Category Archives: Prayer

Praying the Psalms

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Article by Donald S. Whitney “Why You Should Be Praying the Psalms” – original source: https://www.9marks.org/article/why-you-should-be-praying-the-psalms/

I’m sure such folks are out there, but I’ve not personally met any Christian who hasn’t struggled in prayer because they find themselves saying the same old things about the same old things. Before long, such repetitive prayer gets boring. And when prayer is boring, it’s hard to pray—at least with any joy and fervency.

Note that the problem is not that we pray about the same old things. Actually, that’s normal, because our lives tend to consist pretty much of the same old things from one day to the next. Thankfully, the big things in life—our family, our church, our job—don’t dramatically change very often.

Instead, the problem is we say the same old things about the same old things. And prayers without variety eventually become words without meaning. The result of such praying is that we tend to feel like failures. We assume that, despite our devotion to Christ, love for God, and desire for a meaningful prayer life, we must be second-rate Christians because our minds wander so much.

But I’m here to tell you, the problem may not be you; it may be your method.

I believe that the most simple, permanent, and biblical solution to this almost universal problem is to stop making up your own prayers most of the time—because that results in repetitious prayer—and to pray the Bible instead.

Praying the Bible means talking to God about what comes to mind as you read the Bible. Usually you might read the passage first, then go back and pray through what you just read.

So, for instance, if today you turned to Psalm 23 in your devotional reading, after completing it you would come back to verse 1 and pray about what occurs to you as you read “The Lord is my shepherd.” You might thank the Lord for being your shepherd, ask him to shepherd you in a decision that’s before you, entreat him to cause your children to love him as their shepherd too, and pray anything else that comes to mind as you consider Psalm 23:1. Then, when nothing else in those words prompts prayer, you continue by doing the same with the next line, “I shall not want.” And on and on you go through the psalm, line-by-line, until you run out of time.

By praying in this way, you discover that you never again say the same old things about the same old things.

While you can pray through any part of the Bible, some books and chapters are much easier to pray through than others. Overall, I believe the book of Psalms is the best place in Scripture from which to pray Scripture. In part, that’s because Psalms is the only book of the Bible inspired by God for the expressed purpose of being reflected to God. God inspired them as songs, songs for use in both individual and corporate worship. The Psalms also work well in prayer because there’s a psalm for every sigh of the soul. You’ll never go through anything in life in which the root emotion is not found in one or more of the Psalms. Thus the Psalms put into expression that which is looking for expression in our hearts.

Christian, here’s how you’ll benefit from praying the Psalms.

1. You’ll pray more biblically-faithful prayers.

The Bible will guide your prayers, helping you to speak to God with words that have come from the mind and heart of God.

This also means you’ll be praying more in accordance with the will of God. Can you have any greater assurance that you’re praying the will of God than when you’re praying the Word of God?

2. You’ll be freed from the boredom of saying the same old things about the same old things.

One way this will happen is that the psalm will prompt you to pray about things you normally wouldn’t think to pray. You’ll find yourself praying about people and situations that you’d never think to put on a prayer list.

What’s more, even though you also continue to pray about the same things—family, church, job, etc.—you’ll pray about them in new ways. Instead of saying, “Lord, please bless my family,” the text will guide you to pray things such as, “Lord, please be a shield around my family today” if, for example, you’re praying through Psalm 3:3.

3. You’ll pray more God-centered prayers.

When you use a God-focused guide like the psalms to prompt your prayers, you’ll pray less selfishly and with more attention to the ways, the will, and the attributes of God.

Prayer becomes less about what you want God to do for you—though that’s always a part of biblical praying—and more about the concerns of God and his kingdom.

4. You’ll enjoy more focus in prayer.

When you say the same old things in prayer every day, it’s easy for your mind to wander. You find yourself praying auto-pilot prayers—repeating words without thinking either about either them or the God to whom you offer them.

But when you pray the Bible, your mind has a place to focus. And when your thoughts do begin to wander, you have a place to return to—the next verse.

5. You’ll find that prayer becomes more like a real conversation with a real Person.

Isn’t that what prayer should be? Prayer is talking with a Person, the Person of God himself. Prayer is not a monologue spoken in the direction of God. Yet somehow, many people assume that when they meet with the Lord he should remain silent and they should do all the talking. But when we pray the psalms, our monologue to God becomes conversation with God.

I’m not alluding to the perception of some spiritual impression or hearing an inner voice, imagining God saying things to us—away with that sort of mysticism. Instead, I’m referring to the Bible as the means by which God participates in the conversation, for the Bible is God speaking. God speaks in the Bible, and you respond to his speaking in prayer. That’s why people who try this often report, “The pressure was off. I didn’t have to think about what to say next, and the whole experience just kind of flowed.”

Want to experience these benefits for yourself? How about right now? Pick a psalm, read what God says there, and talk with him about it.

Quiet Times?

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Does the Bible Direct Us to Have Quiet Times?

This article is adapted from Be Thou My Vision: A Liturgy for Daily Worship by Jonathan Gibson.

In the Old Testament

It may come as a surprise, but there is no explicit command in Scripture to have a time of worship each day, either as an individual or as a family. And yet it is a habit that every Christian believer or Christian family is encouraged to practice. The name of the habit may vary depending on one’s Christian tradition or background—“devotion,” “quiet time,” or “personal or family worship”—but the basic elements of Bible reading and prayer are usually present. I have opted for the general term “daily worship”; it covers a time of personal or family devotion while maintaining the vertical dimension of worship. But from where do we get this idea of a time of daily worship, which consists mainly in Bible reading and prayer? The answer is that the practice is implied in a number of Scriptures.

In Genesis, God says that he chose Abraham so that he might command his children and his household to keep the way of the Lord (Gen. 18:19). This would involve Abraham having a time in the day or week to teach his family and servants what God had commanded him. In Deuteronomy, God commands Israel to love him with heart and soul and mind and strength, a love that is to be expressed by parents taking every opportunity during the day to teach their children the words of God (Deut. 6:5–6). In Joshua, after Moses dies, God exhorts Joshua to be “strong and very courageous” by being careful to obey the law of Moses (Josh. 1:7). The command implies that Joshua would need to familiarize himself with the books of Moses throughout his life, a discipline that would require regular, systematic reading of the sacred text.

At the end of his life, Joshua declares to Israel that his commitment to God is not just personal but familial: “But as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord” (Josh. 24:15). For his family to serve the Lord, Joshua would first have to know the law of Moses for himself before instructing his family in it. The practice is reflected in the Psalms where Israel is encouraged to tell the glorious deeds of the Lord to the next generation (Ps. 78:4). The prophetic books contain a similar idea of personally hearing from God in his word before passing on the revelation to others. In Isaiah, the servant of the Lord is said to be awakened “morning by morning” to listen to God’s instruction (Isa. 50:4) before he undertakes the work to which God has called him. In Amos, God says that he does no great work in history without first revealing his secret to his servants the prophets (Amos 3:7). In Ezekiel, the prophet is told to eat the words of God from the scroll as a symbolic gesture of first digesting the word of God for himself before proclaiming it to Israel (Ezek. 3:1–2).

In each of these examples—with Abraham, Israel, Joshua, Isaiah, Amos, and Ezekiel—it is reasonable to think that the personal reading of Scripture or the familial instruction from Scripture would have also involved times of prayer. This is supported by the fact that the canon of Christian Scripture contains its own prayer book. The book of Psalms includes individual and corporate prayers (e.g., Pss. 3; 96) mixed with encouragement to meditate on God’s word and his promises (e.g., Pss. 1; 119).

In the New Testament

The New Testament reflects similar sentiments on reading the Scriptures and praying, either as an individual, a family, or a church. Jesus frequently asks the Pharisees, “Have you not read?” as he rebukes them for not knowing their Bibles (Matt. 12:3, 5; 19:4; 22:31; Mark 12:10, 26), which means that he believed that they ought to have been reading the Old Testament for themselves. Jesus also teaches on corporate and individual prayer. On the one hand, the Lord’s Prayer is intended to be a public prayer said by the church, seen in the plural forms that run throughout it: “Our Father in heaven. . . . Give us this day our daily bread, and forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors. And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil” (Matt. 6:9–13).

On the other hand, individual prayer is something Jesus envisages being performed alone, in private: “When you pray, go into your room and shut the door and pray to your Father who is in secret” (Matt. 6:6). So, according to Jesus, there is a time to pray together as a church and a time to pray on our own. We see a similar focus on reading the Scriptures and praying in the writings and lives of the apostles. Peter encourages Christians to crave the spiritual milk of God’s word like newborn infants (1 Pet. 1:24–2:2), while also exhorting them to be alert and sober-minded so that they might pray (1 Pet. 4:7). In his epistles, Paul commands the public and private reading of Scripture (1 Tim. 4:15; 2 Tim. 3:15), alongside prayer (1 Tim. 2:8). He reveals the content of his own personal prayers for the churches (Eph. 1:17–19; 3:16–19; Phil. 1:9–11; Col. 1:9–12), while also encouraging believers toward a similar commitment to daily prayer: “Be constant in prayer” (Rom. 12:12) and “Pray without ceasing” (1 Thess. 5:17).

Finally, family instruction from the Scriptures, along with prayer, is implied in Paul’s exhortation to fathers to raise their children in the fear and admonition of the Lord (Eph. 6:4). So it is clear from this brief overview that while there is no explicit command to have a time of daily worship as an individual or a family, consisting in reading the Scriptures and praying to God, the habit is certainly assumed or implied in a number of places.

Practical How-To

If this is so, then some questions arise: How should we structure our own daily worship? What should we do and how should we do it?

At a basic level, it obviously involves hearing from God in Scripture and responding to him in prayer. However, can we be more intentional and creative than that? I think we can be. For example, we know that Jesus would rise early in the morning to spend time with his Father. Was this worship time structured or random? I think that we have good reason to believe that it was structured. For one, Jesus knew the Old Testament Scriptures comprehensively and precisely, and he could only have attained such knowledge if he was reading God’s word regularly and sequentially. At the very least, he would have heard the consecutive reading of Scripture at the synagogue.

Second, when Jesus taught his disciples how to pray, he provided a basic structure in the Lord’s Prayer of adoration, petition, confession, and further petition. So it is reasonable to assume that when Jesus spent time with his Father each day in worship, he had a system for reading and meditating on the Old Testament as well as a structure for praying. Following our Lord’s example can only serve to improve our own daily worship in terms of Bible reading and prayer. In regard to Bible reading, the last few decades have seen a more systematic read-through-the-Bible approach. This is a welcome advance from the more random verse-a-day reading plan. Systematic reading plans help us to grasp “the whole counsel of God” (Acts 20:27), and in the order in which God has revealed it. The sequential reading of Scripture deepens our knowledge of God’s word and aids its memorization.

In regard to prayer, however, I am not sure we have seen much advance beyond saying a short prayer before reading our Bibles, followed by a list of petitions in which we ask God to bless this or that person and this or that endeavor. Let’s be honest: prayer is the hardest part of our devotions and often leaves us feeling distracted and directionless. However, the good news is that help is available to us from those in the past who have exemplified an intentional structure within their prayers as well as a varied use of different prayers, such as adoration, confession, illumination, and intercession. In addition to systematic Bible reading and structured-but-varied prayer, our worship of God each day may be enriched by affirming our Christian faith with a creed or receiving doctrinal instruction from a catechism.

Ordering all these elements in a fixed liturgy provides a healthy and enjoyable rhythm to our worship. This is precisely what a liturgy of daily worship seeks to do. Of course, the aim is not to replace corporate worship on the Lord’s Day; rather, it is to help prepare us for corporate worship on the Lord’s Day by improving our personal or family worship each day.

New Testament Prayers for the Church

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Eph. 1:15-23 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. And he put all things under his feet and gave him as head over all things to the church, which is his body, the fullness of him who fills all in all.

Eph. 3:16-19 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.

Phil. 1:9-11 And it is my prayer that your love may abound more and more, with knowledge and all discernment, so that you may approve what is excellent, and so be pure and blameless for the day of Christ, filled with the fruit of righteousness that comes through Jesus Christ, to the glory and praise of God.

Col. 1:9-12 And so, from the day we heard, we have not ceased to pray for you, asking that you may be filled with the knowledge of his will in all spiritual wisdom and understanding, so as to walk in a manner worthy of the Lord, fully pleasing to him: bearing fruit in every good work and increasing in the knowledge of God; being strengthened with all power, according to his glorious might, for all endurance and patience with joy; giving thanks to the Father, who has qualified you to share in the inheritance of the saints in light.

2 Thess. 1:11-12 To this end we always pray for you, that our God may make you worthy of his calling and may fulfill every resolve for good and every work of faith by his power, so that the name of our Lord Jesus may be glorified in you, and you in him, according to the grace of our God and the Lord Jesus Christ.

Never Resist the Least Urge to Pray

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Article: Tim Challies – A Powerful Practice for Prayer (original source here)

Prayer has always been a struggle for me, and I know I am not the only one. There’s a reason that books on prayer continue to flood our bookshelves. Very few of us pray as often and as earnestly as we would like. Very few of us are confident that we pray well. Fewer still feel like we really get prayer.

I have read the books and sat in the seminars and heard the sermons and even preached a few of my own. Along the way I have learned many truths and picked up many practical tips. Little by little, bit by bit, they have helped me grow in my knowledge and understanding of prayer. And, I trust, they have helped me to actually pray.

There is one practice I find myself working on these days more than any other, and I think it may be the most important of them all. It is a simple one: Never resist the least urge to pray.

I cannot remember where I first heard that. Was it Joel Beeke? Was it Martyn Lloyd-Jones? Was it a Puritan writer? It may well have been all of them. The truth behind it is simple: It’s never the wrong time to pray. Those impulses are invariably good. After all, it’s not like Satan or the old man will be the ones directing me to call out to God rather than resting in selfishness or self-reliance, is it?

Like me, you probably feel that urge to pray throughout your day. You feel it after church when you are speaking to a struggling friend. Something in your mind says, “I should pause right here and right now and pray with her.” And you fight a momentary battle over whether or not you will actually say, “Let me pray for you.”

You feel it when you are lying in bed beside your wife, you are about to go to sleep, and you think, “I should pray with her.” But even something so simple can feel like the hardest thing in the world.

You feel it when you are sharing the gospel. He has been at least a little bit receptive and you think, “I should offer to pray for him.” And right there, a whole cosmic battle rages within your heart and mind.

It happens just as often when you are alone and you are struck with the desire to pray or the impulse that you ought to pray. You see that you have the opportunity to pray. You believe that this is the time to pray. But will you pray?

Never resist the least urge to pray. What if you lived that way? What if we all lived that way? Our lives and our churches would be bathed in prayer. I believe we would be living in much greater faithfulness to God’s command to “pray without ceasing” (1 Thessalonians 5:17).

So why don’t you try it? See what difference it makes in your life, in your family, in your church, when you stop resisting those urges to pray, and when you joyfully respond to every impulse.

It turns out, by the way, that it was probably Martyn Lloyd-Jones I was reading. He gives the instruction in the context of sermon preparation, but it applies equally to all of life:

Always respond to every impulse to pray. I would make an absolute law of this – always obey such an impulse.

Where does it come from? It is the work of the Holy Spirit; it is a part of the meaning of ‘Work out your salvation with fear and trembling, for it is God which worketh in you both to will and to do of his good pleasure’ (Phil 2:12-13).

This often leads to some of the most remarkable experiences in the life of the minister. So never resist it, never postpone it, never push it aside because you are busy. Give yourself to it, yield to it; and you will find not only that you have not been wasting time with respect to the matter with which you are dealing but that actually it has helped you greatly in that respect…

Such a call to prayer must never be regarded as a distraction; always respond to it immediately, and thank God if it happens to you frequently.