Conversations

I always thank my God as I remember you in my prayers, because I hear of your faith in the Lord Jesus and your love for all the saints. I pray that the faith you share with us may deepen your understanding of every blessing that belongs to you in Christ.  Philemon 1:4-6 NET

Prayer really is simple. Resist the urge to complicate it. Don’t take pride in well-crafted prayers. Don’t apologize for incoherent prayers. No games. No cover-ups. Just be honest—honest to God. Tell Him everything that is on your heart. 

Or tell Him nothing. He knows. Stress. Fear. Guilt. Grief. Demands on all sides. Sometimes all we can summon is a plaintive “I need You, Father.” If so, that’s enough.  Adoration and Devotion.

Look at how we limit the Lord by only remembering what we have allowed Him to do for us in the past. We say, “I always failed there, and I always will.” 

Consequently, we probably don’t pray for what we want if we attach the request to our self-worth. Instead, we think, “It is ridiculous to ask God to do this for me, a broken sinner.”

Reverse that thought! If it is an impossibility, it is the very thing for which we have to pray for. God will do what is absolutely impossible when it is His will. 

So what we see as the most impossible thing for us to become can now, through conversation with the Lord, prayer, allow us to be so closely identified with the Lord that there is literally nothing of our old life remaining. 

God will do it if we will ask Him. But we have to come to the point of believing Him to be almighty. We find faith by not only believing what Jesus says, but, even more, by trusting Jesus Himself. If we only look at what He says, we will never believe. Once we see Jesus, the impossible things He does in our lives become as natural as breathing. The agony we suffer is only the result of the deliberate shallowness of our own heart. We won’t believe; we won’t let go by severing the line that secures the boat to the shore—we prefer to worry.

In giving a series of concise commands for disciples, the aged apostle wrote, “Pray without ceasing.”

Whatever else may be said about either living as a disciple of Jesus Christ or walking with Him in faith, prayer is the one discipline above and beneath all others.  

It is a combination of worship—through adoration, praise, and thanksgiving to God, fellowship—through devotion, communion, and conversation with God, intercession—through supplication, fasting, and spiritual warfare before God.