Jesus prayed

It’s a short sentence almost hidden (you will miss it if you read too quickly) between two accounts of healing by Jesus: “But Jesus Himself would often slip away to the wilderness and pray” (Lk. 5:16). Now think about that for a minute. Jesus was a man, but He was also fully God. He had […]

A prayer plan

Sometimes we struggle in prayer because we haven’t thought through a plan. While even plans can become ruts, they also can be tools to stay out of ruts if we use them wisely. So here is one pastor’s prayer plan: First I pray for my family by name. Next I pray for pastors. I also […]

Grab bag

Some helpful articles recently spotted on the internet: Douglas Groothuis offers wise counsel on listening to sermons in “A short theology of listening.” An excerpt: Listen . . . with all your might; hear the living and active word. The teaching and preaching of God’s imperishable word is truly a sacred event whereby the Truth […]

Sunday Leftovers (9/18/11)

As I mentioned in my sermon yesterday, it is far more important why we pray than what we pray. In general, our attitude in prayer is more critical than the mechanics of our prayer. Yet there are also some “mechanical” things we can do to help our prayer life — a consideration of time, location, […]

Two encouragements to pray

I know of no one who is completely satisfied with his prayer life. All could pray more and more effectively. Even when fellowship with Christ in prayer is good, the godly man desires more of that fellowship — just as a husband and wife seek more and greater fellowship with each other even when (especially […]

Do we pray? Let us pray.

On Sunday morning, I said something like, “Our tendency is to talk about prayer, admit our weakness in prayer, accumulate prayer requests, and then not pray. (It’s doubtful any believer would disagree with that statement of our practice, including me.) It’s time to stop talking about praying and time to start praying.” Then yesterday I read […]

Praying Ephesians 6

Lord, you have invited — no, commanded — us to always pray with every kind of prayer, acknowledging our dependence on you. So we come to you this day in submission to the Spirit of God and seeking His wisdom and His intercession on our behalf. And we pray not only for ourselves, but we […]

Sunday Leftovers (6/5/11)

A Christian in ancient Rome was being pursued by a lion. He ran through the city streets and into the woods, dodging back and forth among the trees. Finally it became obvious that it was hopeless. The lion was going to catch him. So he turned suddenly, faced the beast, and dropped to his knees. […]

Thinking and praying about Sunday

As I was preparing for Sunday morning’s sermon, I came across a number of helpful statements about prayer, including these three: “No heart can conceive that treasury of mercies which lies in this one privilege, in having liberty and ability to approach unto God at all times, according to His mind and will.” [John Owen] […]

The Most Royal Wedding of All

A prayer from Scotty Smith — Dear heavenly Father, on a day on which many in our world set clocks and arranged schedules to view a wedding of total strangers—a wedding to which we were not invited, how can we not think about and long for our coming wedding day to Jesus? Like John, when […]

God’s hears some prayers of unbelievers

A few days ago, I was reading a debate on whether God hears the prayers of an unbeliever. Here is the kind of prayers from an unbeliever that the Lord hears and answers: Tom Martin Testimony on Vimeo on Vimeo. Let this also serve as a guide for our own praying for the unsaved! HT: […]

No guaranteed answers to prayer

Prayer is not a manipulative tool by which we receive our wishes and desires. Our wants may be godly or they may be ungodly. In either case, prayer is not a wishing-well tool to access those wants. The example of Christ demonstrates that God sometimes answers our petitions with, “No:” There are, no doubt, passages […]

Grab bag

Found around the internet in the past week — C. J. Mahaney blogs about “The Pastor and Personal Criticism.” But it’s not just pastors who need to understand the role of criticism in their lives (to produce wisdom and maturity). We can all benefit from the criticism we receive: If we could mature in wisdom […]

The Powerful Life of the Praying Pastor

The audio, video, and notes from each plenary session of the Bethlehem Conference for Pastors, “The Powerful Life of the Praying Pastor” is now available at Desiring God’s Resource Library page. The conference may be designed for pastors, but the theme is prayer, something that would benefit every believer in Christ to do with greater […]

Grab bag

A few things spotted recently around the web: John Piper’s 8-month leave of absence ended at the end of December. Last Sunday he resumed preaching with the sermon, “Our Deepest Prayer: Hallowed Be Your Name.” He also wrote an article entitled, “Why I Am Full of Hope About Bethlehem’s Future,” and while it is written […]