Praying Together
What Does Prayer Involve, and Why Can it Be Difficult
Lesson 3
Recommended Reading ch 2 The Power of Praying Together, by Stormie O’Martian
Lesson Purpose: To study what prayer involves and why it can be difficult.
This lesson will be focused on studying what prayer involves, and why it can be difficult.
Prayer involves taking time with God through communication with God, meditation on God’s word, intercession, supplication, and worship. Taking time with God involves The development of a daily devotional time with the Lord, and building a relationship with God where we can hear the God speak to us. It is so vital to do that.
The following items apply both to personal prayer as well as to praying together and are parts of relationships. Consider them when you take personal time with the Lord. As you apply them, they should help you grow in your relationship with God:
1. Praise and worship of the Almighty God for who He is: Praise involves being grateful and telling God that we love and adore Him. Worship acknowledges God for who He is and involves thanksgiving. Praise + Worship = fellowship with God.
2. Communication with God. – Communication with God should include telling God about our hopes and dreams. Does God care? See Jeremiah 29:11. Communication with God does include bringing our requests to God, and sharing all that is on our hearts. Matt 6:11.
3. Prayer involves acknowledgement that lets God know we need Him –When we pray are we telling God we do need Him? When we don’t tell Him, we are left to handling things on our own. The need for God’s help is why the Bible says in Prov 3:5-6 to “Commit your way unto the Lord”. John 15: 5 says “Without me, you can do nothing.”
4. Prayer involves the action of forgiveness. Matt 6:12 Forgiveness removes issues that hurt our fellowship and worship. It is so important that the Lord instructed that—when He taught His disciples to pray.
5. Prayer is an act of service for our heart to God. Service communicates to God that we love Him. Our action of obedience in many ways is a prayer. God looks for those who will serve Him. Standing in the gap is just one example. Ez 32:20
All of the above are involved in communication/communion with God.
There is yet another fundamental point to consider. In the Lord’s Prayer, we have instruction to help guide our prayers. It says in Matthew 6:10 ‘Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven.’ We are to ask for God’s Will as we pray. God has chosen to work through men and women who pray and obey God’s Word to bring forth the Will of God and the works and power of God. That type of praying represents a commitment to God. Commitment is a part of relationship. The experience of many involved in prayer can testify that God’s work on earth is a response to our commitment to prayer that is from our heart.
Still when we make effort to pray out of relationship with God, praying is sometimes hard. Why this happens is not an easy question to answer. It really takes some searching. To help here are some possible reasons prayer is difficult:
- I do not know how to pray well
- I do not deserve God’s help and answer
- God is someone far away who does not care
- I know there are issues in my life that may not honor God. Sin can hinder one’s prayer life. We will study this hindrance latter in this lesson.
Even though prayer may be hard, we must remember that God is personally interested and thinking about us. Jer 29:11. God also looks on the heart, (I Samuel 16 vs 7), and the effectual fervent prayer of a righteous man availeth much. (James 5:16) Every prayer from a heart that seeks the Lord in truth, brings God’s help.
Let’s look at the issue of preventing blocks to prayer:
Ps 66:18 says “If I regard iniquity in my heart, the Lord will not hear me.”
When we put our faith in Christ, we may never have fully cleared the past, and we find issues, events, and other things may try to come back over time and try to hinder us. Yes, Christ has forgiven us, but we should in thankfulness to what Christ has done for us, make right what we can. (See Luke 19:8-9). Also, when we don’t obey God, we may wander in the wilderness and not have God’s help when we pray. What should we do to remove these blocks? We may have areas in our lives that we have forgotten about, like not forgiving someone, or dealing dishonestly with someone in our past. Yes, when we asked the Lord into our lives, He forgave us, we but should then work to correct past wrongs.
In discovering what blocks to prayer that we need to remove, it is important to search and ask God’s help in revealing sin that needs to be cleared. Reading God’s word and taking time to learn from others who have dealt with sin first hand can help us. One example of this would be what Neil Anderson shares in his book “The Bondage Breaker”. He shares ways to help in identifying areas of sin that we may not have thought of as sin. There are some other sources listed in the class notes for this lesson on Pray!Network. Also take a look at Psalms 139:23-24.
All of these sources focus on TWO important steps:
1. Confess all known sin Isaiah 59:2 and Psalms 32:5
2. Confess unforgiveness where we have not forgiven others. See Matthew chapter 6
When we take these actions, a wonderful thing happens. I John 1:9 says: “If we confess our sin, He is faithful and just to forgive our sin, and cleanse us from all righteousness.” God does hear the heart prayers of repentance and confession. See II Chronicles 7 vs 14. If God did not hear our prayers of repentance, how could we even turn back to the Lord?
This action of confession is both personal and applies to corporate groups like churches or organizations. I know of one church that took the step and had a reconciliation service where they confessed sin and asked forgiveness. Many outsiders in the church questioned it, but that night of the Reconciliation Service, there was a presence of the Spirit of God! That night that church was freed to follow God’s way more closely.
Whenever we go through the process of clearing sin, Satan will try anything he can to keep you from having victory. He may try to say — ‘that really was not sin’; or he will encourage you to justify an action instead of recognizing it as an act of wrong doing. To prevent this we should ask from our hearts—for God’s wisdom in helping us to discern sinful issues in our lives.
With the help of Jesus and your obedience to the word of God, blocks of sin can be removed, that block prayer—Sin that blocks prayer. With blocks to prayer removed, and having God’s cleansing in our lives, we can now come boldly to the throne of Grace. See Heb 4:16. When this is done, our relationship with God has been restored, and we can become an avenue for the release of His power and His Love through the Holy Spirit. God can use us to accomplish His purpose here on earth and we are free to pray and show the God’s Love through prayer.
In order to have worship and communication with God, we need to remove sin that prevents and blocks communication with God.
That concludes our lesson.
Additional sources of help to clear sin in our lives:
Dr. Bree Keyton's book: 'The Quadrilogy of Jesus Suffering, Stripes, Nails, Thorns, and the Blood that Flowed for Us' published by Black Forest Press, San Diego, California, Sept 2002. It is available through Dr. Bree Keyton’s web sight: http://www.breekeytonministries.com/resources.html
Rev. John Shuey of Kingdom Quest Ministries, Camp Hill, PA has developed a course called 'Breaking Free'. It is designed to help people get freedom from past issues and stay free. It is available from Kingdom Quest Ministries: Their address is:
Kingdom Quest Ministries,
1201 Slate Hill road,
Camp Hill, PA 17011.
E-mail Info@KQuestministries.org
Reflection Questions:
-------Try to share your response on one of the reflection questions below, or share another thought that can encourage and help concerning the lesson. You do not need to make it long--many times a brief word is perfect.
*Have you experienced times where prayers just do not seem to get through?
*When you have corrected something wrong in your life, how did that action affect your prayers?
*If we are not seeking God’s plans and the Kingdom of God “first” as spoken in Matt 6 vs 33 – how would that affect our prayers?
n in our lives:
Dr. Bree Keyton's book: 'The Quadrilogy of Jesus Suffering, Stripes, Nails, Thorns, and the Blood that Flowed for Us' published by Black Forest Press, San Diego, California, Sept 2002. It is available through Dr. Bree Keyton’s websight: http://www.breekeytonministries.com/resources.html
Rev. John Shuey of Kingdom Quest Ministries, Camp Hill, PA has developed a course called 'Breaking Free'. It is designed to help people get freedom from past issues and stay free. It is available from Kingdom Quest Ministries: Their address is:
Kingdom Quest Ministries,
1201 Slate Hill road,
Camp Hill, PA 17011.
E-mail Info@KQuestministries.org
Reflection Questions:
-------Try to share your response on one of the reflection questions below, or share another thought that can encourage and help concerning the lesson. You do not need to make it long--many times a brief word is perfect.
*Have you experienced times where prayers just do not seem to get through?
*When you have corrected something wrong in your life, how did that action affect your prayers?
*If we are not seeking God’s plans and the Kingdom of God “first” as spoken in Matt 6 vs 33 – how would that affect our prayers?
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One day a voice spoke to me " Seek the righteousness and the Kingdom of God." Matt.:33. I took seven days of fasting and in prayer to let myself strengthened. On the seventh day God spoke to me " the kingdom of God and His righteousness are in the risen Jesus.." Rev. 1:18. Still on the 21.2.2007 in prayer God spoke " I have drawn you to myself and you stay connected to me in communication..." Jer. 31:3. I always try to remain in his will. It gives confidence when we seek to fulfill God's plans. Confusion and hopelesness in prayer are with those out of God's intimacy.
God once spoke to me " There are many good things in my heart. Knock and do not get tired..." Refer to Mat. 7:7 and your lesson above Jer. 29:11. So when prayers seem not to get through I wait for God to reveal that block - Dan. 10:12-14 Waiting becomes "prayers" to fight demons in heavenly releams- Eph. :12. Jerome-in Jesus.
Prayer for me is difficult because
1) I dont always know specifically what God's will about something or
2) I think too that I am afraid to ask for some things based on my experience with my own father. It's complicated but I did not feel free to just ask him for things, or if I did because of the nature of the relationship, I did not expect it. I am better now at not limiting Father God to my human experience, but I recognized it as an issue earlier in my prayer life.
I love to pray because I love the Lord and want to be close to Him and when I pray it's as if I say, whatever you allow, is ok with me, even though I am wanting something specific.
3) Praying is also difficult because it takes time to hear and in the rush of the day, its not always easy to focus on what God is saying. I am so appreciative that He knows my heart, even when I fall short. He is so wonderful.
Opal,
The Lord will be close to you. You are sharing something close to you, being very transparent. The Lord will meet you where you are at.
Blessings
When I feel that my prayers aren't getting through, I find that it is not so much times as topics. When the topics are self focused, or I am just going through the motions because I think I ought to be praying for a certain person, or issue, that is when I get the feeling that they aren't going any higher than the ceiling. The challenge for me is to prepare my heart so that my prayers are sincere.
Paula, You mentioned heart preparation in praying. What steps do you take to prepare your heart so you can pray from the heart?
I added this lesson because over time unanswered prayers can discourage individuals and discourage groups too. That discouragement does keep people from wanting to pray together.
Learning how to clear issues that may block our prayers is immportant to seeing answered prayers, and thateffort and action will also encourage others.
I know this a lot to think about, but the Bible is clear that if we regard sin in our heart God will not hear. Getting rid of sin will open the door of prayer communication with God. I believe that having a communication with our God is important to all of us.
Two have shared what they have been through--and what they share is very encouraging for others. Perhaps some others in the class have something to share on this subject. I know is may encourage someone else.
Beth-
Beth, you have described this process well. Many of us are afraid of it eventhough it brings something wonderful when the Lord works with us through it.
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