20. Taking Inventory of Your Prayer Life
20
Taking Inventory of Your Prayer Life
Describing the final hours of Socrates, Plato in his Apology tells us that the great philosopher said, “The unexamined life is not worth living.” Socrates was right. While too much introspection can lead to despair, and shallow examination can result in false confidence, honest evaluation can make us better people, if we act upon what we learn.
To submit to the Spirit’s scrutiny as we look into the mirror of God’s Word is to grow in the knowledge of God and of ourselves and to develop humility, honesty, and integrity. To live in a fictional dreamworld is to court disaster. That’s why David prayed, “Search me, God” (Ps. 139:23). God’s approach is tender and His diagnosis is accurate, so we don’t have to be afraid. His examination is an X-ray, not an autopsy.
If the unexamined life is not worth living, the unexamined prayer life is not worth continuing. It’s very easy to follow a “daily devotional routine” but not really pray. We read our assigned Bible verses and follow our prayer calendars, but day after day, we unconsciously push a mental “replay” button and pray the way we always pray. When we’re finished, we congratulate ourselves that we’ve been faithful in our daily “prayer time,” but very little of lasting spiritual good has been accomplished.
I find it helpful to test my own praying by meditating on the prayers recorded in Scripture, especially the prison prayers of Paul (Eph. 1:15–23; 3:14–21; Phil. 1:9–11; Col. 1:9–12). Paul’s second prayer in Ephesians 3:14–21 encourages us to ask ourselves some personal questions about our prayer life:
For this reason I kneel before the Father, from whom every family in heaven and on earth derives its name. I pray that out of his glorious riches he may strengthen you with power through his Spirit in your inner being, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith. And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, may have power, together with all the Lord’s holy people, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, and to know this love that surpasses knowledge—that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God.
Now to him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us, to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, for ever and ever! Amen.
Am I Praying?
Paul was a man of prayer. As an unconverted Pharisee, he certainly offered the traditional prayers of Judaism, and his Christian life began with three days of fasting and prayer (Acts 9:9, 11). He wasn’t embarrassed to ask his friends to pray for him (Rom. 15:30; Eph. 6:19; Col. 4:3; 1 Thess. 5:25; 2 Thess. 3:1), and he was faithful to pray for them (Rom. 1:8–10; Eph. 1:15–23; 3:14–21; Phil. 1:4, 9–11; Col. 1:3, 9–12; 1 Thess. 1:3; 2 Thess. 1:11; 2 Tim. 1:3). To Paul, prayer wasn’t just important; it was essential.
Paul knew that prayer is not a luxury but a necessity, that the Christian who doesn’t pray will gradually lose power and spiritual perception and eventually faint and fail. Jesus told his disciples that “they should always pray and not give up” (Luke 18:1). The word translated “give up” means “to become weary, to give in to evil, to turn coward.” Prayerless Christians not only get tired in the Lord’s work but tired of the Lord’s work and finally quit. They find it easy to yield to temptation and to remain silent when they have opportunities to witness. It’s not a very pretty picture.
“But I pray all day long!” some people argue. “I really don’t need a time each day just to concentrate on the Word of God and prayer.” Such are the deceptive effects of a fast-food society that prides itself in doing everything on the run.
Do you really “pray all day long”? If you do, keep it up; but remember that “pray continually” (1 Thess. 5:17) doesn’t eliminate stated times of prayer any more than a quick kiss on a child’s cheek at bedtime takes the place of longer quality times spent together. Have you ever prayed all night, or even for an hour? “Could you not keep watch for one hour?” Jesus asked His disciples. “Watch and pray so that you will not fall into temptation” (Mark 14:37–38). Nehemiah often sent quick prayers up to heaven, but he also knew how to fall on his face and cry out to God for help (Neh. 1).
If prayer isn’t important in your daily life, confess it to the Lord and ask Him to help you set aside time for prayer each day—and do it!
Why Am I Praying?
People have different motives for prayer that are good and bad. Some people make long prayers just to be seen and heard by people who will praise them for their piety (Matt. 6:5; and see 23:14 NIV footnote). Jesus didn’t call it piety; He called it hypocrisy. Charles Spurgeon wrote, “Some people grow when they pray; others just swell.” He also told his ministerial students that longer prayers in public usually mean shorter prayers in private. Jesus didn’t die on the cross so that we could impress people with our prayers.
There are other people who pray just to get things from God. Their prayer lists are only “want lists,” especially when there are emergencies. After a severe storm, a group of neighbors in a Florida town were cleaning up the mess, and one man said, “I’m not ashamed to admit that I really prayed last night.” The devout Christian in the group said to his wife, “I’ll bet the Lord heard a lot of strange voices last night!” Yes, prayer is God’s appointed way for His children to receive what they need, but there’s much more to prayer than bringing the Lord a “want list.”
Why was Paul praying? The phrase “for this reason” in Ephesians 3:14 takes us back to the first verse of the chapter, which also says, “For this reason” (3:1). The phrase refers to the point he was making at the end of chapter 2: the building of the church (2:19–21). Let me repeat the wise counsel of Robert Law: the purpose of prayer is not to get man’s will done in heaven, but to get God’s will done on earth. Jesus said, “I will build my church” (Matt. 16:18), and one of the reasons for prayer is that God might work in us and through us to help Jesus build His church.
The Ephesian epistle is certainly saturated with truth about the church of Jesus Christ. Paul pictured the church as a body (1:23; 2:16; 3:6; 4:4, 12, 16, 25; 5:23, 30), a building (2:21), a bride (5:22–33), a family (3:15), and an army (6:10–18). When I pray, I need to ask myself, “If God grants this request, will it help to build the church in this world? Will it strengthen and increase the body? Will it deepen our love for Christ? Will it make all of us in the family more like Jesus? Will it help equip the army to fight the forces of evil? Do I pray only for my needs and the needs of the fellowship I’m a part of, or do I think of the people of God around the world?” Paul wrote about “the whole building” (2:21), “every family” (3:15), and “one body” (4:25). Is that what we pray about? If not, why are we praying?
How Am I Praying?
We find four “spiritual postures” in Paul’s letter to the Ephesians: sitting with Christ in the heavenlies (2:6), kneeling before the Father in prayer (3:14), walking daily in Christ (4:1, 17; 5:2, 8, 15 KJV, NKJV; the NIV uses “living” instead of “walking”), and standing in Christ against the Enemy (6:11, 13–14). Realizing and appropriating our position with Christ in heaven determines our practice on earth.
While watching a televised United States Senate hearing, I heard the late Hubert Humphrey say, “Here in Washington, where you sit determines how you stand.” Without realizing it, Mr. Humphrey spoke a profound spiritual truth. If we claim by faith our glorious position in Christ, then our walk and our stand will be what they ought to be; but the link between my position in heaven and my practice on earth is kneeling before the Father in prayer.
This doesn’t mean that kneeling is the only posture for prayer. Abraham stood before the Lord and interceded for Sodom (Gen. 18:22), and when Solomon dedicated the temple, he began by standing to pray and ended up kneeling (1 Kings 8:22, 54). Ezra and Daniel knelt when they prayed (Ezra 9:5; Dan. 6:10), but David “sat before the LORD” (2 Sam. 7:18). Both Peter and Paul knelt in prayer (Acts 9:40; 20:36; 21:5). In the garden, Jesus knelt to pray and then fell prostrate on the ground (Luke 22:41; Matt. 26:39). The important thing is the posture of the heart, for we must be fully yielded to the Lord and submitted to Him.
How did Paul pray? He prayed as a child of God submitted to his Father’s will and as a servant of God awaiting his Master’s orders. At the time, he was a prisoner of Rome, but he called himself “a prisoner for the Lord” (Eph. 4:1) and yielded himself completely as he prayed. Our Lord is the perfect example, for He prayed, “Take this cup from me. Yet not what I will, but what you will” (Mark 14:36). When we have this attitude of submission, the Lord will meet our needs.
For What Am I Praying?
As Paul prayed for the believers in Ephesus (Eph. 3), he presented four requests to the Father, and we need to submit these requests for ourselves as we pray for ourselves and for others.
Spiritual Strength (Eph. 3:16)
The problem here is spiritual weakness. The inner person has spiritual needs that parallel the physical needs of the outer person, and when we pray, the Holy Spirit meets these needs out of the “glorious riches” we have in Christ. The body needs food, and the inner person also needs food, the nourishing Word of God (Matt. 4:4). Believers need to train themselves in godliness just as athletes train themselves to be skillful in their chosen sports (1 Tim. 4:7–8). Without proper food and exercise, no athlete can achieve success in competition.
Jesus warned His disciples, “The spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak” (Matt. 26:41 NKJV). Peter thought he was strong enough to face the Enemy and even boasted that he wouldn’t forsake the Lord, but in spite of his good intentions, he failed miserably. So will we if we don’t pray for “power to become mighty through the Spirit” (Eph. 3:16, literal translation).
Spiritual Depth (Eph. 3:17)
Not only do we have a problem with weakness, but we also have a problem with shallowness. Spiritual depth is one of the great needs of the church today. Too many lessons and sermons merely skim the surface of the Word because preachers and teachers fail to obey Proverbs 2:1–8 and dig for the hidden treasures. The church at worship too often reminds us of children in a nursery entertaining themselves with infantile actions and endless repetitions. A. W. Tozer said that what people call “the deeper life” seems deep only because the life of the average Christian is so shallow, and he was right. 1
I heard Vance Havner say that if a person wanted to have spiritual fellowship with somebody in the average church, he would have to backslide! The church of Jesus Christ should be launching out into the deep (Luke 5:4) and digging deep (6:48). But most people prefer splashing in the wading pool and laying their life foundations on the shifting sand.
In his prayer, Paul used three words that speak of depth: dwell, rooted, and established. The word translated “dwell” means “to settle down and feel at home.” Jesus is not a guest in our lives; He’s the Master of the house. It’s interesting to note in Genesis 18 that when Jesus came to see Abraham, He spent time with him in his home, but He sent the two angels to visit Lot in Sodom. It would seem that Jesus didn’t feel “at home” with Lot and his family in Sodom. Does He feel at home in our hearts? Is He able to fulfill in us the promise of John 14:21–24, that He and the Father will come to make their home in us and share their love with us? That’s what Jesus means by “a deeper life.”
Paul also used the word rooted, which speaks of a tree sending its roots deep into the soil, bringing up the nourishment, and standing firm against every storm. “To be firmly rooted” is what the original text says. What Jesus said about people with shallow hearts applies to many professed Christians today: they have no roots (Mark 4:16–17). Let the sun of tribulation burn down upon these professed believers and they will wither and die, because they have no root system.
Grounded is an architectural word that refers to the laying of the foundation of a building. The foundation is the most important part of the structure because it determines the size, shape, strength, and stability of the building. An architect told me, “If you don’t go down deep, you can’t go up high.” There’s a sentence sermon if I ever heard one! It’s through disciplined and believing prayer that we receive spiritual strength and depth.
Spiritual Perspective (Eph. 3:18–19)
Not only are many sincere believers marked by weakness and shallowness, but they’re also afflicted with narrowness. Their perception of God’s love just isn’t big enough. Most of us have no problem praying for ourselves, our families and friends, and our own churches, but when it comes to grasping the meaning of “all the Lord’s holy people” and the vast dimensions of God’s love, we’re completely lost. We lack the kind of perspective we need in order to see people the way Jesus saw them—as a great harvest waiting to be reaped or sheep who are harassed and helpless and being led to the slaughter by false shepherds (Matt. 9:36–38).
But if our spiritual roots are deep in God’s love and our foundations rest on that same love, we will have “the power to apprehend—to get our hands on” the vastness of God’s love. When that happens, our perspective will enlarge, and we will begin to do all we can to reach a lost generation and to build the church around the world.
Spiritual Fullness (Eph. 3:19)
Weakness, shallowness, narrowness, and now emptiness. I don’t mean empty church buildings, although there are too many of those, but the empty lives of people who profess to know Jesus Christ. In Scripture, “to be filled” means “to be controlled by.” To be “filled with the Spirit” (Eph. 5:18) means “to be controlled by the Spirit,” and “to be filled to all the measure of the fullness of God” means “to live from the overflow of God’s power in our lives.” Overflow, not undertow!
Perhaps you know about the man who was commissioned to raise a sunken ship from the bottom of a bay and tow it to shore. The weight of the boat, the pressure of the water, and the suction caused by the ocean floor all combined to make the task a real challenge, but he solved the problem. At low tide, he put chains under and around the vessel and attached them to large barges. Then he waited for the tide to come in. The fullness of the tide lifted the barges, which in turn overcame all the obstacles and lifted the ship from the bottom of the ocean. Once the ship was afloat, it could be towed to shore.
The experience of this remarkable “fullness of God” begins with the fullness of His love. We can never love as much as God loves, but we can be controlled and motivated by that love “because God’s love has been poured out into our hearts through the Holy Spirit, who has been given to us” (Rom. 5:5). Love is the first of “the fruit of the Spirit,” and it is followed by “joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control” (Gal. 5:22–23), all of which are manifestations of love (1 Cor. 13:4–7). Fruit comes from life, and fruit has in it the seeds for more fruit.
Now for the most difficult question in our prayer inventory.
Am I Willing to Be a Part of the Answer?
Paul closed his prayer with a benediction that emphasizes God’s power and glory. Our infinite God is able to do far more than we pray about or plan for, because He is glorified by doing the unexpected and the impossible. But at the heart of this benediction is the phrase “according to his power that is at work within us” (Eph. 3:20). God often answers prayer without the assistance of His people, but also, often He answers prayer by working in and through His people. When we pray, we must be available to be a part of the answer.
During the forty years that Moses served as a shepherd in Midian, I’m sure he prayed often for the suffering Jewish people back in Egypt. One day the Lord appeared to Moses and called him to go to Egypt and deliver the people (Exod. 3), and Moses discovered that when you pray, you’d better be available to be part of the answer.
In Nehemiah 1–2, Nehemiah’s brother had just returned from a visit to the Holy Land, and Nehemiah asked him how things were in Jerusalem. The report was discouraging and broke Nehemiah’s heart, so he began to pray. In response, God called him to go to Jerusalem and rebuild the walls of the city. God often answers prayer “according to his power that is at work within us” (Eph. 3:20).
It’s a great blessing to get an answer to prayer, but it’s an even greater blessing to be an answer to prayer. Jesus told His disciples to “ask the Lord of the harvest … to send out workers,” and then He sent them out (Matt. 9:37–10:1)! Real prayer isn’t giving orders to the Father; it’s telling Him your needs and then taking orders.
A Christian family was having its devotional time, a part of which was praying for the pressing needs of a missionary they all knew. When the father had said, “Amen,” one of his young sons said, “Daddy, if I had your checkbook, I could answer your prayers.” Out of the mouths of babes! The boy wanted to be a part of the answer.
This entire prayer examination is designed to move us
from aimlessness to purposefulness—the building of the church;
from resisting God’s will to submitting;
from isolation to partnership with all the saints;
from poverty to riches;
from weakness to power;
from shallowness to depth;
from narrowness to the big perspective of God’s love;
from emptiness to fullness;
from being a spectator to being a participant
… and all to the glory of God.