How did you learn how to ride a bike? Did it come easily? Did you fall several times before getting the hang of it? How did you learn how to roller skate? Did you skin your knees? I know I am dating myself. Few roller skate anymore. People learn how to roller blade these days and skate board. How did you learn? Did someone teach you? How did you learn how to cook? Did you fail along the way? Did someone guide you?
Three times in Matthew 6:5-7 Jesus uttered the phrase, "When you pray." I love prayer. I love to do it. I love to teach on it. I love to preach on prayer. I also love to write about prayer. I did so again this past Sunday. Then I received a text from someone that I have not been able to shake. The text went something like this, "How do we know how to pray?" There was more to the text but the basic gist asked the question of how does a person learn how to pray?
Preachers like myself are guilty of preaching and exhorting people to pray. What we often fail to do is to teach people how to pray. We just expect they will know how to pray. Often a person can pray and say everything they can think of in five or ten minutes. They have never been actually taught.
That text got me to thinking. How did I learn how to pray? Right off the bat I confess I am still learning how to pray. Prayer is so simple and so complex at the same time. So simple a child can do it. So complex a theologian can never fully explain all the facets of prayer.
My prayer life floundered during my high school years. As a new Christian I had no concept of praying with faith. Thinking back on those days all my prayers centered around football. I prayed for wins. I prayed for strength to beat my opponent. I prayed for a football scholarship. I never prayed over ten minutes for anything. I could not think of anything else to say.
God answered my prayer for a football scholarship at Howard Payne University. Unbeknownst to me, God had other plans for me on that campus than football or to study journalism. Just two months before arriving on campus God surprised me by calling me to preach. While standing in line at registration I heard two guys behind me talking about being Bible majors. That was the first time I even heard Howard Payne offered Bible classes. I deduced since God called me to preach I needed to change my major. It happened that quickly before I met with my advisor.
Part of becoming a freshman Bible major meant getting paired with an upperclassman as a mentor. God knew what I needed. He paired me with a guy named Richard Rozier. Richard was a senior. He had a wife and children. He also served as a pastor at a small church while finishing his studies. The first time Richard and I met he used that time to get to know me. The second time he invited me to come to a prayer meeting. I did not know what to expect. We met in the prayer room located behind the Bible building. All the others present were upperclassmen like Richard.
Before we prayed those guys started prostrating themselves on the floor. I had never seen anything like that. I knelt down. Then the prayer started. Prayers offered in faith, fervently, in tears and with travails like I had never heard in my life. I got caught up in it all. Time seemed to suspend. All that mattered in those moments is we entered God's presence and prayed our hearts out.
I could not believe it when the prayer meeting ended and nearly two hours had elapsed. God hooked me that day. From that day to this I have studied prayer. I have read about prayer and read the biographies of men and women who prayed mightily. I read, studied, reread and restudied Bible passages about prayer. Most of all I prayed.
Like a new colt standing on wobbly legs for the first time, prayer took on added significance to me though I prayed on wobbly knees. God used prayer giants to fuel the flames of prayer. People like Leonard Ravenhill who used to pray eight hours a day. E.M. Bounds who rose at 4:00 a.m. to pray. John Hyde who labored tirelessly in prayer for lost souls. George Mueller taught me to pray in faith believing God for the impossible. Evan Roberts taught me about being available to pray in the night watches and to pray for revival. There have been others. All of those men are dead now. God still used them to teach me through their writings and their lives.
My bookshelves are lined with dozens of volumes on prayer. It is by far my favorite of all topics to read, study, preach, teach and write on. I feel I know so little about it.
While a student at Howard Payne God had another teacher for me. A prayer giant named Don Miller. He used to conduct prayer conferences called Bible Based Praying. I attended that conference alone at a nearby church. I sat alone with pen and paper. I took copious notes filling page after page. I sat mesmerized by Mr. MIller's teachings and real life testimonies of how God answered prayer. Night after night I eagerly attended those meetings. I still have those notes. I refer to them from time to time.
Prayer has become my life. I am reminded I did not get here alone. I did not grow in prayer just because my pastor told me I needed to pray more. God used several people to teach me. Nothing grew my prayer life like praying itself. Over the years I learned to pray. Partly by studying His word. Partly by listening to others pray. Partly by praying in the secret place. Some I learned from reading and hearing sermons on prayer. He continues to teach me the ministry of intercession. Yahweh has ushered me into private worship encounters I cannot describe. He taught me to pray Scripture and to stand on His promises. He continues to teach me to pray with perseverance. I am learning to travail in prayer. And all this is just the tip of the iceberg. These are just the things above the surface. There is vastly more to discover beneath the surface.
I am addicted. Addicted to prayer. As freshman Bible major 33 years ago God enrolled me in the school of prayer. I have been an eager student on the front row to this day. Maybe the Lord will allow me to be a Richard Rozier for someone else teaching them to pray.
Wednesday, May 30, 2018
Tuesday, May 29, 2018
Sweat
I just finished my daily work out. I pushed, pulled and contorted my body until the swea glistened and poured. It dripped down my arms and off my finger tips into little puddles on the floor. The more I worked the more the sweat oozed from my pores. At the end I sat in a chair winded, exhausted and dripping. Puddles formed from the sweat dripping from my arms and nose. Each puddle the testimony of the work put in.
That is not the point of this blog. My mind is not on the sweat from working or working out in the heat. My mind is on the soul sweat poured out from deep within when we pray. The kind of praying where you pray with all your might, all your faith and all your earnestness. The kind of soul sweat that is produced from travailing in prayer. In agony of soul with hard pressing the requests are petitioned to God.
Soul sweat praying is work. This is no casual stroll down a park path. This is hard, agonizing, intense labor likened to a woman giving birth. Only soul sweat praying is giving birth to miracles. It is trusting God to turn the impossible into reality. It is beiieving Yahweh to move the biggest mountains out of our way. It is travailing over the souls of the lost wayward. It is standing in the gap for an immoral nation to turn back in repentance. It is pleading with God to revive the dead bones of churches on the brink of death.
This kind of praying is taxing. It is laborious. It is determined relentless resolve to get a breakthrough. This is not the kind of praying found at the local prayer meeting where fifteen minutes will be used to take prayer requests and only thirty seconds to actually lift those requests up in prayer.
We need soul sweating followers of Jesus. We need congregations who put in soul sweat for their communities. We need pastors who'll give soul sweat for his flock. We need parents who'll will give soul sweat for their children. Teachers who'll give soul sweat for their students.
It is hard to find a prayer meeting these days. Many prayer meetings are disguised as fellowships. People gather to eat and socialize more then they gather to pray. Some gather to gossip in the form of prayer requests more than they intercede for others. Some prayer meetings are made up of empty cliches and vain repetition. Such people think they will will be heard for their many words. Some pray to please the listeners around them more than to gain the ear of God. None of the above is soul sweat praying.
Soul sweat praying begins with a burden. Something a person is convinced God wills to happen. Then the soul sweat begins. The asking. The believing. The standing in faith. The perseverance. The travail. The resolve to keep asking, to keep seeking and to keep knocking. When the people of God get to this point God intervenes. He works. He lifts burdens. He saves the lost. He brings the prodigals home. He revives the weary. He renews those about to quit. He convicts of sin. He calls others to pray. In this way Great Awakenings have been birthed. The glory of God followed.
Surely we need that again today. O Lord, please give this burden to pray with soul sweat. A real fervency and earnestness. Please produce perseverance in your people to keep praying no matter how the answer is delayed. In Jesus name, amen.
1 John 5:14-15 (NKJV)
14 Now this is the confidence that we have in Him, that if we ask anything according to His will, He hears us.
15 And if we know that He hears us, whatever we ask, we know that we have the petitions that we have asked of Him.
Matthew 7:7-8 (NKJV)
7 "Ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you.
8 For everyone who asks receives, and he who seeks finds, and to him who knocks it will be opened.
Luke 18:1 (NKJV)
1 Then He spoke a parable to them, that men always ought to pray and not lose heart,
James 5:16 (NKJV)
16 Confess your trespasses to one another, and pray for one another, that you may be healed. The effective, fervent prayer of a righteous man avails much.
That is not the point of this blog. My mind is not on the sweat from working or working out in the heat. My mind is on the soul sweat poured out from deep within when we pray. The kind of praying where you pray with all your might, all your faith and all your earnestness. The kind of soul sweat that is produced from travailing in prayer. In agony of soul with hard pressing the requests are petitioned to God.
Soul sweat praying is work. This is no casual stroll down a park path. This is hard, agonizing, intense labor likened to a woman giving birth. Only soul sweat praying is giving birth to miracles. It is trusting God to turn the impossible into reality. It is beiieving Yahweh to move the biggest mountains out of our way. It is travailing over the souls of the lost wayward. It is standing in the gap for an immoral nation to turn back in repentance. It is pleading with God to revive the dead bones of churches on the brink of death.
This kind of praying is taxing. It is laborious. It is determined relentless resolve to get a breakthrough. This is not the kind of praying found at the local prayer meeting where fifteen minutes will be used to take prayer requests and only thirty seconds to actually lift those requests up in prayer.
We need soul sweating followers of Jesus. We need congregations who put in soul sweat for their communities. We need pastors who'll give soul sweat for his flock. We need parents who'll will give soul sweat for their children. Teachers who'll give soul sweat for their students.
It is hard to find a prayer meeting these days. Many prayer meetings are disguised as fellowships. People gather to eat and socialize more then they gather to pray. Some gather to gossip in the form of prayer requests more than they intercede for others. Some prayer meetings are made up of empty cliches and vain repetition. Such people think they will will be heard for their many words. Some pray to please the listeners around them more than to gain the ear of God. None of the above is soul sweat praying.
Soul sweat praying begins with a burden. Something a person is convinced God wills to happen. Then the soul sweat begins. The asking. The believing. The standing in faith. The perseverance. The travail. The resolve to keep asking, to keep seeking and to keep knocking. When the people of God get to this point God intervenes. He works. He lifts burdens. He saves the lost. He brings the prodigals home. He revives the weary. He renews those about to quit. He convicts of sin. He calls others to pray. In this way Great Awakenings have been birthed. The glory of God followed.
Surely we need that again today. O Lord, please give this burden to pray with soul sweat. A real fervency and earnestness. Please produce perseverance in your people to keep praying no matter how the answer is delayed. In Jesus name, amen.
1 John 5:14-15 (NKJV)
14 Now this is the confidence that we have in Him, that if we ask anything according to His will, He hears us.
15 And if we know that He hears us, whatever we ask, we know that we have the petitions that we have asked of Him.
Matthew 7:7-8 (NKJV)
7 "Ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you.
8 For everyone who asks receives, and he who seeks finds, and to him who knocks it will be opened.
Luke 18:1 (NKJV)
1 Then He spoke a parable to them, that men always ought to pray and not lose heart,
James 5:16 (NKJV)
16 Confess your trespasses to one another, and pray for one another, that you may be healed. The effective, fervent prayer of a righteous man avails much.
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