Tag Archives: Prayer

Spending the Day in Prayer

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I long to grow in my life of prayer.

It is astonishing that I have come so far on so feeble prayer. Like holding my breath while running, it makes no sense, it will not last long, and I will not get very far without collapsing.

I need to commune with God, not just as a Pastor, but simply as a Christian. Prayer brings me back to my dependence on God for my every need. Prayer is worship before the throne of grace. Prayer is the least I could do, the simplest act of faith, and yet it is the greatest power of change in my life and one of the hardest disciplines to maintain.

I’ve been studying from Joel Beeke’s, Taking Hold of God; Reformed and Puritan Perspectives on Prayer*. I came across this summary of Matthew Henry’s “Directions for Praying All Day” that I thought worth sharing. May you be blessed and encouraged in your prayers as I was.

Directive One: Begin Every Day with God

Henry wrote, “It is our wisdom and duty to begin every day with God.” David testified in Psalm 5:3 that the morning hours are especially good for prayer. Likewise, Henry observed that the priests offered a sacrificial Lamb and burned incense every morning, and singers thanked the Lord every morning. He cited these examples to indicate that all Christians, who are spiritual priests in Christ, should offer spiritual sacrifices every morning to God. God who is Alpha, requires our first fruits; therefore, we should give him the first part of the day. God deserves our best, not just the leftovers of the day when we are tired and worn out. Henry wrote, “In the morning we are most free from company and business, and ordinarily have the best opportunity for solitude.” God gives us fresh mercies every morning, so we should give Him fresh thanksgivings and fresh meditations on His beauties. In the morning we prepare for the work of the day, let us commit it to God. Begin every day with God.

Directive Two: Spend Every Day With God

The Christian’s attendance upon God throughout the day is captured in the phrase to wait upon the Lord. “To wait on God, is to live a life of desire towards him, delight in him, dependence on him, and devoted ness to him,” Henry wrote. We should spend our days desiring God, like a beggar constantly looking to His benefactor, hungering not onl for His gifts but for the One who is the Bread of Life. We should live in delight of God, like a lover with his beloved. “Do we love God?” Henry asked. Constant dependence is the attitude of a child towards his Father whom he trusts and on whom he casts all his cares. A life of devotedness is that of a servant towards His Master, “ready to observe his will, and to do his work, and in everything to consult his honor and his interest.” It is “to make the will of his precept the rule of our practice,” and “to make the will of his providence the rule of our patience.” Henry thus argued that to pray without ceasing is a disposition of the heart waiting upon the Lord all through the day.

Directive Three: Close Every Day with God

Henry said we may end our days in contentment if we have the Lord as our God. He wrote, “Let this still every storm, on and and create a calm in thy soul. Having God Be ourGod in covenant, we have enough; we have all. And though the gracious soul still desires more of God, it never desires more than God; in him it reposted itself with a perfect complacency; in him it is at home, it is at rest.”

Henry advised us to lie down with thanksgiving to God when we go to bed at night. We should review his mercies and deliverances at the end of each day. “Every bite we eat, and every drop we drink, is mercy; every step we take, and every breath we draw, mercy.” We should be thankful for nighttime as God’s provision for our rest, for a place to lay our heads, and for the health of body and peace of mind which allows us to sleep.

Henry suggested we might fall asleep with thoughts such as these:

To thy glory, O God, I now go to sleep. Whether we eat or drink, yea, or sleep, for this is included in whatever we do – we must do it for the glory of God…. To thy grace, O God, and to the word of thy grace I now commend myself. It is good to fall asleep, with a fresh surrender of our whole selves, body, soul, and spirit, to God… O that when I awake I may still be with God; that the parenthesis of sleep, bough long, may not break off the thread of my communion with God, but that as soon as I awake I may resume it!

Oh may I, may we, learn to live in prayer like this!

* Beeke, Joel; Najapfour, Brian. Taking Hold of God: Reformed and Puritan Perspectives on Prayer. (Reformation Heritage Books, Grand Rapids, MI. 2011) pgs 153-152.

Is God a Stranger In the Land?

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“O you hope of Israel, its savior in time of trouble, why should you be as a stranger in the land, like a traveler who turns aside to tarry for a night?” —Jer. 14:8

Every now and then I read an old sermon that seems to bring me under conviction. I came across this sermon by Robert Murray McCheyne entitled, “Why is God a Stranger in the Land?” In the message, he highlights the spiritual stupor that had come over much of Scotland in the 1800’s, and the found the root of that stupor in the failings of Scotlands ministers, believers, and even the unconverted.  I offer here the first two points of the sermon, addressing the Ministers and the Christians; reading in this message many things that apply even in our day.

Caution: no one comes away from this reading without at least some rebuke!

In most parts of our land, it is to be feared that God is a stranger, and like a wayfaring man who turneth aside to tarry for a night. What are the reasons why God is such a stranger in this land?

I. In ministers.—Let us begin with those who bear the vessels of the sanctuary.

(1.) It is to be feared there is much unfaithful preaching to the unconverted. Jeremiah complained of this in his day: “They have healed the hurt of the daughter of my people slightly, saying, Peace, peace, when there is no peace.” Is there no reason for the same complaint in our own day? The great part of all our congregations are out of Christ, and lying night and day under the wrath of the Lord God Almighty; and yet it is to be feared that the most of the minister’s anxiety and painstaking is not taken up about them, that his sermons are not chiefly occupied with their case… There is little of this persuading spirit among ministers now. How can we wonder that the dry bones are very, very dry—that God is a stranger in the land?

(2.) It is to be feared there is much unfaithfulness in setting forth Christ as a refuge for sinners. When a sinner is newly converted, he would fain persuade every one to come to Christ,—the way is so plain, so easy, so precious. He thinks, Oh, if I were but a minister, how I would persuade men! But oh, how little is there of this among ministers… Many do not make it the end of their ministry to testify of Jesus as the hiding-place for sinners… We do not invite sinners tenderly; we do not gently woo them to Christ; we do not authoritatively bid them to the marriage; we do not compel them to come in; we do not travail in birth till Christ be formed in them the hope of glory. Oh, who can wonder that God is such a stranger in the land?

II. In Christian people

(1.) In regard to the word of God. There seems little thirst for hearing the word of God among Christians now. As a delicate stomach makes a man eat sparingly, so most Christians seem sparing in their diet in our day. Many Christians seem to mingle pride with the hearing of the word. They come rather as judges than as children.

(2.) In regard to prayer. There is much ploughing and much sowing, but very little harrowing in of the seed by prayer. God and your conscience are witnesses how little you pray. You know you would be men of power if you were men of prayer, and yet ye will not pray. Unstable as water, you do not excel. Luther set apart his three best hours for prayer. How few Luthers we have now!

It is to be feared there is little intercession among Christians now. The high priest carried the names of the children of Israel upon his shoulders and breast when he drew near to God—a picture of what Christ now does, and all Christians should do. God and your conscience are witnesses how little you intercede for your children, your servants, your neighbours, the church of your fathers, and the wicked on every side of you,—how little you pray for ministers, for the gift of the Spirit, for the conversion of the world,—how selfish you are even in your prayers!

It is to be feared there is little union in prayer. Christians are ashamed to meet together to pray. Christ has promised, “If two of you shall agree on earth, touching something that ye shall ask, it shall be done for you of my Father.” Many Christians neglect this promise. In the Acts, we find that when the apostles and disciples were praying together, “the place was shaken where they were assembled together, and they were all filled with the Holy Ghost, and they spake the word of God with boldness.” Oh, how often and how long have we despised this way of obtaining the outpouring of the Spirit! Do not some persons speak slightingly of united prayer? Here is one reason why God commands the clouds that they rain no rain on us. He waits till we seek Him together, and then He will open the windows of heaven and pour down a blessing. Oh that all Christians would lift up the cry, “Oh the hope of Israel!”

 McCheyne, Robert Murray, and Andrew A. Bonar. Memoir and Remains of the Rev. Robert Murray McCheyne. Edinburgh; London: Oliphant Anderson & Ferrier, 1894. Print.