Leonard Ravenhill gives us sobering words to ponder about prayer:

‘No man is greater than his prayer life. The pastor who is not praying is playing; the people who are not praying are straying. We have many organisers, but few agonisers; many players and payers, few pray-ers; many singers, few clingers; lots of pastors, few wrestlers; many fears, few tears; much fashion, little passion; many interferers, few intercessors; many writers, but few fighters. Failing here, we fail everywhere.’

May we learn to pray, to intercede, to cling, to fight, to wrestle in prayer. Pray in secret (Matt 6:6), but learn also to pray with God’s people.

We have the opportunity to join with other Christians at the ‘Churches Together’ prayer meeting at our church on Tuesday 18th July at 7:15 p.m. and also to pray together on alternate Thursdays at 7:30 p.m. Don’t be fooled: the devil would rather we do anything than pray. Let’s make prayer our habit and learn to pray continually: ‘Pray every way you know how, for everyone you know.’ (1 Tim 2, The Message)

Jesus gave us a framework for prayer in the Lord’s Prayer (Matt 6:9-15, Luke 11:1-4), whichhighlights common factors in prayer:

Prayer is addressed to God, not to people. It is a lifting up of our soul to God (Ps 25:1), a pouring out of our hearts to God. (Ps 62:8) We come near to God and He comes near to us. (James 4:8) Jesus taught us that we have a heavenly Father and our prayers depend on this loving relationship (see Luke 11:11-13)

Prayer involves hallowing God’s name, recognising God as holy, longing to have God at the centre of our lives and our universe. As we pray for God’s kingdom to come and His will to be done on earth as it is in heaven, we recognise that there is more to life than what our eyes are seeing; there is a visible and invisible kingdom. We see that God wants to be involved in every part of our lives on earth, but we recognise also that there is more to life than what we can see and hear and taste and smell and touch with our five senses. Prayer opens our eyes to spiritual realms.

Prayer involves God in our daily living. We ask for God to ‘give us this day, today, our daily bread’ (Matt 6:11), recognising that God is ‘Jehovah Jireh’, the Lord our provider. We want God to be involved in every aspect of our everyday living.

Prayer understands the importance of relationships, which is why we pray for God to forgive us our sins as we forgive those who sin against us. (Matt 6:12) Relationships matter, and forgiveness is the oil which keeps relationships functioning well. There is a direct correlation between receiving God’s forgiveness and passing forgiveness onto others. (Matt 6:14-15) Prayer keeps us anchored to the importance and centrality of relationships.

Prayer understands the spiritual battle of life. We are taught to pray: ‘lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from the evil one.’ (Matt 6:13) Paul says, ‘our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms.’ (Eph 6:12) Prayer is one of the spiritual weapons which have divine power to demolish strongholds (2 Cor 10:5).

Without prayer, we have limited vision and limited understanding; with prayer, we begin to see, however imperfectly, life as God sees it: how the kingdom and the power and the glory belong to God forever.

In our series on the ‘A-Z of Christian Faith‘, we have reached the letter P: P is for Prayer. Prayer is our ability to communicate with the Almighty God and can involve personal prayer and corporate prayer. It can involve words (Jesus is described as ‘the Word’, so this is no surprise), but can also be silent; it can involve different postures (kneeling, standing, sitting, prostrate) and different traditions (set prayers, spontaneous prayers and so on.) What matters is not so much how we pray as that we pray.

There are many obstacles to prayer, however, including our tendency to prevaricate:

Everything seems to crowd out prayer, but we need to just get on and pray! (see Ps 5:3, Ps 63:6, Ps 119:164) Other obstacles include sin, which means we tend to flee from God’s presence instead of confessing and repenting (see 1 Jn 1:9), and doubt and discouragement, which usually result from God not answering prayer the way we expect Him to, leading us to become unconvinced of His goodness or power. We have to press on, however (see Heb 12:1-2), and learn to pray in all situations (see 1 Thess 5:17).

The acrostic ACTS reminds us that prayer involves:

1. Adoration (focussing our attention on who God is – see Ps 89)
2. Confession (allowing God’s Word to search us – see Ps 139:23-24 – so that we can repent and confess immediately and allow God to restore to us the joy of salvation)
3. Thanksgiving (realising the power of giving thanks in and for everything and learning to give thanks for who God is and for His many blessings – see Ps 136:1, Eph 1:3, Rom 8:37-39)
4. Supplication (learning to seek God earnestly, bringing our petitions and requestions to Him, and learning to intercede for others as well – see Phil 4:4-7, 1 Tim 2:1-4)

Even holidays don’t stop us taking photos after the event!

… And another birthday to celebrate!

Stephen spoke this morning at Cherry Tree Court from Luke 24:13-32. These two disciples, possibly heading home to Emmaus, were downcast: things had been tough and had not turned out the way they had expected. Even when Jesus came alongside them, they did not recognise him at first, and we can be like that too. We can be caught up in our normal, everyday routines and don’t really expect anything to change… but as the Tango advert reminds us, life can become more colourful and exciting than we ever anticipated!

Jesus came alongside the two disciples, and he wants to come alongside us too. When our eyes are opened to his presence in the everyday, then we are no longer stuck in a rut; we are able to experience life in all its fulness and can have our perspectives changed. Jesus can lift us from being downcast, discouraged and discontented; He is able to add colour, zest and life to our experiences!

Igor, the church mascot (who is rather the worse for wear as age hampers him), has been away this past week, enjoying the delights of Shropshire. The scenery has been lovely and he enjoyed staying on a farm, especially chatting with Jimmy, the horse:

Some of the animals in the West Midland Safari Park were a little more intimidating, however!