Though nobody will be saved merely because they pray, no one will )e saved unless they pray. When :he last Bible study has been given ind the last sermon preached, the fact is that it will have been through prayer, through the asking, that we will have received salvation; because Jesus comes into our hearts as an answer to prayer (Luke 11:9).
There are some things that others can do for us, but there are also things we must do for ourselves. We may hire someone to cook our food or be our personal physical trainer. Yet our health cannot be delegated to others.
In the same way we can hire someone to teach us a particular subject, yet in the final analysis we must learn for ourselves. And so it is with the aspect of our lives that deals with eternal things.
The pastor's need for prayer
The hard but pressing truth is that a minister who claims to have a relationship with God but who is not a man or woman of prayer is not being honest, because prayer is communication with God. We cannot have a relationship with someone with whom we do not communicate. It should therefore come as no surprise that men and women of God in every generation have been, without exception, people of prayer.
Because it is simply demonstrably true, it can be safely said that our spiritual condition at any particular moment is a direct reflection of our prayer life. Before a baby is born, its mother's blood provides the fetus oxygen. But at birth, if it is going to survive it must begin to breathe for itself. Prayer is the breath of the soul.
A healthy Christian is always a praying Christian. If it is possible, this is doubly true for a minister. A minister who prays will reap the richest benefits, as will his or her congregation. A minister who neglects prayer sooner or later will pay a high price.
Neglecting personal prayer cannot help but result in a personal spiritual slide.
It may be hardly noticeable at first, but eventually the symptoms will be unmistakable:
(1) Heartfelt prayer soon becomes only empty words and a form;
(2) the values of those who neglect it, inevitably begin to slip away from Christ and toward the emptiness of the present age.
(3) progressively they think, feel, and talk less and less about God and spiritual things;
(4) private time alone with God becomes less and less frequent until at last it disappears altogether; and finally,
(5) resisting sin becomes less and less important until it is resisted only when it would have the most serious consequences.
Praying churches
Prayer has far-reaching consequences, and so therefore does prayerlessness. If a church appears to be dead, among all the reasons often given, an underlying cause is that earlier, prayer died in that church. Therefore, if there is to be revival, reformation, and renewal in the church, there must be a revival of prayer. It is not that there is a magical property in the act of praying itself, but it is, of course, that prayer is the means by which we speak to God and He with us.
It has been said there are three kinds of churches.
1. There is the church in which there is an opening prayer, a pastoral prayer, a prayer for the offering, and of course the benediction.
2. Then there is the church that has a prayer ministries department.
3. The third kind of church is a living church where everything that happens in every phase of church life is bathed in prayer.
On one occasion I preached in a church where I noticed in the bulletin that after the worship service there was to be a meeting of the "prayer warriors." After standing at the door and shaking hands with the congregation, I returned to the front of the church to pray with the group. The group consisted of the pastor, a teenage boy, and three women.
As the little group knelt and prayed together, I wondered where the elders, the deacons, the deaconesses, and the other church leaders were. I have come to believe with all my heart that those who are the leaders of the church must be men and women of prayer. How can I be a legitimate leader of the church if 1 am not spiritual? How can I be a spiritual leader if I am not a man or woman of prayer?
I am thankful that we have per sons in every church who have answered God's call to pray. I am thankful for those whom we call prayer warriors. Yet we must not delegate the spiritual life of the church to the department of prayer ministries. If we are to be healthy physically, emotionally, or spiritually, we must not expect others to do for us what we must do for ourselves, and that is to develop our own prayer life.
Time for prayer
One day a colleague and I were discussing the matter of prayer. He told me that he and his wife had attended a retreat for married couples. One of the purposes of the retreat was to encourage the spouses to communicate with each other. At one point they were asked to write each other notes. He told me that in one of his wife's notes she asked, "When do you pray?"
I am sure that her question was not inquiring when he prayed in church, or when he prayed with the children in family worship or before a meal. She wanted to know when he personally spent time alone with God.
"What did you tell her?" I asked.
He said, "I told her I pray when I walk and when I drive." Then looking me right in the eye he said, "Dick, I don't have time to pray."
I have never forgotten his words. His answer to his wife could make it appear that he was praying all the time, but in fact he was confessing to me that though he prayed "all the time" in reality he wasn't giving God any special time.
While it may be inspiring, it can also be intimidating to hear some one tell how they get up at four o'clock in the morning and pray for two hours. It can make one feel that anybody who is anybody spiritually has to get up before dawn, and if they don't, spiritually, they must be a lesser life form.
To be able to say you have a devotional life has become the gold standard of the Christian life. While this goal can be an inspiration to some, when flaunted it often becomes a discouragement to others. Jesus left no room for doubt that devotional time was to be not only private but also secret to the extent that it must not be held up before others as a type of spiritual badge of courage.
To the individual who is not a morning person, and there are many, I would say if you can't get up at four o'clock and spend some quality time with God, then spend some quality time with Him whenever you get up. This will not be to "be seen of men" but to survive. Starting the day when ever you start your day without committing your ways to the Lord can easily contribute to complicating your life further down the line.
Though I ate, bathed, and breathed yesterday, my physical well-being yes, my very existence demands that I do the same every day. And so it is, of course, in our spiritual life.
While it is essential to spend quality time with God each day, the devotional life can easily become a routine that not only loses meaning but that can even become unhitched from the rest of our lives.
Compartmentalizing our lives
Some time ago I found out that an acquaintance of mine decided he did not love his spouse anymore. He apparently became infatuated with another woman. This is not unheard of, except this individual was very spiritual; he even got up early in the morning to pray with others before beginning his day.
When I heard what had happened, I could not help wondering how a person could be getting up early in the morning and spending time with God and at the same time watch their relationship with their spouse coming apart as they pursued, at least in their mind, another woman.
I realized that this could happen when we compartmentalize our lives. Prayer was never meant to be an end in itself, or simply another event in our daily lives. Prayer is a means to an end and that is to enable us to have a living connection with God and thus to live holy lives.
A seventeenth-century Frenchman named Nicholas Herman of Lorraine had been a soldier in his younger years. Later he became a monk. We know Nicholas as Brother Lawrence. His great contribution to thousands of lives down through the years is that he has inspired Christians to practice the presence of God. With Brother Lawrence, his set times for prayer were not different from other times. For him prayer became a lifestyle.
Prayer and life
Surveys have been conducted asking people if they pray. The results are both encouraging and discouraging. While the majority of the people interviewed said that they pray, even every day, prayer has little effect on the direction of their lives.
Many people divide their lives into two compartments. They have what they see as a spiritual life and a secular life. A person who tries to maintain a balance between the spiritual and the secular could be compared to the image of Daniel 2, whose feet were made of iron and of clay. The prophet Daniel put it plainly, "They shall not cleave one to another." Our lives cannot be spiritual and at the same time materialistically secular.
A truly spiritual life will be one that not only begins the day with God but also includes a walk with Him all day. A true Christian's devotional life becomes his lifestyle; a practical demonstration of the text which says, "In him we live and move and have our being" (Acts 17:28).
Many have testified that there are blessings to be had by fasting, by praying all night, and by spending two hours every morning in prayer, yet a person could conceivably do all of these things and not have their heart in it. Scripture warns that it is possible to have a form of godliness but deny the power thereof (2 Tim. 3:5).
The final test of effective prayer is the changed life. Jesus puts it another way, "Wherefore by their fruits ye shall know them" (Matt. 7:20). As ministers of the gospel it is not enough that we be men and women of prayer but men and women who live as they pray.
