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What happens when you open your heart to God and pray? You care. As you pray for God's kingdom, his people, and the needs of the lost, you begin to care. God starts to work on your priorities and your compassion. You start seeing that there are people to serve with the gospel. And you start to love serving their needs. You find you have nothing to complain about . Prayerlessness contracts your life and ministry to the size of your abilities. You'll quickly discover that those abilities, aside from grace, are tiny and feeble. And how you'll complain then! But open your heart to God, reflect on the greatness of his power and grace, and you can live with yourself and your life. More than that, you can live with contentment and peace. Only then can you bear lasting fruit. God gets to work on your worries . When you don't pray, you get worried. Prayerlessness is abandoning ourselves either to fate or, worse, to ourselves. No wonder we find life stressful when prayer dries up...

One of the most important truths we need to grasp in our life with Christ is that God ordains both the end and means of achieving that end. He determines the outcomes and how those outcomes are brought about. Unless we understand this truth we are likely to be unfruitful in our lives. For example, we are likely to fall into a sin of prayerlessness. Many of us do not take prayer seriously because deep down we do not realise that unless we pray, we won’t have that which we desire God to for us. We often do not have things, because we do not ask for them( James 4:2). God can give us things but not without prayer. He has promised us to call on him and He will answer us (Jeremiah 33:3; Psalm 91:15).  Now,  in order for us to really believe this truth that God will not give us what we desire without prayer, we need to be convinced on why God has ordained prayer as a means of delivering outcomes. I think once we understand that it will help to take prayer seriously. I found this expl...

The prayer of the morning will determine the day. Wasted time, which we are ashamed of, temptations that beset us, weakness and listlessness in our work, disorder and indiscipline in our thinking and our relations with other people very frequently have their cause in neglect of the morning prayer. The organisation and distribution of our time will be better for having been rooted in prayer. The temptations which the working day brings with it will be overcome by this breakthrough to God. Decisions which our work demands will be simpler and easier when they are made, not in the fear of men, but solely in the presence of God. "Whatsoever ye do, do it heartily, as to the Lord, and not unto men" (Col. 3:23). Even routine mechanical work will be performed more patiently when it is done with the knowledge of God and His command. Our strength and energy for work increase when we have prayed to God to give us the strength we need for our daily work. DIETRICH BONHOEFFER ...

It is a consoling thought that Christ is praying for us, even when we are negligent in our prayer life; that He is presenting to the Father those spiritual needs which were not present to our minds and which we often neglect to include in our prayers; and that He prays for our protection against the dangers of which we are not even conscious, and against the enemies which threaten us, though we do not notice it. He is praying that our faith may not cease, and that we may come out victoriously in the end. LOUIS BERKHOF ( Source : Systematic Theology) A very helpful and comforting reminder that we have the great High Priest who is forever interceding for us. May we have the confidence  in the Lord’s praying for us that the wonderful Robert Murray M’Cheyne had, “ If I could hear Christ praying for me in the next room, I would not fear a million enemies. Yet distance makes no difference. He is praying for me”. He is indeed! 

Come now, little man, turn aside for a while from your daily employment. Escape for a moment from the tumult of your thoughts. Put aside your weighty cares. Let your burdensome distractions wait. Free yourself awhile for God and rest awhile in him.  Enter the inner chamber of your soul. Shut out everything except God and that which can help you in seeking him. And when you have shut the door, seek him.  Now, my whole heart, say to God, ‘I seek your face, Lord, it is your face I seek. ANSELM OF CANTERBURY

Prayer is a harbour to the shipwrecked man, an anchor to them that are sinking in the waves, a staff to the limbs that totter, a mine of jewels to the poor, a healer of diseases, and a guardian of health. Prayer at once secures the continuance of our blessings, and chases always the cloud of our calamities. O blessed prayer! You are the unwearied conqueror of human woes, the firm foundation of human happiness and the source of ever-enduring joy. The man who can pray truly, though languishing in extreme poverty, is richer than everyone else. The wretch who never bows the knee, though proudly seated as monarch of all nations, is of all men the most destitute. JOHN CHRYSOSTOM (349-407AD) I love the way Chrysostom moves from how prayer secures our blessings to how it keeps them. I was reading Richard Sibbes’ The Saint’s Safety in Evil Times’ earlier this week. He says “prayer gets blessings, thankfulness witnessed by obedience keeps them”. I think the reason we are prayerless is tha...

It is in the context of secret prayer that the eternal verities to which we give constant mental assent become living realities. I find, and this is somewhat of a confession as well as an exhortation, that my own words mock me too often when I preach — when I can say the word ‘hell’ and not feel the horror of it; when I can speak of heaven and not be warmed with a holy glow in the light of the fact that this is the place my Lord is preparing for me. I find no answer to this problem but to meditate long upon the passages that speak of these spiritual realities, and ask God the Holy Ghost to burn them into my heart. I plead with Him to make real to me that the very people that I look at may hear those terrible words, ‘Depart from me, ye cursed, into everlasting fire.’ I find I must plead with God to make real to me that the people whose voices will say to me at the door, ‘Thank you for the sermon, pastor’, are the very voices that may one day be uttering those cries and groans of the d...

It may scarcely be needful to commend to you the sweet uses of private devotion, and yet I cannot forbear. To you as the ambassadors of God, the mercy-seat has a virtue beyond all estimate. The more familiar you are with the court of heaven, the better shall you discharge your heavenly trust. Among all the formative influences which go to make up a man honored of God in the ministry, I know of none more mighty than his own familiarity with the mercy-seat. All that a college course can do for a student is coarse and external compared with the spiritual and delicate refinement obtained by communion with God. While the unformed minister is revolving upon the wheel of preparation, prayer is the tool of the great Potter by which He moulds the vessel. All our libraries and studies are mere emptiness compared with out closets. We grow, we wax mighty, we prevail in private prayer.  C H SPURGEON (Source: Lectures To My Students)

I have just finished reading Alexander Whyte's Lord Teach Us To Pray . It is a good read but the book requires careful reading. The author has a tendency to lose sight of the biblical SATNAV. So here are four helpful reminders I picked up from the book about prayer. 1. Pray continuously  - when we pray to God to give us things many of us have a tendency to stop. Whyte borrowing from Rutherford cautious us, "even as we got those good things by prayer at first, so we have to hold them by prayer to the end ". 2. Praying effectively requires time - we need to set aside plenty of time for prayer not because God needs our time. We need time to prepare our hearts to seek God. Whyte says, "without a liberal allowance of time, no man has ever attained to a real life of prayer at all".  3. Reading the gospels imaginatively enriches our prayers  - Whyte believes that as we read the Bible we should try and visualise the events described before us.  He says, ...

I am currently reading Alexander Whyte's Lord Teach us to Pray .  In a section on "The Psalmist and His Lord", he encourages to keep our focus on Jesus in every season of our lives: Now, if David could set Jehovah always before him in his prayers and in his psalms, Jehovah, Whom no man could see and live, how much more should we set Jesus Christ before us? Jesus Christ, Who, being the Son of God, became the Son of Man for this very purpose. And, so we shall! For, what state of life is there? what need? what distress? what perplexity? what sorrow? what sin? what dominion and what disease of sin? what possible condition can we ever be in on earth, in which we cannot set Jesus Christ before us in prayer and in faith, and for help, and for assurance, and for victory? Who are you? and what are you? and what is your request and your petition? Open your New Testament, take it with you to your knees, and set Jesus Christ out of it before you. 

Prayer is the soul’s sincere desire, Uttered, or unexpressed; The motion of a hidden fire That trembles in the breast. Prayer is the burden of a sigh, The falling of a tear; The upward glancing of an eye When none but God is near. Prayer is the simplest form of speech That infant lips can try; Prayer the sublimest strains that reach The Majesty on high. Prayer is the Christian’s vital breath, The Christian’s native air; His watchword at the gates of death; He enters rest with prayer. JAMES MONTGOMERY  (1771-1854) James Montgomery was only five when his parents left him in boarding school and shipped off as missionaries to the West Indies, never to be seen again. Remarkably, James grew up to be a prominent publisher, hymnist, and avid supporter of overseas missions. He wrote four hundred hymns, the best-known being the Christmas carol “Angels from the Realms of Glory.” But Montgomery later said he received more praise for this hymn than an...

Prayer is no petty duty, put into a corner; no piecemeal performance made out of the fragments of time which have been snatched from business and other engagements of life; but it means that the best of our time, the heart of our time and strength must be given.  E M BOUNDS From Power through Prayer by E M Bounds. I enjoyed reading this book tremendously. One has to read that quote twice!  Prayer time must not be an add on to other activities. It must be the most important and most  valued activity of person and church life. It must take the "best of my time" and the "heart of my time". When I think about it, it makes perfect sense.  Is there really anything more important in this world than having an audience with the Creator of worlds? Prayer brings me instantly to the One whose power and love and knowledge are limitless! Let us pray that we pray more! Copyright © Chola Mukanga 2014

Dear Lord, Please fill me with the knowledge of your will by giving me all the boundless resources of your Holy Spirit especially your wisdom and understanding : So that I can live a life worthy of You So that I can please You in every way: So that I can bear the fruits of Your Holy Spirt in every thing I do So that I can grow in knowing you more and more

After the Lord had finished speaking to Job, he said to Eliphaz the Temanite: "I am angry with you and your two friends, for you have not spoken accurately about me, as my servant Job has. So take seven bulls and seven rams and go to my servant Job and offer a burnt offering for yourselves. My servant Job will pray for you, and I will accept his prayer on your behalf. I will not treat you as you deserve, for you have not spoken accurately about me, as my servant Job has." So Eliphaz the Temanite, Bildad the Shuhite, and Zophar the Naamathite did as the Lord commanded them, and the Lord accepted Job's prayer. When Job prayed for his friends, the Lord restored his fortunes. In fact, the Lord gave him twice as much as before! (Job 42:7-10) Three things really struck me afresh when I read this passage. I had not noticed them before. First, God had already forgiven Job's friends but he needed them to make peace with Job and Job to pray for them to Him. God a...

Then read carefully this priceless advice from Charles Stanley from his book Handle with Prayer :  When praying for others, we must be willing to be part of the answer if necessary. If we aren’t willing to be used to answer our own prayers, we aren’t cooperating with God. As a result, He won’t cooperate with us; He won’t answer our prayers. Why? Because these are prayers of isolation and separation. We are saying, “God I don’t want to get mixed up in anyone’s problems. You take care of that.” Can you imagine Jesus doing that? “Sorry, Bartimaeus, I don’t want to get My hands dirty.” God will not hear our prayers of isolation. If we aren’t more interested than that, then He’s not interested in our prayers. As long as we ask and do nothing, He will listen and do nothing. If it costs us nothing, we can expect little in return. Don’t pray for more missionaries unless you’re willing to go yourself or are willing to send your children. Don’t pray for another’s financial need unles...

A very instructive story from Charles Stanley on prayer that honours God : Carl had been praying for months about his rebellious son. His twenty-two-year-old son had left home and was living with some boys in a shack outside of town. Carl knew his son had been involved with drugs before he left home and soon after learned that his son had become a drug dealer. Carl’s two main concerns were that God would bring his son home and that his son wouldn’t be arrested. One morning while he was praying for his son, God spoke to Carl. Carl realised that this had been a selfish request. He was well-known in his town and would be embarrassed if his son was arrested on drug charges. Carl told the Lord that if the only way to deliver his son from his sin was to allow him to be arrested, then he was willing for that to happen—even at the expense of his reputation.

Good practical advice from Open Door’ s Jan Vermeer on praying for North Korea and Christians in the persecuted world: The apostle Paul also taught me valuable lessons about how to pray for North Korean Christians. His prayers are legendary. He prays so differently than us. We are used to pray for suffering to end, prisons to open and regimes to fall. Paul says in 2 Thessalonians 1:11: “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….12….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.” What is the calling of this church? Paul says so in verse 5, that the Thessalonians suffer for His Kingdom. This teaches me that when we do intercession for other believers we need not only identify with the person you pray for, but especially with God. What is He after in this circumstance? How...

Sam O'Neal in his book Field Guide for Small Group Leaders reports an interesting statistical study by Jim Egli and Dwight Marable on the impact of prayer on small group performance. The econometric study was based on a comprehensive survey of three thousand small group leaders in over two hundred churches across the United States. It contained hundreds of questions that probed into every detail of a person's role as a small group leader. It covered group dynamics, leader behaviour during the group meetings, leader preparation before group meetings, leader qualifications (such as having a Bible degree) and more general variables (e.g. gender, socio-economic variables). O’Neal summaries the results of the econometrics study : "...The leaders whose answers revealed a strong relationship with God had groups that were healthier and faster growing. These groups experienced a deeper level of care between members, had a clearer sense of mission beyond their group, and p...

True leadership is not a matter of having a title, a position, or an overwhelming personality. Leadership is first and foremost a matter of the heart. Who is the leader we need? The one who is a servant. Find the servant, and you've found your leader. He's not the big shot sitting at the head table. He's the one out in the kitchen serving the meal. - Bob Briner ( Source : Leadership Lessons of Jesus)

Far from impious, it is imperative to tell God how we feel so long as we confess our base emotions without approving them. We need to clear our inner decks of toxic emotional waste. Otherwise this debris will poison our spirits. No one should ever complain that there is no one to whom we can talk. No man is an island where God is. Who understands our infirmities better than he does? Who has more power to alter our circumstances and restore order than God Almighty? - Jim Andrews ( Source  : Polishing God's Monuments)