Do You Pray?

Yesterday I preached on the priority of prayer as the most foundational discipline we must practice if we are to become the spiritually formed people God wants us to be.

We explored several snapshots of Jesus at prayer from the Gospel of Luke and one from Mark which demonstrated that prayer was a consistent and intentional part of Jesus' life and ministry. And the punchline was this: If the Son of God made prayer such a priority, how much more so should we?

The problem, of course, is that often we don't pray--unless it is a really serious emergency or we really need or want something. It's not bad to pray at those times. But God wants to hear from us all the time. Not because He needs to hear from us, but because we need to rely on Him and submit to His will, purpose, and plan for our lives. As one theologian said, "Prayer is personal communication with God." So, just as we need to communicate with our significant other, our friends, or our families in order to maintain a good and healthy relationship, so we also need to communicate with God if we want to have a strong relationship with Him.

When you look at the life of Jesus in the gospels, it's clear that Jesus not only prayed at the big moments--the critical crossroads and decisive moments in his life and ministry--but also just daily as a regular, intentional habit of his life (see Mark 1:35 and Luke 5:16).

As part of the sermon I showed this poignant video clip from YouTube. Check it out and ask yourself: Do I pray? If not, why not?

And then I would encourage you to begin trying to pray--even if you're not quite sure whether or not God is really there, is listening, or will answer. I think you'll be amazed at what you discover.