Prayer… prayer… prayer… it has been on my mind and heart constantly lately. God is using my time in His Word to challenge me in prayer. God is using friends around me to bring it to my attention. It is amazing how He works. He will tirelessly pursue us because He desires to facilitate constant transformation in us.
How does prayer impact your personal relationship with Jesus?
I love education and believe in it strongly. I believe pastors should pursue all educational avenues available to them with the goal of our love for God abounding more and more, with knowledge and all discernment. Unfortunately, regardless of the great caliber of education and/or students and pastors, we are all sinful. I owe an unquantifiable amount of gratitude to my great professors who blessed me tremendously through my educational journey. The struggle I found was not with their teaching, but rather my sinfulness.
I have found in moments of my spiritual journey that the more I learn about God the farther from me He becomes. To say it another way… as I have invested so much in learning about Him and how He works, He has sometimes become more of an object of study than my personal Savior.
I don’t believe you have to be a person possessing theological degrees to have this struggle. Within the Church subculture we too often equate knowledge with spiritual maturity. Although it plays a significant part, it is far from being the indicator of maturity and spiritual wisdom. Knowledge of the Holy can either enflame arrogance or it can facilitate prostrate humility.
I have found in my own journey that prayer is the spiritual activity in my life that takes knowledge of God and uses it to infuse my relationship with Him. When I am not praying then I am just puffing myself up with knowledge. When I am praying I am taking the knowledge of scripture and asking God to transform my life with it.
We can believe ABOUT God and be really smart and have all the answers to all the Bible trivia questions. However, a believe IN God will produce prayer in our lives. Believing in the sacrificial gift of God’s only Son to die a death that we deserved demands more than intellectual engagement. Belief in that kind of unprecedented love is emotional.
We are in a day where intellectualism has become idolatry. It is just another facade we project in order to paint a picture of ourselves as holy to those around us. I was recently meeting with a friend and was reminded of the great missionary George Mueller. History tells of the ground being worn at his bedside at the exact places where his knees rested each day as he would plead for provision, wisdom, and guidance from the Lord.
All of the revivals of God’s work throughout history were sparked by veracious prayer. We find ourselves at another impasse between a natural God and a supernatural God. Mere knowledge about God is a very natural experience of Him limited by our own intellect. Prayer takes the natural and makes this knowledge supernatural as we are able to grow into greater depths of intimacy with the God of the Bible.
The abyss between knowledge and relationship is bridged through prayer. I have found that the greatest gift I can give to my wife, family, friends, and church which God has called me to lead is the priority of prayer in my life.
How does prayer impact your personal relationship with Jesus? Have you had seasons where prayer hasn’t been a priority in your life and you have felt the lack of intimacy in your relationship with Him?
Matt Powell serves as teaching pastor at Crossings Community Church, a body of believers whose mission is to engage, equip, and empower homes for gospel transformation in Katy, TX.
I am finding that prayer is the brass knuckles to my flesh, it knocks it out cold. That is, the more constant my state of prayer the more I find myself walking in the Spirit and not in the flesh. As a naturally self-dependent man whose idol is control, it is far too tempting to plan my days without so much as a passing thought toward the Spirit of the Almighty God and his role in my life. By making the commitment to prayer and then following up that commitment with actual times before the Lord, I am making a statement that I value his Spirit above my flesh, his wisdom above my intuition, his way above my plan.
There are all kinds of ways to approach the presence of the Lord in prayer – privately, corporately, silently, crying out, listening, asking, etc. – but the most importantly characteristic is that it is constant. May all my decisions throughout the day be bathed in a spirit of prayerful humility. May all my interactions with people be directed by a spirit of prayerful love.
Prayer in the morning is a sucker punch to the gut my flesh; prayer in the afternoon is an uppercut to knock my flesh back down; prayer at night is the final KO to finish my flesh off for the day.
Andrew, I love the battle metaphor. Obviously it is a very biblical metaphor but you have made it so practical. I’ve found for me all of those ‘kinds’ you reference each offer their own unique joys and growth. I’m struck by the blessing we have in prayer….
Thanks for the comment, Andrew.
A posture of prayer for me is a posture of submission. From there, giving up control seems so much more natural because I know I can trust the God that is personally interested in me.
Reminds me of the Luke 22 picture in the garden when the Son is praying…. You know, I’m so thankful to participate in that posture of submission. I love what it does to my spirit to be on my knees in prayer before an awesome God. Thanks Emily….
I’ve noticed in times where my prayer life has been lacking, I don’t see that God is in the details of my life and others’ lives. That’s a huge blessing to notice on a daily basis as the cares of this world can overwhelm any and all perspective if you aren’t intentional in prayer.
I don’t think I’ve ever thought about it like that…. so true.