Doug Stringer
Hebrews 2:3 warns us not to “neglect so great a salvation.” In the same way, we must be careful not to neglect the fundamentals of our faith and the necessary ingredients for spiritual growth. Yes, the flesh will war against the Spirit and make this difficult, but we must devote ourselves to the foundational disciplines of prayer, worship, studying God’s Word, sacrificial giving, and always putting God’s kingdom above our own interests.
Do you want to be guaranteed success in leadership? Do you want to finish the race well? There’s nothing more important than practicing these personal disciplines on a consistent basis. In order to awaken our leadership potential and finish the race well, we must address our personal spiritual disciplines. This does not come easy, because our flesh always wars against the Spirit, as Paul described in Galatians 5:16–17:
I say then: Walk in the Spirit, and you shall not fulfill the lust of the flesh. For the flesh lusts against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh; and these are contrary to one another, so that you do not do the things that you wish.
This means you shouldn’t be surprised if your flesh struggles to submit to this biblical discipline. When I was in the fitness business, we used to say, “No pain, no gain.” Things aren’t much different in the Christian life. As Dietrich Bonhoeffer observed, “When all is said and done, the life of faith is nothing if not an unending struggle of the spirit with every available weapon against the flesh.”7
Prayer
One of the most crucial areas of personal discipline you’ll need as a leader is prayer. This is not just an option; it’s a necessity. As Leonard Ravenhill so powerfully described, prayer must be a top priority for every Christian leader:
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 organizers, but few agonizers; 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.8
A consistent prayer life will never happen automatically or by a casual commitment. Your flesh will resist entering into a place of deep communication with God. But once you are there, you’ll be very glad you made the choice.
Prayer is not meant to be complicated or super cerebral. It’s simply communication with God. When practiced on a consistent basis, it produces intimacy with Him. As Dr. Edwin Louis Cole used to say, “Prayer produces intimacy to whom you pray, with whom you pray in agreement, and then for whom you pray.”
There’s power when we go to God in prayer, and our prayers transcend geographic location, because the Lord is everywhere.
Developing a Pattern
Everyone has his own pattern when it comes to a life of prayer. My personal conviction is that I should never leave my house, hotel room, or wherever I am staying without praying twice each morning. This has become such a vital part of my life that I carry it out even when I’ve been pushing the snooze button on my alarm and wake up late. I’d rather not miss my morning moment with God, even if that means arriving late somewhere. These two morning prayer times aren’t always as long as I’d like, but they are necessary in allowing God to put things in order as I begin my day.
My first prayer is what I call my horizontal time. It’s the very first thing I do when I wake up. Before attempting anything else, I just lie down and begin to thank my heavenly Father for His love and goodness. “Father, I thank You,” I typically say. “I’m not asking You for anything, but I just want to thank and praise You.”
Then I go on to share various things I’m grateful for: “Father, thank You for this day You have made.
Help me to rejoice and be glad in it. Father. I thank You for my family and my friends. I thank You, Lord, that You blessed me with a wonderful wife and daughter and mother-in-law, and I thank You for my co-laborers in ministry around the country and throughout the world.” I could give additional examples of what I give thanks for, but I think you get the picture.
This small discipline has had tremendous repercussions in my life. Many people in this generation have never had much of a relationship with their earthly father. Often they haven’t had consistent spiritual parents, either. So nothing is more important or powerful than fixing our attention on our heavenly Father as we begin each day. Though there is no set pattern for how we should pray, I think Jesus set a beautiful example when He taught us how to pray. Notice how He starts the prayer:
Our Father in heaven, hallowed be Your name. Your kingdom come. Your will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread. And forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors.
And do not lead us into temptation, but deliver us from the evil one. For Yours is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever. Amen. (Matthew 6:9–13)
Of course, many people start their prayer times by diving right in to supplications and prayer requests, laying out their plans for the day. But I think that all should come later. My first prayer time is strictly a time of gratitude and thanksgiving. I encourage you to try this in your own life. Don’t ask Him for a thing as you begin your prayer time. Just thank Him, thank Him, thank Him. Thank Him for His salvation, His grace, His wisdom, and His favor. Tell Him how grateful you are for His healing power, His strength, His provision, His protection, and His peace. You’ll be amazed by how this simple exercise can transform your attitude and give you a new outlook on your day. Thanksgiving and praise are keys to experiencing God’s presence all day long.
Enter into His gates with thanksgiving, and into His courts with praise. Be thankful to Him, and bless His name. (Psalm 100:4)
After I’m done thanking the Father—without asking for anything—I get up, take my shower, have my devotion time, and then I do what I call “knee time.” I find a spot in my closet or at my bed to fall to my knees and give my day to the Lord.
This second prayer time goes something like this: “Lord, I know that in my human frailty, I’m not the most equipped or most qualified to do what I do. You’ve called me to do things I can do only with Your help. But since You’ve put me in these roles, I’m relying on You to equip me and empower me to do what I need to do today. Lord, help me to faithfully walk in all Your purposes for my life.”
I also typically ask God to give me a right spirit, a clean heart, and a sharp mind. Then I pray, “Lord, may You be glorified in all that I think, do, and say.” Sometimes I even call to mind a specific Scripture passage, like Psalm 19:14: “Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable in Your sight, O Lord, my strength and my Redeemer.”
I’ve found that even when I do not remember all the things I prayed as I started my day, God always takes me at my word. Yes, I have frailties and flaws, and I make plenty of mistakes along the way, but I know the Lord hears my prayers, and He holds me to the commitments I’ve made to Him.
More than anything else, our heavenly Father just wants us to come into a place of communication and intimacy with Him. He wants our time with Him to consist of dialogues, not just monologues. Yes, He hears what is on our hearts, but He also wants to communicate what is on His heart.
I don’t want you to think I always have hours to spend with the Lord in the morning. Sometimes, I have only a few moments because I’m late and rushing out the door for a meeting or appointment. But even if the time is brief, I always must have my horizontal prayer time of thanksgiving to the Father, followed by “knee time” to lay out my day before Him. Why are these prayer times so essential for me? Because I know I can’t face my day without the Lord’s favor upon my life.
Motivation and Consistency
When I speak about the importance of prayer at churches, conferences, and seminars, nearly everyone nods in agreement. In fact, I’ve hardly ever met a Christian who doesn’t acknowledge that prayer is a powerful force. We all seem to know we should be more devoted to personal prayer and intercession, but we often lack the needed discipline to have a consistent prayer life.
In his essay “The Common Denominator of Success,” Albert E. N. Gray wrote,
The successful person has the habit of doing the things failures don’t like to do. They don’t like doing them either necessarily, but their disliking is subordinated to the strength of their purpose.
Notice the word habit. It’s not enough to sporadically shoot a prayer up to God during a time of crisis.
Prayer—and other spiritual disciplines like reading the Bible—needs to be a daily habit. As former Ohio State football coach Jim Tressel observed, “The hallmark of excellence, the test of greatness, is consistency.”9
John Maxwell wrote in his book The 15 Invaluable Laws of Growth,
When I started my speaking career, I believed that motivating people was the key to helping them succeed. If I can get them moving in the right direction, I thought, they will be successful.10
You see, Maxwell is a well-known motivational speaker, and he recognizes that motivation is critically important to us all. “My goal was to inspire people so much that they’d be ready to charge hell with a water pistol,” he recalls. “When I was done, I’d walk away thinking I’d done a good job.
But often whatever motivation people received didn’t seem to last very long.”11 Over years of motivating people to make positive changes in their lives, Maxwell concluded that something was missing—an indispensable ingredient for lasting success:
I’m still a big believer in motivation. Everyone wants to be encouraged. Everyone enjoys being inspired. But here’s the truth when it comes to personal growth: Motivation gets you going, but disci-pline keeps you growing. That’s the Law of Consistency. It doesn’t matter how talented you are. It doesn’t matter how many opportunities you receive. If you want to grow, consistency is key.12
Perhaps you’ve discovered this same principle at work in your own life or the lives of those you lead.
You were motivated for a while, but you still weren’t able to maintain your objectives or keep your resolutions.
If you struggle with discipline and follow-through, take a moment right now to ask the Lord to help you.
Repent of any laziness, procrastination, excuses, or other factors that have diverted you from your objectives.
Make a new commitment to turn your good intentions into lifelong habits.
The Place of Power
Although a consistent prayer life is indispensable to lasting success as a Christian leader, it’s only the beginning. Our personal prayers can be supercharged when we come into agreement with our spouse and other believers.
If two of you agree on earth concerning anything that they ask, it will be done for them by My Father in heaven. For where two or three are gathered together in My name, I am there in the midst of them. (Matthew 18:19–20)
This means that though our individual prayers are powerful, there’s exponentially more power available to us when we unite in prayer with others. The Greek word translated “agree” here is symphōnéō, from which we get the English word “symphony.”13 It’s a beautiful picture of the kind of harmony God wants His people to have as they pray together and work together in His kingdom.
This is seen throughout the Scriptures. The Holy Spirit was poured out on the day of Pentecost when the believers “were all with one accord in one place” (Acts 2:1). And we’re told, “How good and pleasant it is when God’s people live together in unity! ...For there the Lord bestows his blessing” (Psalm 133:1, 3 niv).
So remember, private prayer is the key to public power, unleashing heaven’s resources on the earth (see Matthew 6:10); and our power increases exponentially when we pray in unity with other believers and other leaders!
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7. Bonhoeffer, The Cost of Discipleship, 171.8. Ravenhill, Why Revival Tarries, 25.
9. Jim Tressel, The Winners Manual: For the Game of Life (Carol Stream, IL: Tyndale House Publishers, Inc., 2008), 100.
10. John C. Maxwell, The 15 Invaluable Laws of Growth: Live Themand Reach Your Potential (Nashville, TN: Center Street, 2012).
11. Ibid.
12. Ibid.
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