What is a "Prayer Life?" | Theocast

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How's your prayer life? Man, don't we love getting that question? It's kind of a confusing one. It's a weird

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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.

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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?

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

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So I guess we use the phrase prayer life. It's a hard phrase to hear because basically you're asking someone, are you talking to God on a regular basis?

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If most Christians are honest today, people struggle with prayer. We always say we could pray more.

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We're always ashamed of how much we don't pray. We don't see answers to prayer.

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We hear the verses that they're promised, but we don't see them in our own life. We're even shy and embarrassed to talk about it.

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Prayer is just one of those weird Christian uneasinesses about that no one really wants to talk about it.

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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.

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

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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.

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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,

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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

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I have a bank account with endless amount of money in it and it's set aside just for you and every day you could go and pull out the amount of money that you're going to need to eat and survive for that day.

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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 doesn't work.

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And so you're thinking, well, maybe you meant, you know, the next week since this is the weekend. So I go on Monday and Monday, no money comes out.

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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.

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And eventually you're going to stop going. Why? Because whatever promise I made you isn't coming true.

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It's not happening. So, but in that illustration, it makes sense.

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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.

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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.

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Why isn't it working? This is what I want to talk about. I don't have the answers to everything there is about prayer, but I think

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I can simplify some things and really help clarify how we should use prayer and how

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I can guarantee you every time that you pray to the Father, you'll get an answer. And the answer will be yes.

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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.

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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.

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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,

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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.

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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.

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And then he's disappointed when the cart is full of stuff that he doesn't need. And I don't buy it for him.

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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.

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Friends, 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

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Gentiles do, for they think that they will be heard for their many words. And so many people who spend hours in on their knees saying repetitive prayers over and over again, assuming that's what

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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.

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And the dedication and the intensity will draw the answer.

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Man, that's just, it's sad because that's not true. You'll never be dedicated enough to draw the attention of God.

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

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I accept that as okay. No kind of work you ever do is ever acceptable in the eyes of God unless it's clothed in the righteousness of Christ.

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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.

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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 going to guarantee that God's going to hear it.

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He's saying in the position of being in Christ, you pray these things. Listen to this from 1

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John 5, 14, and we're going to kind of use this to, I think, just simplify prayer for today. Again, I'm not going to 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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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,

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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.

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He makes it in His word very plain. And so let's walk through the word of God and hear what is

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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.

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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.

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It's okay to bring that, and it's not this complaint and whiningness. It's, I am casting my cares upon you.

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Why? As Peter says, because He cares for you. It's not, you better only be praying things that sound spiritual.

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He's saying, bring your anxious and weary and tired heart. Why? Because the Father cares for you.

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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

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John 1, 9, right? If we confess our sins, He is faithful, meaning always, every single time.

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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

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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

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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

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He's going to hear it, He's going to answer that prayer. Another 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,

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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.

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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.

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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.

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Obviously Jesus didn't struggle with the fallen nature, but He understood the temptation of sin.

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He understood the struggle. This is why it says it, He understands our pain, but He didn't sin.

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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.

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

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John says, let us with confidence drawn near to the throne of grace, that we might receive mercy and grace to help in a time of need.

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

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

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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.

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You can come and pray. You can come anytime at any moment. This is why it makes sense when

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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?

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

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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.

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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?

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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.

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He says, ask and it's yours. If you need it, I will give it to you.

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And that's part of my will. It's a part of my will that you ask me for mercy and grace.

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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.

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Without his mercy and grace, we have no relationship with God. And that has been sealed in.

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And when we bumble around and we don't pray as we should, it says that Jesus praises on our behalf the things that we don't even know that we should be praying about.

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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

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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.

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

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I will satisfy your every need. Come to me with a request. What gives you anxiety? What is distracting you?

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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.

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The other thing that really encourages me is from James. This is the last passage I will mention. James says this in James chapter one, verse five.

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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.

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And then as a response, James uses the word wisdom here. He says, if you lack wisdom, let him ask

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God. And what he means by wisdom later on in chapter five. James says that wisdom really is the fruits of the spirits.

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It's meekness, gentleness, patience. It's how we love one another. That's how he uses the word wisdom.

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He's not meaning knowledge to make proper decision. He means more wisdom to make proper application and obedience.

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

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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.

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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?

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Didn't you pray for this yesterday? I'm not going to give this to you again. Reproach means it makes you feel guilty.

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It makes you feel shamed that you asked for it again. He says, if you're lacking this, ask for it.

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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.

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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

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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.

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Now that is easy to do without ceasing. I can do that every day, every circumstance I find myself in.

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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,

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I ask for wisdom. I can see how when the writers, Paul says to pray without ceasing multiple times,

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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

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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.

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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.

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Hopefully this is encouraging for you. We do have a free ebook that kind of goes with this.

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If you want to 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.

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You'll find a link for that on our website, theocast .org slash primer. Hopefully this is encouraging to you.