PSALM 109:1-4 – Be not silent, O God of my praise! For wicked and deceitful mouths are opened against me, speaking against me with lying tongues. They encircle me with words of hate and attack me without cause. In return for my love they accuse me, but I give myself to prayer.”
Do you pray? Please don’t delete me. I am not questioning your spirituality or walk with the Lord. Of course you pray, but do you really pray? Do I really pray? Take time and evaluate our prayer lives. Is it lively? Spiritually vibrant? Modeled after the Word of God? A delight we cannot go without? Or are our prayer lives more formal with repeated words and often vague generalities that sound more like a script with a list than the language of the heart to our gracious God?
I guess my point for us in today’s nugget is do we truly pray? David did in today’s scripture. Read the last verse again. He says, “but I give myself to prayer”, not “I pray” but “I give myself to prayer.” The literal language of this verse reads, “But I am prayer”, not “I pray”. See the difference? True prayer is not just repeating words or offering petitions to the Lord. It is all-encompassing because prayer is the language of love between our reconciled God and ourselves. It involves our entire being; heart, mind, soul, will, and all shaped by God’s Word
The author of The Pilgrim’s Progress, John Bunyan, wrote a book on prayer that is one of the best penned. Apart from the Bible, it would rank high, very high, on sound instructions for truly praying, or like David, giving ourselves over to prayer. Below is Bunyan’s definition of prayer. Spend time reading it over and over. Also read the prayers of the Apostle Paul in his letter to the Ephesians – For this reason, because I have heard of your faith in the Lord Jesus and your love toward all the saints, I do not cease to give thanks for you, remembering you in my prayers, that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give you the Spirit of wisdom and of revelation in the knowledge of him, having the eyes of your hearts enlightened, that you may know what is the hope to which he has called you, what are the riches of his glorious inheritance in the saints, and what is the immeasurable greatness of his power toward us who believe, according to the working of his great might that he worked in Christ when he raised him from the dead and seated him at his right hand in the heavenly places, far above all rule and authority and power and dominion, and above every name that is named, not only in this age but also in the one to come (Ephesians 1:15-21) and For this reason I bow my knees before the Father, from whom every family in heaven and on earth is named, that according to the riches of his glory he may grant you to be strengthened with power through his Spirit in your inner being, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith—that you, being rooted and grounded in love, may have strength to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled with all the fullness of God (Ephesians 3:14-19).
Here is Bunyan’s definition of prayer . . . Prayer is a sincere, sensible, affectionate pouring out of the heart or soul to God, through Christ, in the strength and assistance of the Holy Spirit, for such things as God has promised, or according to His Word, for the good of the church, with submission in faith to the will of God. After we read and meditate on all three, let’s ask the question – Do we really pray?
PRAYER: “Father, help me to develop a prayer life that honors You and draws me to You.”
QUOTE: “Prayer is so much more than asking God for things. It is more about knowing Him.”