeakable blessedness of continual waiting on God. But when once a believer begins to see it, and consent to it, that he by the Holy Spirit must each moment receive what God each moment works, waiting on God becomes his brightest hope and joy. As he apprehends how God, as God, as Infinite Love, delights to impart His own nature to His child as fully as He can, how God is not weary of each moment keeping charge of his life and strength, he wonders that he ever thought otherwise of God than as a God to be waited on all the day. God unceasingly giving and working; His child unceasingly waiting and receiving: this is the blessed life. (Andrew Murray, Waiting on God)
Prayer continually enriches us and changes us by revelation:
God draws mightily near to the praying soul. To see God, to know God, and to live for God -- these form the objective of all true praying. Thus praying is, after all, inspired to seek after God. Prayer-desire is inflamed to see God, to have clearer, fuller, sweeter and richer revelation of God. So to those who thus pray, the Bible becomes a new Bible, and Christ a new Savior, by the light and revelation of the inner chamber. (E. M. Bounds, “IV. Prayer and Desire,” Necessity of Prayer)
We should be confident God hears our prayers…even God, the Spirit, prays: “And he who searches our hearts knows the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for God’s people in accordance with the will of God” (Romans 8:27).
Desire precedes powerful prayer that is spoken with words. Augustine of Hippo (354-430) wrote: “We always pray with a continuous desire filled with faith, hope, and love. But at certain hours and moments we also pray to God in words” (Letter 130.9.18). This desire is like the flame that ignites the incense of prayer. In the words of E.M. Bounds:
DESIRE is not merely a simple wish; it is a deep seated craving; an intense longing, for attainment. In the realm of spiritual affairs, it is an important adjunct to prayer. So important is it, that one might say, almost, that desire is an absolute essential of prayer. Desire precedes prayer, accompanies it, is followed by it. Desire goes before prayer, and by it, created and intensified. Prayer is the oral expression of desire. If prayer is asking God for something, then prayer must be expressed. Prayer comes out into the open. Desire is silent. Prayer is heard; desire, unheard. The deeper the desire, the stronger the prayer. Without desire, prayer is a meaningless mumble of words. Such perfunctory, formal praying, with no heart, no feeling, no real desire accompanying it, is to be shunned like a pestilence. Its exercise is a waste of precious time, and from it, no real blessing accrues. (E. M. Bounds, “IV. Prayer and Desire,” Necessity of Prayer)
How do we believe and have faith in the answer of prayer?
In this passage, Jesus connects the idea of requesting things in prayer to belief in God’s answers:
“Have faith in God,” Jesus answered. “Truly I tell you, if anyone says to this mountain, ‘Go, throw yourself into the sea,’ and does not doubt in their heart but believes that what they say will happen, it will be done for them. Therefore I tell you, whatever you ask for in prayer, believe that you have received it, and it will be yours. (Mark 11:22-24)
The greatest assurance of answered prayer is knowing that Christ is the initiator (through our communion with the Holy Spirit), as He involves us in the process of bringing about His will. As we are continually sanctified by Christ, our asking (more and more) stems from a desire to glorify God through obedience to Him. He is happy to fulfill what He has initiated:
This is the confidence we have in approaching God: that if we ask anything according to his will, he hears us. And if we know that he hears us—whatever we ask—we know that we have what we asked of him. (1 John 5:14-15)
It is also important to remember that every prayer, in Christ, has its answer in God’s timing, not ours: “But I pray to you, Lord, in the time of your favor; in your great love, O God, answer me with your sure salvation” (Psalm 69:13).
Accountability, Authority, and God Equipping Us
The call to prayer is sacred, and we are always accountable to God for every word we utter: “But I tell you that everyone will have to give account on the day of judgment for every empty word they have spoken” (Matthew 12:36). However God equips us Himself, so we don’t have to be afraid of our “lack of qualifications”:
Moses said to the LORD, “Pardon your servant, Lord. I have never been eloquent, neither in the past nor since you have spoken to your servant. I am slow of speech and tongue.” The LORD said to him, “Who gave human beings their mouths? Who makes them deaf or mute? Who gives them sight or makes them blind? Is it not I, the LORD? (Exodus 4:10-11)
Similarly, the Apostle Paul, in his letters, emphasizes that God provides the necessary strength and resources to those He calls. In 2 Corinthians 3:5-6 , Paul writes:
Not that we are competent in ourselves to claim anything for ourselves, but our competence comes from God. He has made us competent as ministers of a new covenant—not of the letter but of the Spirit; for the letter kills, but the Spirit gives life.
How does Satan thwart our prayers?
When we…
*have confusion over who our source of inspiration comes from, doubt
*are distracted by the cares of the world (which thwart our wholehearted and sincere servitude)
*are ignorant and improperly formed (spiritually)
*are emboldened by our self and ego
*have ingratitude and lack thanksgiving for the graces of God
*open doors to darkness - through unconfessed sin, unhealthy patterns, or practices that invite spiritual harm
*fear defeat, pain, unwanted repercussions, and severed relationships
*think we don’t “need” to pray - even in the guise of being “open to God's will”
*hold improper views of God - that He is too small, is out to hurt us, or doesn’t care about our individuality and “just wants robots”
*begin things outside of God’s hierarchy, or in God's name that are not ours to begin (acting outside of the permission and authority of God).
We choose to walk in the freedom and light Jesus offers:
Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is - his good, pleasing and perfect will. (Romans 12:2)
and…
Therefore confess your sins to each other and pray for each other so that you may be healed. The prayer of a righteous person is powerful and effective. (James 5:16)