1. Prayer is a
great privilege.
“Consider
how august a privilege it is, when angels are present, and archangels throng
around, when cherub and seraphim encircle with their blaze the throne, that a
mortal may approach with unrestrained confidence, and converse with heaven’s
dread Sovereign! O, what honor was ever
conferred like this?” Chrysostom
NOTE:
Prayer is a great privilege even when we do not get the answer we desire!
“The
value of prayer lies most profoundly in just the sweet communion we have with
God through it than in the answers we get from it.” Joel Beeke
2. Our prayers
are accepted by God only because of Jesus Christ. (Hebrews 4:14-16)
“God’s hearing of our prayers
does not depend upon sanctification, but upon Christ’s intercession; not upon
what we are in ourselves, but what we are in the Lord Jesus; both our persons
and our prayers are accepted in the Beloved.” Thomas Brooks
3. True Prayer
springs forth from faith. (Psalm 25:1-7)
“You
may as soon find a living man that does not breathe, as a living Christian that
does not pray.” Matthew Henry commenting
on Matthew 6
Note: Backsliding begins in the
prayer closet!
“When
our prayer lives begin to disintegrate, everything else does as well. Soon the preacher isn’t preaching quite as
well as he did before (so we think). The
Word of God seems more lifeless. We
don’t open the Bible then with any excitement either. It no longer is critical to meet with God
before we meet with people each day. And
soon it spills over into worldliness. We
creep closer to the world and further from God.” Joel Beeke
4. Prayer is
exceedingly powerful. (James 5:17-18)
“Men
may spurn our appeals, reject our message, oppose our arguments, despise our
persons, but they are helpless against our prayers.” J. Sidlow Baxter
5. Prayer is a
Christian duty. (Romans 12:12; Colossians 4:2; 1 Thessalonians 5:17)
“From
the fact that prayer is so urgently commanded, we ought to conclude that we
should by no means despise our prayers, but rather prize them highly…You are to
look closely at this command and stress it that you do not think prayer an
optional work and act as if it were no sin for you not to pray. You should know that prayer is earnestly
enjoined, with the threat of God’s supreme displeasure and punishment if it is
neglected. It is enjoined just as well
as the command that you should have no other gods and should not blaspheme and
abuse God’s name but should confess and preach, laud, and praise it.” Martin Luther
6. Prayer is
hard work. (Galatians 5:16-17)
“[To pray is] the hardest work of all…a labor above all labors,
since he who prays must wage a mighty warfare against the doubt and murmuring
excited by the faintheartedness and unworthiness we feel within us.” Martin Luther
7. Prayer has a
sanctifying effect on our lives.
“He did not believe in any
shortcut to holiness and usefulness in the work of God. He knew that the one and only way to grow in
the grace and in the knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ was daily and hourly
communion with the Father and the Son.” John Murray, describing Andrew Bonar
“There is something in every act
of prayer that for a time stills the violence of passion, and elevates and
purifies the affections.” Jeremy Taylor
“Sometimes a fog will settle over
a vessel’s deck and yet leave the topmast clear. Then a sailor goes up aloft and gets a
lookout which the helmsman on deck cannot get.
So prayer sends the soul aloft; lifts it above the clouds in which our
selfishness and egotism befog us, and gives us a chance to see which way to
steer.” Charles Spurgeon
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