Category: Bible Study

Bible Study

Prayer Essentials 2

patricia_grace

Back in The Essentials of Effective Prayer workbook, the next section includes Jesus’ “model prayer” or what has been called “The Lord’s Prayer” in Matthew 6:9-13. The insights mentioned are similar to what I’ve heard before; that is, that the prayer includes the elements of 1)worship, reverence, adoration, 2)declaring allegiance, 3)petition, 4) confession, 5) deliverance from temptation. The exact wording changes, but this is basically the teaching I’ve gleaned from this model prayer, that our prayers should start with worshipping and honoring God, moving to petition, and also including confession.

Well, I have a confession; I don’t often start my prayers with worship, then move to declaring allegiance, and I sometimes leave confession of sin out entirely. I wrote in a previous article that I took note how the prayer featured confession of sins, both of the one praying and those for whom he was praying (see Prayer Essentials 1). I am still rushing into my pressing needs or the needs of others. I do acknowledge God as my Father, and make mention that I know that He can do all things, but I rarely spend a lot of time praising God’s attributes.

Something still seems a little off and a little stale about my prayers. I wouldn’t be so concerned if it was just a season of lackluster praying. The thought that my prayers are lacking has gone on a long time.

I’m going to read through the workbook a bit more, but I suspect the solution is self-discipline in carving out time to pray, protecting that time (by getting up earlier to avoid distractions), and not reaching for my phone first thing upon rising in the morning. *Sigh* After being a Christian so long, my maturity level still seems awfully low.

Bible Study

Praying the Bible

patricia_grace

Taking a detour from writing from The Essentials of Effective Prayer, today I wanted to share a talk from Don Whitney about praying directly from the Bible. In my struggle to develop a more robust prayer life, I’ve read several books on prayer, read many articles, and heard many sermons about it. All of it has been helpful to some extent, but I think that Mr. Whitney has found something that may keep our prayers from falling into stale repetitions. It is simply using the Bible to fuel our prayers, and not just the prayers of the Bible but rather all of God’s Word.

These are two of the talks that I found about praying the Bible (please note: Part 1 cuts off abruptly but you’ll have gotten the gist of the message long before the end):

Praying the Bible (Part 1)

Praying the Bible (Part 2)

A Practical Help

The part of the first talk that cuts off is where Mr. Whitney is explaining practically how you might use the Psalms to pray the Bible. The instructions include choosing from five Psalms in which you will pray through (either partially or in total – doesn’t have to be the whole Psalm). The method prevents spending too much time deciding what Psalm to use, while also providing some variety.

The way you choose the five Psalms is by taking the day of the month, beginning with the Psalm that corresponds to the day of the month, then adding 30 to that number four times to get the remaining Psalms that will be your choices for the day.

Example:

Today is the 24th day of the month, so I’ll start with Psalm 24, and after adding 30 to that number I’ll get Psalm 54; adding another 30 I get Psalm 84; then Psalm 114 and Psalm 144. Choose from any of those Psalms to pray. On months with 31 days, the 5th choice would yield the number 151 — since there is only 150 Psalms, use Psalm 119 as the 5th Psalm choice again. Psalm 119 is a great choice to use often as it’s quite long so there is much to fuel our prayer there and it is such an important Scripture about esteeming the Word of God.

There’s an app for that!

There’s an app called Five Psalms developed by Bryant Huang, a graduate of the Master’s Seminary in California, that will do the Psalm selections for you and even includes the text (ESV). The app is available freely on either the Android or iOS plaforms. The app includes changing Day 31 to choose a random Psalm instead of always Psalm 119 as well as the ability to add on the Proverb that corresponds to the day of the month into your choices. I’ll add this app to my Resources page.

Bible Study

Prayer Essentials 1

patricia_grace

Verses 1 King 8:27-30, 38-39

The instructions in The Essentials of Effective Prayer workbook for the next section were to read the 1 King verses, marking out references to Solomon, including the phrase “your servant”, as well as marking reference to “prayer”, including synonyms like “cry” or “spreading his hands”.

Some insights from this passage for me include noticing how often he’s simply asking that the Lord acknowledge prayer: “Have regard…listen…listen”. Multiple times, Solomon asks the Lord to hear when he cries to Him and to hear His people when they pray to Him.

The next insight is that following upon his request to be heard is the request for the Lord to forgive sin. I went ahead and read passages 31 – 37 even though they weren’t in this exercise, and the whole passage is regarding asking the Lord to forgive sins when the people acknowledge their sin to Him in prayer, crying out to Him after suffering the consequences of their sin.

In the hopes of learning to pray more biblically, I’m thinking of how these insights may be turned into obedience. Three practical things come to mind – avoiding presumption, confession of personal sins, and acknowledging the sins of my country and its leaders.

Solomon humbly asks that God will consider the cries of His people. This portion of Scripture is describing Solomon praying before the people after the temple was built. While he is king, he is showing humility before God and before his subjects. The corresponding passage in 2 Chronicles 6 includes how he got onto a platform and knelt on it while praying. It is good to remember that while we are able to come to God in prayer, by the merits of Christ, that we should remember that we come to a King and that we keep a reverent, humble spirit.

Two, I’m reminded of keeping confession of sin in my prayers. I certainly do confess sin, but I’m sitting here thinking of how often I’ll pray, asking for needs and wants, without ever stopping to consider my offenses towards God or others. It makes me thinks of the prayer help acronym of A.C.T.S that suggests always including in our prayers Adoration, Confession, Thanksgiving, and Supplication.

Jesus taught us this in what we call the “Lord’s Prayer” (See Matthew 6:12), reminding us to confess our sins to God.

Also, when I consider this prayer of Solomon, I see that he’s praying on behalf of the people, and the overriding request is for forgiveness of sins. He also acknowledges real consequences that may come because of those sins, such as defeat in war, lack of rain, and famine.

This mention of God bringing discipline for sin makes me think of how praying for my own country, including its leaders, should include acknowledging that God would be right in striking us down because of our many sins. How merciful and patient God is! I can’t help but think that many of our current woes (abortion, lawlessness not being punished in some areas, steps to deal with discrimination resulting in further discrimination, the celebration of young people believing the lie of transgenderism, etc.) are not just due to sinners being sinners, but rather are the results of God’s anger at His people’s disobedience. We have allowed the scourge of baby murder to continue so long and while I read of a lot social media posts and online articles decrying transgenderism, I wonder where are the men to stand up for the weak and the young?

Enough writing for now. It is time to pray.

Oh, Lord, please hear our prayer of confession and our supplications for respective nations!