So What's Next?

Thanks!

Thank you to all that were able to particiapate this time around! I look forward to next time!

Recap

What is your perspective on prayer now? How has your understanding grown or been challenged?

This study was a wonderful reminder of grace! My heart has been renewed and then God encourages and places prayers in my heart! How gracious of Him to do that! This study has helped me see more of the importance of prayer. I needed to be reminded of how serious prayer is and what a true gift it is. Prayer is a way to communicate with God. I don't want to just 'rush' into a prayer or say one quickly off my tongue...it needs to come from the heart. I have more of an excitement to pray and desire to. It has also been so cool to see Single in the Church growing in this and their eagerness to gather and pray is encouraging and exciting. I am full of faith to see how God is going to continue to grow our desire to pray and then the fruit of that. God has been gracious in answering many prayers already! We just need to ask and keep asking as we humble ourselves before Him. He is a good Father!

May I continue to grow in my knowledge of the importance of prayer and to pray without ceasing! May I never grow weary or bored with it. It is a gift that is to be used and treasured.

Day 10

Ps. 34: "8 Oh, taste and see that the Lord is good! Blessed is the man who takes refuge in him!9 Oh, fear the Lord, you his saints,for those who fear him have no lack!"

What a glorious truth this is! Our God is GOOD. His goodness is something we should be praying about everyday. And as Spurgeon said, encourage us to pray. May I take my refuge in Him and fear the Lord! In His goodness He blesses and takes away, in both we will have no lack! Oh! Lord thank you for richly pouring out your grace in my life! Forever you are good! Let me never forget your kindness and faithfulness to me. In you is everything good thing! You are so good, slow to anger and abounding in love. You give us life! You protect and guide! You go before us and sent your Son, who defeated death! You have given us hope! Thank you Lord, for you are good!

Day 9

How true and gracious of God it is for Him to encourage us to pray. He gives us hope and tells us to ask. He promises blessings and not to harm us, but to give a hope and a future. That should make me want to pray! Not only is the Lord placing the prayer and the desire pray in my heart, He is also encouraging me to pray through His Holy Word. To know that he also, hears and listens when we pray is an encouragement. Our prayers are not falling on deaf ears and He already knows what we are going to pray before we even do.

Knowing that God already knows your prayers before you pray them, does that encourage you to pray more or do you find yourself thinking "I don't need to pray, since He already knows."

I know for myself sometimes I do fall into this. Maybe not deliberately, but when I don't pray or think about praying I am falling into this. I heard of a lady that once recorded her prayers and every night before bed would play the tape and fall to sleep as it "said" her prayers. The Lord has commanded us to pray and given us the ability to, may I be faithful to use this gift He has so mercifully given and called me to use!!! What a hope we have!

Ocho

"Every true heart-prayer, that is accepted of God, first came from God. How does God put prayers into a man's heart? I answer, first, he instructs us how to pray. We none of us know how to pray aright till we have been to school to the Holy Spirit. We know not what we should pray for as we ought, but the Spirit comes, and shows us our need. Thus we see what to pray for. But I have also known him do it in the sweeter way, as he did with David, by filling the heart with joy till we have been so glad and grateful that we have felt that we must pray, as David did, on another occasion, when he said, "Because he hath inclined his ear unto me, therefore will I call upon him as long as I live."So, the Lord puts prayer into our heart by instructing us how to pray and by inclining us to pray."

How true this is! It is God who place prayers in our hearts and inclines us to pray. What a gift the Holy Spirit is. We would have no idea what to pray for or have a desire to pray if He had not first put it there. And as we pray prayers placed in our hearts by God, Jesus is perfecting them for us and also interceding on our behalf!!! How kind of the Lord! We can pray without ceasing, because it is the Lord who is giving us and instructing us by the spirit on what to pray and how to pray!

7

This is a great reminder to again be praying from the heart and NOT just saying a prayer. At the Worship Conference, Donald Whitney spoke on how to pray as the Psalmist. It was an outstanding session and should be online for free in the near future. He spoke about how we have the tendency to "pray the same old thing, the same old way." Meaning if we are praying for our friends or family, we may just say "Lord, please bless them today..." and that is our prayer everyday. Not that that is a "bad" prayer, but it can lead to us being bored by it and then truly meaning it and then eventually stopping altogether, because it was we always do, without a thought. He said to go to the Psalms and scripture in general and pray from there. Read a verse and pray about what you want to pray about based from that. He let us do this for 5 minutes and to pick any Psalm and I was amazed at how easy it was, but also how much more refreshing it was. I was able to pray for things that I had in the past, but in a new way, based from scripture. I hope to do this on a day-to-day basis. It was one of those DUH! moments, "why have I never really done this before?" What are your thoughts? Do you find yourself "bored" by the same prayers or that you are just saying them to say them?

Sorry, if this was confusing, Don Whitney, does an excellent job of explaining this, so hopefully they will get it up soon...

Worship Conference

I am at the worship conference, so my posting is on hold for now... I will get back into the swing of things next week. But feel free to continue!