How Can I Jumpstart My Prayer Life?
00:00:00.000 | Well, if you are unhappy with your prayer life, you join a lot of us.
00:00:08.800 | You have company.
00:00:10.280 | And Pastor John has a word for all of us.
00:00:12.800 | On December 28th, 2008, he preached a sermon on prayer titled "Put in the Fire for the
00:00:19.640 | Sake of Prayer."
00:00:21.660 | In that sermon, he lamented the pervasiveness of prayerlessness among Christians, and that's
00:00:26.940 | a complaint of many Christians, even those in his own church, as you're going to hear
00:00:31.240 | him talk about in just a moment.
00:00:33.640 | So how do we kickstart this essential discipline in our lives in order to exercise our faith?
00:00:39.480 | He offers us three practical suggestions.
00:00:42.560 | Here now is Pastor John Witham.
00:00:44.600 | Let me give you a few practical suggestions.
00:00:48.080 | These are growing out of my life and out of my reading of the Bible.
00:00:53.480 | Just three brief practical suggestions, because we're not doing as well as we should.
00:00:59.600 | Now, suggestion number one, set aside a time and a place each day and don't leave it to
00:01:07.640 | chance.
00:01:09.480 | Set aside a time and a place each day and don't leave it to chance.
00:01:14.240 | The devil defeats most praying before it happens, because we didn't make a plan.
00:01:20.680 | If you don't plan, believe me.
00:01:22.960 | Oh, I have been at this a long time, and the devil hates me and my prayer life like you
00:01:29.440 | wouldn't believe how many good things keep me from praying.
00:01:34.040 | Not sin.
00:01:35.040 | Sin does not keep me from praying.
00:01:37.720 | Righteousness keeps me from praying.
00:01:39.240 | Answering holy emails and other holy things.
00:01:46.240 | Just checking out one more piece of relevant news to pray about at whatever news service
00:01:52.040 | you click on.
00:01:53.800 | It's not evil that keeps us from praying.
00:01:56.200 | It's good things, and he is shrewd to the bottom.
00:02:00.440 | So pick a place and pick a time and show up.
00:02:04.760 | Number two, I suggest that you combine your praying with reading the Bible and that you
00:02:13.040 | take what you read in the Bible and you turn it into prayer.
00:02:16.400 | Because your brain, if it's a typical human brain, will have a very hard time holding
00:02:23.720 | a train of thought while you pray with no help from the Bible.
00:02:28.200 | Try it for just ten minutes without your brain flipping out onto the dust you see on the
00:02:35.440 | Venetian blots.
00:02:36.920 | It needs to be dusted.
00:02:40.880 | Wouldn't be sin to get up and dust it.
00:02:43.040 | Would it?
00:02:44.440 | Use the Bible and turn the Bible into prayer.
00:02:48.880 | Read pray, read pray, read pray, read pray as long as you want to or can.
00:02:55.240 | That's number two.
00:02:57.480 | Number three, I suggest that you pray in concentric circles.
00:03:03.880 | You can either pray from the outside in or the inside out.
00:03:07.600 | And what I mean by concentric circles is I'm the most needy spiritual person I know.
00:03:15.440 | At least I know my sins better than I know anybody else's.
00:03:19.800 | So I pray about me a lot.
00:03:22.080 | Have mercy upon me.
00:03:23.480 | Convict me.
00:03:24.800 | Kill me.
00:03:25.800 | Change me.
00:03:26.800 | Guard me.
00:03:28.160 | Humble me.
00:03:30.040 | Destroy those aspects of me.
00:03:32.680 | I pray about me a lot because of how sinful I am.
00:03:37.720 | And then you move out from me to my family.
00:03:39.520 | Pray about Noel.
00:03:41.240 | Pray about Talitha.
00:03:42.440 | All my sons, all my daughters-in-law, all my grandchildren.
00:03:45.960 | That's another circle.
00:03:46.960 | Then I move out from there to the staff.
00:03:48.680 | I can name the staff and the elders.
00:03:51.240 | And then I move out to you, the church.
00:03:53.660 | And then I move out from there to the wider movement of Christ around the world, our missionaries
00:03:58.340 | and the whole global cause of Christ.
00:04:00.760 | And then I move out from there to the political, historical arena of the world.
00:04:05.360 | I generally don't pray about galaxies or anything like that, but my universe, as far as prayer
00:04:10.760 | goes, stops pretty much at the planet.
00:04:14.560 | I don't pray for the devil or angels.
00:04:16.760 | I don't see any reason for doing that in the Bible.
00:04:20.200 | Or you could go the other direction.
00:04:21.640 | Move from the outside in.
00:04:23.760 | Just whatever.
00:04:24.760 | And every one of those concentric circles, if you wonder, "Why do you put God at the
00:04:30.640 | middle?"
00:04:31.640 | It's because he's in every circle.
00:04:34.060 | And the main point of every circle is, "Hallowed be thy name.
00:04:37.240 | Thy kingdom come.
00:04:38.240 | Thy will be done."
00:04:40.000 | And only then do you get to, "Give me some bread today."
00:04:45.760 | Three big, massive, "Your name, hallowed.
00:04:49.880 | Your kingdom, arriving.
00:04:51.640 | Your will on the planet, done.
00:04:53.400 | The way it's done in heaven and in my life."
00:04:55.560 | Those are in every circle.
00:04:57.640 | That's why he's not anywhere in the concentric circles.
00:05:03.920 | So those are my three suggestions.
00:05:06.600 | The hard truth is, we Christians don't do very well.
00:05:11.440 | We've done some surveys over the years at Bethlehem.
00:05:13.440 | It's pretty sad when we do them.
00:05:15.360 | I don't like to do them.
00:05:16.360 | I get discouraged.
00:05:18.400 | We don't pray very much.
00:05:20.320 | We pray at meals, maybe, unless we're still stuck at the adolescent stage that thinks
00:05:25.640 | good habits are legalism.
00:05:27.880 | We may whisper prayers before a tough meeting that we're walking into.
00:05:32.640 | We may throw him a kiss as we crawl into bed.
00:05:36.240 | But we don't set aside significant, regular, daily, disciplined time to pray in those ways
00:05:46.000 | much.
00:05:49.080 | And we don't think it's worth it to meet with others to pray, by and large.
00:05:53.760 | And we wonder, "Why is my faith weak?
00:05:57.320 | Why is my hope feeble?
00:06:00.300 | Why is my passion for Christ small?"
00:06:04.320 | And meanwhile, the devil is whispering in your ear, some of you, "The pastor's getting
00:06:09.120 | legalistic now.
00:06:10.820 | He's moving into the legalistic phase of the sermon.
00:06:14.460 | He's starting to use guilt now.
00:06:16.920 | He's getting the law out now."
00:06:21.680 | To which I say, "To hell with the devil and all of his destructive lies.
00:06:28.160 | Be free, Bethlehem."
00:06:33.760 | Is intentional, regular, disciplined, earnest, Christ-dependent, God-glorifying, joyful prayer
00:06:40.600 | a duty, a discipline?
00:06:43.960 | Do I go to prayer meetings Tuesday morning, Wednesday afternoon, Friday morning, Saturday
00:06:50.080 | afternoon, Sunday morning, Tuesday mornings or Saturday morning?
00:06:53.360 | Do I do that because it's a duty out of discipline?
00:06:58.520 | You could call it that.
00:07:00.440 | It's a duty the way it's a duty for a scuba diver to put on his air tank before he goes
00:07:06.160 | underwater.
00:07:08.320 | It's a duty the way pilots should listen to air traffic controllers.
00:07:16.400 | It's a duty the way soldiers in combat should clean their rifles and load their guns.
00:07:23.600 | It's a duty the way hungry people eat food.
00:07:28.320 | It's a duty the way thirsty people drink water.
00:07:32.240 | It's a duty the way a deaf man puts on his hearing aid.
00:07:37.640 | It's a duty the way a diabetic takes his insulin.
00:07:41.680 | It's a duty the way Pooh Bear looks for honey.
00:07:47.320 | It's a duty the way pirates look for gold.
00:07:51.320 | So you call it duty if you want.
00:07:53.520 | It is like that.
00:07:56.560 | I hate the devil.
00:07:57.920 | I hate the way he's killing some of you by persuading you it's legalistic to do regular,
00:08:06.560 | set aside, disciplined praying.
00:08:08.880 | I hate the devil and the way he's killing you.
00:08:12.680 | He is laughing up his sleeve at how easy he can take out Christians.
00:08:19.440 | The devil is.
00:08:20.800 | He is laughing up his sleeve at what suckers we are.
00:08:27.440 | For his worn out...
00:08:30.760 | This is legalism.
00:08:32.560 | You should just look at him and say, "I'm older than that.
00:08:37.280 | I'm not in fifth grade anymore.
00:08:40.960 | I've grown up a little bit.
00:08:43.460 | Get out of my life.
00:08:45.440 | I've got work to do because I am a sinner in desperate need of talking to my king every
00:08:52.240 | day and my sin inclines me to leave it over and over.
00:08:57.840 | If I don't set a time and a place, I'm a goner."
00:09:01.320 | Talk to the devil.
00:09:02.680 | Give him some information.
00:09:04.800 | He might leave you alone for a while.
00:09:07.760 | Probably not.
00:09:09.560 | Folks, if we don't eat, we starve.
00:09:13.000 | If we don't drink, we die of thirst.
00:09:16.400 | If we don't exercise a muscle, it atrophies.
00:09:18.720 | If we don't breathe, we suffocate.
00:09:21.680 | And just as there are physical means of life, there are spiritual means of grace.
00:09:26.440 | It's so simple.
00:09:28.080 | Such a powerful excerpt taken from John Piper's sermon on December 28th, 2008.
00:09:33.320 | That sermon is titled, "Put in the Fire for the Sake of Prayer."
00:09:37.360 | And you can find the whole thing at DesiringGod.org.
00:09:40.760 | Whether you listen in the car, at the gym, or doing chores, thank you for having us along.
00:09:45.400 | And if you haven't done so yet, you can subscribe to Ask Pastor John in your favorite podcast
00:09:49.560 | app in YouTube or in Spotify.
00:09:52.420 | To find other episodes in our archive or to submit a question to us, go online to DesiringGod.org.
00:09:57.720 | Forward slash, Ask Pastor John.
00:10:01.120 | Well, we get a lot of very heavy marriage questions in our inbox, like this one that's
00:10:07.600 | coming up next time.
00:10:08.600 | It's a question from a couple who finds themselves trying to help care for another couple after
00:10:12.840 | the pain of adultery.
00:10:15.840 | So how does Pastor John enter such a situation and what counsel does he have for couples
00:10:20.480 | with a heart for helping hurting couples experiencing this very fallout?
00:10:26.960 | Like I said, it's a heavy question, it's a heavy episode, but it's up next time on Friday.
00:10:31.880 | We'll see you then.
00:10:32.380 | [End of Audio]
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