[Faith-talk] Reclaiming Prayer: Fourth in a Series of Four Articles

[Paul Smith]

Hello and good day to my cyber readers out there.  We now conclude our 
series of four articles about prayer, today's contribution being 
written by Ronnie Floyd, the pastor of Cross Church of northwest 
Arkansas and also president of the Southern Baptist Convention.  The 
article in question is entitled "Bringing Prayer Back," rendered as follows:

In our lives and our churches, prayer must be our greatest action.

The greatest action we can take in any situation is to pray.  Yet, it 
is often the last action we take.  Should prayer not be the first 
choice we make? Why should it take a bad diagnosis, a major business 
loss or a big problem to move prayer up on our daily action plan?

I believe now is the time to bring prayer back into every fabric of our 
personal lives and into the worship services of our churches.



When we pray

In our independent world, we must refuse to declare independence from 
God.  Dependence on God is essential for our very survival.  Consider 
these thoughts on prayer and its importance in our lives:

1.  Prayer is dependence

When we pray, we are depending on God.  When we do not pray, we are 
depending on ourselves.  Therefore, pray.  Talk to God daily.  Talk to 
God throughout the day.  Carry on a continual communion with God.

Talking to yourself may make you feel better, but only God can help you 
through your life.  Talking to others may provide some counsel, but 
Jesus will counsel you, coach you, and be your constant through your 
life.  The Bible calls Him the "Wonderful Counselor."

2.  Prayer is faith.

When you pray, you are declaring absolute dependence on the Lord! 
Therefore, pray whenever you need to exercise any level of faith, 
because prayer is faith.  When you pray rightly, you are trusting in 
the Lord completely.

In fact, faith is built up greatly when we pray with and for others.  
My ongoing daily prayer list is continually changing.  Prayer builds 
faith in my life.  It creates expectancy for God to move in the situation.

3.  Prayer is action.

When you start your day with God, you are taking action upon your day.  
When you pray anywhere about anything, you are taking action.

Oftentimes, we take matters in our own hands.  Our impulsiveness or 
impatience shows we are depending on ourselves and not upon God.  
Please remember:  Prayer is not inaction; prayer is your greatest action.

Let me reiterate:  The greatest action you can take is prayer.  This 
does not eliminate other actions.  If a person needs a job, we do not 
simply pray for a job, we also take the action of trying to find a job. 
But prayer is a matter of priority and prominence in your life.

Now is the time to bring prayer back into our churches.

Christians want prayer back in the schools; however, we ought to first 
bring it back into the worship services of our churches! Most churches 
spend more time in their worship services promoting the ministries of 
the church than praying.  Jesus wants His church to be a house of 
prayer for all the nations!

When is the last time you experienced an entire Sunday morning worship 
service dedicated to prayer? Has this ever occurred? Has prayer 
received more than a small focus in any worship service you have 
attended recently?

If not, why? If we are not filling God's churches with passionate 
prayers that are focused with purpose, what are we filling our worship 
services with? Could it be that we are not seeing that our greatest 
need is for the power of God to intervene in our lives, our church and 
our nation? Could it be that we do not connect the deep need of prayer 
with the church's greatest mission--to take the Gospel of Jesus Christ 
too all the nations?



Four characteristics of prayer services

Some churches are committing entire worship services to the ministry of 
prayer.  Four characteristics build an effective prayer service:

Each prayer time needs to be based on a teaching time from God's Word.  
We stand on His Word, not on our words or passions.

2.  Principles

Each prayer time should be focused on principles like repentance, 
revival, surrender to the Lordship of Christ and the filling of the 
Spirit, spiritual awakening, and reaching the world for Christ, 
beginning in your own community.

3.  Led by the Spirit

Worship and prayer moments should be led as God's Spirit leads, not 
necessarily according to the order of service.

4.  Expression

Hymns and worship songs are given to us to express our worship of Jesus 
Christ as our Lord.  These can be powerful expressions as transition 
moments, moving from one prayer time to the other.



Just Imagine

What could happen in our church if an entire Sunday morning service was 
turned into a prayer service? You could experience God moving in ways 
unlike you have seen in a long time, perhaps ever.  People could come 
to Christ.  Personal repentance could result in a releasing of the 
Spirit upon your church, unleashing the church to greater worship and ministry.

Here is what I know:  If we do not plan to pray, we will not pray!

It is past time for us to prioritize prayer, both personally and in the 
church.  For far too long, we have seen what _we can do; it is time for 
us to see what _God can do.  This can only happen when we pray.

Acts 4:31 says, "When they had prayed, the place where they were 
assembled was shaken and they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and 
began to speak God's message with boldness."



EACH DAY

MAKE prayer your first choice.

REALIZE that when you pray, you are demonstrating great faith in God.

LIVE in a way that proves prayer is important to you.

MAKE prayer a priority in your church.

IN YOUR life and in your church, pray like it matters.

And there you have all four articles in this series on the subject of 
prayer which I hope were a blessing to you.

Before I close, I'd like to give you an invitation to join the 
undersigned and many others to join the Interactive Christian 
Community, an online group of voice chatterers and e-mailers who just 
love God's Word and His people.  For those of you reading these lines 
who are ICC members, you know all about it.  But why not some of the 
rest of you? I've been a member since June of 2010 and not only have I 
received blessings, but have also given them out.  If you'd like to 
join, point your browser(s) to:
http://www.iccsite.com.
Fill out the form and hopefully before too long, Tim Snyder, our lay 
administrator, will send you your own unique username and password.  
When you log in for the first time, just type the appropriate 
information in the spaces provided and you should be good to go.  You 
need not enter that info each time you come into our chat rooms.  Of 
course, you'll need a microphone and will have to download the Talking 
Communities (TC) client, but hopefully that won't be that difficult.  
Oh, by the way, the best thing about ICC is that membership is free, 
whether you wish to speak to us directly or chat via email.

And that will do it for today.  Until tomorrow when, Lord willing 
another daily thought message and article will be posted, may the God 
of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob just keep us safe, individually and 
collectively, in these last days in which we live.  Your Christian 
friend and brother, Paul