Intimate, Persistent, Shameless Prayer
In our worship gathering yesterday, we began a series of teachings on prayer. We looked at Jesus’ words in Luke 11:1-13. I’m excited that we’ll be spending the next few weeks exploring prayer together as a church! If you missed Sunday’s message or if you want to follow along with the series, you can listen to the recordings on our podcast page.
As a “sending out” challenge, I asked that we accept Jesus’ offer to go to God in the intimate, persistent, and shameless way he teaches us in the Luke passage. As an encouragement to do that this week, I want to share with you some thoughts on prayer from Randy Orban, who’s part of our community. He sent this in an email a few weeks ago, but I thought it was especially timely:
God desires to have an intimate relationship with us; a love relationship that goes deeper and is fuller than the relationships we have with the ones we love the most here on earth.
Can you imagine having a deep long lasting relationship with your spouse, fiancee or good friend by only devoting 5 to 10 minutes a day in meaningful communication with him/her? Would you want to take the risk of raising your children by giving them sets of tasks and rules to follow while only spending 5 or 10 minutes a day devoted to developing their character and expressing your love for them?
And yet the average professing Christian spends only 5 to 10 minutes a day developing life’s most important love relationship. A relationship with our creator.
Are you praying 5 minutes? Try stretching it to 10. 10 minutes? Go for 15! The more time spent in God’s presence means the reward of being able to know God’s plan for your life while experiencing the joy and pleasures he has reserved for you.
Here’s a way to start: First, praise God for his desire to have a love relationship with you. Second, ask Him to strengthen your prayer life and deepen your relationship with Him. Third, ask Him to fill you with His joy, eternal pleasures, and knowledge of what He has made you for. Come before Him expecting to receive what you ask for!
