Based on Luke 18:1-8
MEMORY TEXT: "Thou art my hiding place and my shield: I hope in Thy Word” (Psalm 119:114).
I am convinced that the most important aspect of our personal prayer life is repentance. Jesus promised that He would send the Holy Spirit, and the first thing we would notice when He came is that we would be convicted of sin.
Indeed, there are blessings to be had by fasting, by praying all night, and by spending two hours every morning in prayer. But a person could conceivably do all these things and still not have their heart in it. Scripture warns that it is possible to have a form of godliness but deny the power thereof (2 Timothy 3:5). The final test of effective prayer is the changed life. Jesus puts it another way: "Wherefore by their fruits ye shall know them" (Matthew 7:20).
It is possible that prayer could become so much of the habit that we actually pray for the wrong things, or we might pray for the right things but for the wrong reasons. "For we know not what we should pray for as we ought" (Romans 8:26). For this reason we must continually turn to the Word of God in order to set the terms of reference for our prayers. While it is the Holy Spirit who knocks at the door of our heart, calling us to pray, the Bible must always be our textbook, teaching us what we should pray about.
A young woman once told me that she was dating a person of another faith. When her friends counseled her against this, she replied that it was all right because she was praying about it. Were her prayers likely to be according to the Word of God?
“Prayer is surrender--surrender to the will of God and cooperation with that will. If I throw out an anchor from the boat and catch hold of the shore and pull, do I pull the shore to me, or do I pull myself to the shore? Prayer is not pulling God to my will, but the aligning of my will to the will of God” (E. Stanley Jones, Liberating Ministry From The Success Syndrome, K Hughes, Tyndale, 1988, p. 73).
Are your prayers in accordance with God’s will as revealed in His Word?
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