What is a "Prayer Life?" | Theocast

How's your prayer life?

Man, don't we love getting that question?

It's kind of a confusing one.

It's a weird Christian phrase.

Ultimately, I don't even know where it comes from.

It's not really a biblical concept that we're supposed to have this life of prayer or prayer life,

Christians pray.

We talk to the Father, but the concept of when someone asks you, how's your prayer life?

I guess what they mean by that is, are you disciplining yourself every day to spend time in prayer?

Are you, you know, communing with your God and is it a part of your life?

So I guess we use the phrase prayer life.

And it's a hard phrase to hear because you're basically, you're asking someone, are you talking to

God on a regular basis?

And if most Christians are honest today, people struggle with prayer.

We always say we could pray more.

We're always ashamed of how much we don't pray.

And we don't see answers to prayer.

We hear the verses that they're promised, but we don't see them in our own life.

And we're even shy and embarrassed to talk about it.

And prayer is just one of those weird Christian uneasiness is about that

no one really wants to talk about it.

And we can write a thousand books about it, but as you read a lot of these books, they kind of say the same thing.

It really boils down to discipline, right?

You need to discipline the time of the day, your body position, how long that you pray.

And it feels as if it's almost rubbed the lucky rabbit's foot,

and you're going to eventually get what you need from God because you're going to get his attention by your seriousness,

your dedication to what it is that you need.

Problem is that people still don't see answers to prayer or they fabricate the answer to prayer and they know they're fabricating it

because it's like, I don't know if that really was from God or not.

I think it's from God.

And the illustration I love to use a lot is the reason why a lot of people struggle with prayer and they don't pray is if I were to tell you I have a bank account with

endless amount of money in it, and it's set aside just for you.

And every day you can go and pull out the amount of money that you're going to need to eat and survive for that day.

And here's the card, go for it.

The next day you go to the ATM to pull out what you need for that day and it doesn't work.

And so you're thinking, well, maybe he meant, you know, the next week, since this is the weekend.

So I go on Monday and Monday, no money comes out.

And you're thinking, well, maybe, maybe it's the beginning of the month since it's the end of the month.

So you go the beginning of the month and nothing's there and you go again and again.

And eventually you're going to stop going.

Why?

Because whatever promise I made you isn't coming true.

It's not happening.

So, but in that illustration, it makes sense.

You're just not going to trust me.

And you're going to think that I played a nasty game on you, but we're going to say that about God.

God hasn't played a nasty game on us.

Like it must be us.

It can't be God.

And he made these promises.

I'm doing them the way he told me to do it, but it's not working.

Why isn't it working?

And this is what I want to talk about.

I don't have the answers to everything there is about prayer, but I think I can simplify some things and really help clarify

how we should use prayer and how I can guarantee you every time that you pray to the Father, you'll get an answer.

And the answer will be yes.

And it will be granted to you because that's how scripture says it should be seen and how it should be accepted in that way.

But we have to do it in the way in which God has designed.

Often we use prayer.

We hear what the word of God says, but then we kind of create our own rule on it and we don't realize we're

doing it.

And I think I'm going to show you how we can correct that.

But it's like if I were to take my son to the gas station and I point to the candy bar section, I say, hey, buddy, any candy bar that you want, grab one.

And then we'll go.

And I see him grabbing that like chips and the bottle of water, this and that.

And he's got a whole cart full of food.

And he completely missed the will that I had designed and the promise that I gave him.

And then he's disappointed when the cart that is full of stuff that he doesn't need and

I don't buy it for him, he's kind of disappointed.

Well, that's what happens to us.

We do things that Jesus even warns us against.

Like don't do this because it isn't prayer and it doesn't work.

For instance, I'll give an example of this.

This is Matthew 6, 7.

He says, and when you pray, do not heap up empty phrases as the Gentiles do for they think that they will be heard for their many

words.

And so many people, they spend hours in on their knees saying repetitive

prayers over and over again, assuming that's what God thinks.

That's what we think God wants.

That he just wants us to be super dedicated and super focused and disciplined in our

prayer life or our prayer time.

And the dedication and the intensity will draw the answer.

Man, that's just, it's sad because that's not true.

You'll never be dedicated enough to draw the attention of God.

You will never be disciplined enough for God to look upon you and say, acceptable.

I accept that as okay.

No kind of work you ever do will is ever acceptable in the eyes of God unless it's clothed in the righteousness of

Christ.

So don't think, I mean, it's obvious, Jesus says, don't approach it this way.

This is why he even commands us to pray in the name of Jesus, because he's saying, under the blood of Christ, under the righteousness of Christ,

because of the person of Christ, accept my prayer.

In his name, I am presenting this to you, not according to the John, but I'm presenting this according to Jesus.

It doesn't mean it's a special power phrase at the end of your prayer that's gonna guarantee that God's going to hear it.

He's saying, in the position of being in Christ, you pray these things.

Listen to this from 1 John 5 .14, and we're gonna kind of use this to, I think, just simplify prayer for today.

Again, I'm not gonna answer everything there is about prayer and all the confusion, but I think we can gain some simplicity and

gain some hope in prayer and see how it's designed to be used.

Prayer is designed not to get something from God, but it's a means of grace for our encouragement and

our strengthening of our faith.

As we learn through Reformed theology and really through scripture, that God uses the preached word, the

gathered body of believers, the table, the sacraments, word, and baptism,

and then also prayer.

And so let's look at some scriptures that give us a guarantee that God will hear us and a guarantee that God will

answer our prayers and make sure that we're understanding what the purpose of these are.

So 1 John 5 .14 says this, and this is the confidence that we have toward God, toward him, that if we

ask anything according to his will, he will hear us.

And there are so many times I know that all of us pray and we think, man, did God even hear what I said?

It just kind of feels like my prayer bounced right off the wall, right back at me.

And John says, well, you can have confidence if you're praying according to his will.

And that's not a complicated secret thing that he hides locked in a box that you've got to somehow figure out how to open up.

He makes it in his word very plain.

And so let's walk through the word of God and hear what is his will, what's his desire.

Philippians 4 .6 is a good example of this, where he says, don't be anxious about anything, but in prayer, by everything in prayer

and supplication with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known to God.

First of all, God wants to hear your request.

It's a part of his will.

He wants to hear from you.

And I don't think there's anything that's troubling your heart, anything that's making you anxious.

It's okay to bring that.

And it's not this complaint and whiningness.

It's I am casting my cares upon you.

Why?

As Peter says, because he cares for you.

It's not, you better only be praying things that sound spiritual.

He's saying, bring your anxious and weary and tired heart.

Why?

Because the father cares for you.

Another one of these is that a guaranteed promise that you're going to receive

every time that you pray it.

And according to God's will is 1 John 1 .9, right?

If we confess our sins, he is faithful, meaning always, every single time.

He is faithful and just to forgive us of our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness.

Every time you pray for forgiveness, it doesn't matter how many times he's going to give it to you because that's his promise

according to his will.

And we can have the confidence according to 1 John that we've already learned in 1 John 5.

We can have the confidence to know he's going to hear it and all he's going to hear it, he's going to answer that prayer.

Another prayer that a prayer that I pray every single day without as much as I possibly can, whenever I eat,

whenever I'm struggling, whenever I have the opportunity to fellowship with someone, I want to say without fail, I am not perfect in that way, but a prayer that

I trust in.

And a prayer that I use often is from Hebrews.

And this is Hebrews 4 .15 and following says, for we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weakness,

but in one who in every way respects, in every respect has been tempted as we are and yet without

sin.

In other words, he is very familiar with our frailty as humans.

As humans who our spirit is fighting against the flesh and the flesh is fighting against the spirit.

Obviously Jesus didn't struggle with the fallen nature, but he understood the temptation of

sin.

He understood the struggle.

This is why it says he understands our pain, but he didn't sin, he never gave into the pressure.

And when we're going to the father in the means of Christ, who is our mediator, who is

praying on our behalf, the gentle father through means of Christ wrote

this that we might find hope.

And he said this, verse 16, let us then with confidence, boy, same thing John

says, let us with confidence draw near to the throne of grace that we might receive

mercy and grace to help in a time of need.

What a promise.

If you need mercy, which is the forgiveness of your sins to not receive what you deserve, right?

And if you need grace, that which gives you faith and gives you strength, that which you don't deserve

and you need it, he says, if you come into my presence with confidence, it's yours.

And he says, not if, he says, just come in, just come on and get it.

You can come and pray.

You can come anytime at any moment.

This is why it makes sense when Paul says, hey, pray without ceasing.

Can you think of a moment in your day when you don't need mercy and you don't need grace?

I tell you, it's so encouraging to know that that moment when I feel like I have failed and I know I've sinned, I

run into the Father's presence and say, Father, I could use mercy to be set free from the burden and guilt and shame of my sin.

And Father, give me grace that I might believe in your gospel, believe in your promises.

And you know what the promise of that is?

You don't have to do penance.

You don't have to do a work.

You don't have to offer that prayer up over and over and over and over again.

He says, ask and it's yours.

If you need it, I will give it to you.

And that's part of my will.

It's a part of my will that you ask me for mercy and grace constantly, and I will give it to you

because we are depending upon his mercy and his grace to be in a relationship with him.

Without his mercy and grace, we have no relationship with God.

And that has been sealed.

And when we bumble around and we don't pray as we should, it says that Jesus prays on our behalf, the

things that we don't even know that we should be praying about.

It's so encouraging.

A prayer should not be seen as something that beats us down, but it should be seen as that gentle drawing

from the Father that says, depend upon me, trust me.

I will give you not only life, but I will give you forgiveness every time you fail.

I will give you the strength to continue, and I will give you hope that there's something far beyond this.

I will satisfy your every need.

Come to me with your request.

What gives you anxiety?

What is distracting you?

He just wants you to talk to him.

Give those things to him, and he promises he will hear you and give you mercy and grace in return.

The other thing that really encourages me is from James.

This is the last passage I will mention.

James says this in James 1, verse five.

This is after trials.

He's saying, listen, I'm going to persevere you through your trials.

You should be encouraged that as you go through a tough time, my faith, my strength, my grace is going to satisfy and get you through those.

And then as a response, James uses the word wisdom here.

He says, if you lack wisdom, let him ask God.

What he means by wisdom later on in chapter five, James says that wisdom really is the fruits of the spirits.

It's meekness, gentleness, patience.

It's how we love one another.

That's how he uses the word wisdom.

He's not meaning knowledge to make proper decision.

He means more wisdom to make proper application and obedience.

He says, if you're lacking wisdom, this desire to be gentle and meek and patient, he says, let him ask of

God.

And this next section is so important from James.

He's such a gentle pastor.

James says this, who gives generously, generously.

And then not only on top of the generously, it's not a one -time gift.

It's not a one -time granting.

He says, without reproach, meaning that he's not going to cross his arm and say, now, didn't you pray for

this last time, last week?

Didn't you pray for this yesterday?

I'm not going to give this to you again.

Reproach means, makes you feel guilty, makes you feel shamed that you asked for it again.

He says, if you're lacking this, ask for it.

I'm going to give it to you generously.

And I'm never going to give you reproach.

And it says, and it will be given to him.

It's part of his will.

It's part of his promises.

So to make it simple, most of our prayer life is spent asking God for mercy and grace

and asking for wisdom in time of need and casting our anxiety upon him and giving him

our struggles and confessing our sins, knowing he's going to forgive it.

Now that is easy to do without ceasing.

I can do that every day.

Every circumstance I find myself in, when I send, I ask for mercy.

When I am weak in faith, I ask for grace.

When I'm struggling to do the works of the spirit, I ask for wisdom.

I can see how when the writers, Paul says that pray without ceasing multiple times, I can

see how that can work.

And it's not a means to disappoint me like, oh, I didn't pray enough today.

It's when I need it, it's there.

And I can't think of a time I don't need it.

My encouragement to you is pray to God in the way that in which he promises his will to you,

boldly run in because of the throne of Christ being covering your sins.

And you are now his adopted child in the name of Jesus.

You pray for mercy every day.

You pray for grace, ask for wisdom, ask for forgiveness of sins and cast your cares upon him

because he cares for you.

Hopefully this is encouraging for you.

We do have a free ebook that kind of goes with this if you wanna read it on how to rest in Christ.

And as you rest in Christ and the more you trust in him, the more you'll be able to pray this kind of prayer.

You'll find a link for that on our website, theocast .org slash primer.

Hopefully this is encouraging to you.

Leave us a comment down below.

I look forward to engaging with you there.

We'll see you next time.