Growing in Prayer by Stephen Shead

 

Growing in Prayer by Stephen Shead

What were you made for?

"But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness and all these things will be given to you as well." Matthew 6 verse 33

"Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.  This is the first and greatest commandment." Matthew 22 verse 37 and 38

"Then I will go to the altar of God, to God, my joy and my delight. I will praise you with the lyre, O God, my God." Psalm 43 verse 4

John Piper Psalm 43 "we were made to enjoy God with overflowing praise."

How do I feel about praise?

Prayer is approaching God to talk to him.  Christian prayer is different - it is much more profound than simply approaching God or talking to him.  Christian prayer is approaching God as your heavenly Father.  Jesus to his disciples "When you pray say Father" Luke 11 verse 2.  How are we actually able to approach God as our Father?   Grace and adoption.  God's grace is his generous love given as a gift through Jesus - not because we did anything to deserve it but because Jesus did everything for us when he died and rose again.  And when we receive that love by turning to Jesus and trusting him, God not only forgives and accepts us.  He also adopts us as his loved children by uniting us with his Son Jesus.

"For Christ also suffered once for sins, the righteous for the unrighteous, to bring you to God"  1 Peter 3 verse 18

"But when the set time had fully come, God sent his Son, born of a woman, born under the law, to redeem those under the law, that we might receive adoption to sonship.  Because you are his sons, God sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, the Spirit who calls out, 'Abba Father'." Galatians 4 verses 4 - 6

Because of the gift of adoption, prayer is a place of peace and comfort, not fear and uncertainty for a Christian.  Because we approach God as our Father, we can have complete assurance that he will listen with love and respond by doing what is best for us.

"In Jesus and through faith in him we may approach God with freedom and confidence." Ephesians 3 verse 12

Praying is more than just talking to (or at) God.  Prayer is part of an intimate experience of God that Jesus has opened up for us.  The NT describes this experience as fellowship or participation with God.  To have fellowship means to share with someone in something or to share in their life.  Through Jesus, we share in the life of God himself - the Father, the Son and the Spirit.  As John says "our fellowship is with the Father and with his Son, Jesus Christ." 1 John 1 verse 3  Meditation on Scripture (God's words) and prayer (our words) are the main ways in which we nourish and experience this intimate fellowship with God.  They are ways of being with God and knowing him better. So as you meditate on scripture it should fuel a conversation where you are listening and responding to the God who really is present with you.  Prayer is not like a phone call to a helpdesk operator.  it is much more like God moving into your home and sharing life with you.  

"Anyone who loves me will obey my teaching.  My Father will love them and we will come to them and make our home with them." John 14 verse 23

Delighting in God and depending on God.  

"This is the message we have heard from him and declare to you: God is light; in him there is no darkness at all.  If we claim to have fellowship with him and yet walk in the darkness, we lie and do not live out the truth.  But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another and the blood of Jesus, his Son, purifies us from all sin." 1 John 1 verses 5 - 7

John Calvin "True wisdom consists of 2 main things: knowledge of God and knowledge of ourselves."  Prayer is driven by the same 2 things.  The more we know God and the more we understand our own identity in Christ the more we will strive to develop a life of delighting in God and depending on God in prayer.

JI Packer encourages us to say these words over and over to ourselves "first thing in the morning, last thing at night, as you wait for the bus, any time when our mind is free and ask that you may be enabled to live as one who knows it is all utterly and completely true.  "I am a child of God.  God is my Father; heaven is my home; every day is one day nearer.  My Saviour is my brother; every Christian is my brother too."

Knowing and remembering who you are in Jesus will have a huge effect on your life.

"The clearer we capture the vision of our new identity in Christ, the more we will realise that our deepest needs for security, significance and satisfaction are met in him and not in people, possessions or positions." Kenneth Boa

Where do you most often look for security, significance and satisfaction?

"Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in the heavenly realms with every spiritual blessing in Christ.  For he chose us in him before the creation of the world to be holy and blameless in his sight.  In love he predestined us for adoption to sonship through Jesus Christ, in accordance with his pleasure and will - to the praise of his glorious grace, which he has freely given us in the One he loves.  In him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins, in accordance with the riches of God's grace.  ... When you believed, you were marked in him with a seal, the promised Holy Spirit, who is a deposit guaranteeing our inheritance until the redemption of those who are God's possession - to the praise of his glory." Ephesians 1 verses 3 - 7, 13 and 14

2 ways that the NT tells us we should pray.  First in Jesus' name "in that day you will no longer ask me anything.  Very truly I tell you, my Father will give you whatever you ask in my name.  Until now you have not asked for anything in my name.  Ask and you will receive and your joy will be complete." John 16 verses 3 and 24 To pray in Jesus' name is to pray as someone who belongs to Jesus.  It is to pray

as someone who trusts in Jesus

by Jesus' merits, not by my own merits

as a loved child of God through Jesus

The other way - which sounds more mysterious - is praying in the Spirit, as the apostle Paul instructed: "And pray in the Spirit on all occasions with all kinds of prayers and requests." Ephesians 6 verse 18  What does it mean to "pray in the Spirit"?  It is exactly the same as praying in Jesus' name!  If you pray in the name of Jesus you are praying in the Spirit.  The reason is that the Spirit is the one who unites us to Jesus, who is God's beloved eternal Son. The Father always listens to Jesus (John 11 verse 42) and we have been given the Spirit of Jesus himself!  "Because you are his sons, God sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts the Spirit who calls out 'Abba Father'." Galatians 4 verse 6  To pray in the Spirit is simply to pray as a Christian, as a child of God in Christ.  And because of that, all of our prayers are "in the Spirit." 

"my Father will give you whatever you ask in my name." John 16 verse 23

The basis of Christian prayer is the conviction that God is good.  However it is one thing to say that God is good, to know it in your head.  The bible invites us to do something much better.  "Taste and see that the Lord is good; blessed is the one who takes refuge in him." Psalm 34 verse 8  To taste and see God's goodness is to discover it through the ups and downs of life - to come to him constantly with our joys and sorrows and slowly see how he works in ways that are profoundly good  Prayer is essential for tasting God's goodness.

"I sought the Lord and he answered me; he delivered me from all my fears.  Those who look to him are radiant; their faces are never covered with shame.  This poor man called and the Lord heard him; he saved him out of all his troubles.  The angel of the Lord encamps around those who fear him, and he delivers them. Taste and see that the Lord is good; blessed is the one who takes refuge in him." Psalm 34 verses 4 - 8   Because God is good, we can trust him completely when we pray.  We might not know how he will respond and we will not always understand what he does.  But he does respond and in the best way possible.  

Praying according to God's will.  "This is the confidence we have in approaching God; that if we ask anything according to his will, he hears us." 1 John 5 verse 14  Praying "according to his will" is not about trying to guess what God's specific plan might be.  God does not usually reveal the details of what he is going to do.  He asks us to trust him with those details.  But God has revealed a great deal about his will in the scriptures.  We can pray about anything, but there are some things that always please God when we bring them to him and the Bible guides us in this.  

"Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name." Matthew 6 verse 9

To 'hallow' God's name means to honour God as holy.  God's holiness is his glory, greatness and majesty; and it is also his moral perfection.  Jesus reminds us that the God we pray to is our Father, but he is also the Holy One.  Because of this, when we pray, as Tim Keller says, our hearts should be "engaged in loving awe".  "The Lord reigns, let the nations tremble, he sits enthroned between the cherubim, let the earth shake.  Great is the Lord in Zion; he is exalted over all the nations.  Let them praise your great and awesome name - he is holy." Psalm 99 verses 1 to 3  The first line in the Lord's Prayer is not just a reminder that God is holy.  It shows us what our greatest longing should be; that God be honoured as holy.  This should be our desire for all people everywhere.  But God is also honoured as holy when my life brings him praise and honour.  Finally the first line of the Lord's Prayer is a request.  We are asking God to break into our world and into our lives so that he is honoured as holy. 

So often our prayers begin with requests for our own needs - and they continue and finish in the same way!  Jesus' model prayer is also a list of requests.  There is nothing wrong with asking God for things - he wants us to.  However the first 3 requests in the Lord's Prayer are not for ourselves, they are for God's concerns.  They not only show that we depend on God; they also lead our minds to delight in God  Beginning our prayers in this way guards us from selfish asking.  

"Your kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven." Matthew 6 verse 10

This verse reminds us that the God we pray to is the King.  He rules over all and he has set the conditions for us to live in harmony and happiness, under his good rule.  However, at present we live in a world that's in rebellion against God.  Even in our own lives, we often ignore or blatantly disobey God's will.  When we pray "your kingdom come, your will be done" we are longing for the end point of God's plan to arrive: "to bring unity to all things in heaven and on earth under Christ." Ephesians 1 verse 10  We are asking fro Jesus to return, for evil to be destroyed, for Christ's people to be made perfect and raised in glory in God's eternal kingdom.  And yet, God's kingdom is already beginning.  It grows as people turn to Jesus, find new life and hope in him, and commit to living under God's rule.  His kingdom grows in us as we seek to live for Jesus.  For everyone who trusts in Jesus, God is not just sovereign; he is sovereign for us!  He rules by working powerfully in us, for our good.  He rules by saying "Yes!" to our requests in Jesus' name and acting far more powerfully and abundantly than we expect or realise.  Paul says "Now to him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us, to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, for ever and ever! Amen." Ephesians 3 verses 20 - 21.

Unanswered prayer.  To think about unanswered prayer, we will consider another aspect of who God is.  We have seen that God is Father, Holy and King.  As well as these things, the God we pray to is wise - Job 12 verse 13.  He see, understands and governs over every event in the universe.  This means that only he sees the big picture and truly knows his purpose in each situation.  But God's wisdom is not just knowledge.  It is his knowledge and goodness. And he asks us to trust that his wisdom is for our good.  Paul writes "And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose." Romans 8 verse 28  God doesn't often show us exactly why he didn't give us what we asked for.  But knowing that God is wise and good gives us one important reason: because he is busy giving us much better things!  Often the gifts God is giving us take far longer to produce than our short-term requests and because God loves us, he is much more patient than we are - 2 Peter 3 verse 9.  Moreover, we often focus on asking God to change our circumstances.  But God is more interested in changing us through our circumstances so we learn to trust him more deeply.  The fruit of the Spirit takes a long time to grow!  Even the apostle Paul had to learn this lesson.  Though he begged God to remove the "thorn in his flesh", God did not remove it, in order to humble him and to help him to learn one thing "My grace is sufficient for you." 2 Corinthians 12 verses 7 - 9.  All of these truths should encourage us to ask God even more boldly when we don't see the answers we expect.  

"Ask and you shall receive" Matthew 7 verses 7 and 8 - Ask with confidence and hope.  Don't be afraid that you will ask for the wrong thing.  Of course you will!  God 'tempers the outcome' (ie he improves it) with his incomprehensible wisdom.  Cry, ask and appeal - you will get many answers.  Finally, where you do not get an answer, or where the answer is not what you want, use prayer to enable you to rest in his will."

In the first 3 requests of the Lord's Prayer, Jesus taught us to ask our Father for his concerns first: his reputation, his reign and his rule in our world.  The remaining 3 requests turn to our needs.  It is not selfish to ask God to provide everything you need  But we must let Jesus teach us what our real needs are.  The first is a request for provision of our material needs "Give us today our daily bread" Matthew 6 verse 11.  By beginning with such a simple, down-to-earth request, Jesus shows us the most important and basic attitude we should have in prayer: an attitude of dependence on God in everything.  Our opinion of what we need often shows how shallow our faith is.  In our society, people try to accumulate enough so that they will have security in their possessions and will not need to depend on God or anybody else.  We must struggle against this mindset.  There is a place for responsible saving with godly aims for how we will use and share the resources God entrusts to us - Proverbs 6 verse 6 - 11, 2 Corinthians 9 verses 10 and 11.  But greed is a terrifing danger, because it erodes our sense of depending on God.  In Jesus' world the average worker was only able to buy food for the next day.  But his biggest concern for them was not that they build up a savings buffer.  It was that they trust completely in God for each day's bread.  Yet there is an even more important lesson we need to learn from this request.  It 's that the God we pray to cares deeply for you.  He cares about every aspect of your life and he is generous and good!  Jesus said; "Are not 5 sparrows sold for 2 pennies? Yet not one of them is forgotten by God.  Indeed, the very hairs of your head are all numbered.  Don't be afraid; you are worth more than many sparrows." Luke 12 verses 6 and 7

"Prayer therefore simply consists in telling God day by day in what ways we feel that we are helpless.  We are moved to pray every time the Spirit of God, which is the spirit of prayer, emphasizes to us anew our helplessness and we realise how important we are by nature to believe, to love, to hope, to serve, to sacrifice, to suffer, to read the Bible, to pray and to struggle against our sinful desires." Ole Hallesby

In the next request in the Lord's Prayer, Jesus focuses on a particularly important area of helplessness and dependence; our own sin. "And forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors." Matthew 6 verse 12  Luke's version of the prayer uses the word 'sins' instead of 'debts' Luke 11 verse 4.  Both words help us understand why we rely completely on God's forgiveness.  "Sins" reminds us that we have broken God's law and committed wicked acts that deserve his anger.  "debts" reminds us that we can never repay God or make up for what we have done.  Our debt is bigger than we can possibly imagine. But the good news of the gospel is that, through Jesus, God freely forgives and cancels our impossibly big debt Matthew 18 verses 23 - 27.  When faced with our sin, depending on God means asking him to forgive us.  But as we ask him, we can also know that even before the words are out of our mouth, he has already forgiven us completely and joyfully!  God's forgiveness does not just cancel our sin; it also transforms us.  It brings the fruit of repentance - not just feeling sorry, but seeking to make right the wrongs we have done to others and striving to throw off "the sin that so easily entangles." Hebrews 12 verse 1  God's forgiveness also enables us to learn how to forgive others - Ephesians 4 verse 32

Final request in the Lord's Prayer.

His reputation - "hallowed be your name"

His reign - "your kingdom come"

His rule - "your will be done"

Our provision - "Give us today our daily bread"

Our pardon - "forgive us our debts"

Our protection - "lead us not ... but deliver us from the evil one."

The final request expresses our dependence in the area of spiritual battle - "And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from the evil one." Matthew 6 verse 13  It is foolish to forget our dependence on God in our struggle against temptation and the evil one's strategies because "the devil prowls around like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour." 1 Peter 5 verse 8.  He knows how to make destructive things seem delightful and filthy things look fun.  And when we fall, he tries to make us believe that God has taken away his love and Christ's blood is not enough to cover our sin.  The Bible has 2 pieces of very good news.  The first - in the famous "armour of God' in Ephesians 6 verses 10 - 20 is that God has already given you the protection you need to stand against the devil's schemes. This protection is the gospel message itself!  As Paul creatively describes the 6 items of Roman armour he is simply summarizing the core truths of the gospel:

the belt of truth (verse 14): You have learned the truth about Jesus, the Saviour and Lord

the breastplate of righteousness (verse 14): through Jesus, you have the gift of righteousness

the shield of faith (verse 16): by faith you have been reconciled with God through Jesus

the helmet of salvation (verse 17): your salvation is secure because of Jesus

But in our spiritual battle, we aren't only called to defend.  As we speak the gospel, we storm Satan's stronghold and rescue people from his power.  We advance with our "feet fitted with the readiness that comes from the gospel of peace" (verse 15) - the good news that brings peace with God.  And we take up the "the sword of the Spirit" (verse 17) - his living and active word.  So how do you put on this "armour of God"?  By reminding yourself constantly of the good news of Jesus (verses 13 - 17) and by depending on God constantly in prayer (verse 18).  Our good Father is our sure defence!  The second piece of good news is that the final glorious victory is coming: "The God of peace will soon crush Satan under our feet." Romans 16 verse 20  

The habit of prayer is not just about doing a "quiet time" each morning (or each evening).  Paul says "Rejoice always, pray continually, give thanks in all circumstances, for this is God's will for you in Christ Jesus." 1 Thessalonians 5 verses 16 - 18  Paul urges us to talk to God in all kinds of different ways: rejoicing, asking, giving thanks. But he doesn't have in mind a structured prayer time.  This is about seeking and striving to develop a life of constant communion with him. God's will for you is to live prayerfully.  Living prayerfully does not mean saying long complicated prayers as you buy your groceries.  There are many prayers of just a few words in scripture: "Lord help me!" Matthew 15 verse 25, "God have mercy on me, a sinner" Luke 18 verse 13 and "Come Lord Jesus" Revelation 22 verse 20.

Dedicated times of prayer were crucial even for Jesus - times where he could be apart from the crowds and alone with his Father: "Very early in the morning, while it was still dark, Jesus got up, left the house and went off to a solitary place, where he prayed." Mark 1 verse 35.  And he taught his disciples to do the same: "But when you pray, go into your room, close the door and pray to our Father, who is unseen." Matthew 6 verse 6.  For most people, the best time for this time alone with God is first thing in the morning.  To turn to God, seek to delight in him, and commit yourself to depend on him  before each day's worries crowd your mind.  

when in the day will you set aside time?

how will you make sure to remember?

what is most likely to distract you or prevent you and what can you do to guard against this?

where will you do it?

how long will you aim to spend in prayer?

Growing in closeness to God involves learning to live prayerfully, delighting in God and depending on God throughout the day in every situation.  In our dedicated prayer time, we should aim to include a range of different ways of delighting in God and depending on God.  There are many methods people use to do this.  

Adoration (worship and love) - delighting

Confession - depending

Thanksgiving - delighting

Supplication (asking) - depending

Let's start with Adoration. While Thanksgiving is praising God for what he has done for us, Adoration is praising him simply for who he is  It is allowing our minds to fill with the unchanging truths of God's nature and character, so that our hearts fill with wonder, awe and love for him.  And because we are aware of God's presence when we pray, Adoration is telling God all these things - telling him what we know he is like and expressing our wonder and love - Psalm 92 verses 1 and 2  The Bible is full of expressions of God's faithful, unchanging love and mercy, which he poured out in the cross of Jesus "The Lord is compassionate and gracious, slow to anger, abounding in love." Psalm 103 verse 8.  "But God demonstrates is own love for us in this.  While we were still sinners, Christ died for us." Romans 5 verse 8 

Confession is the most important way to express our dependence on God, because our greatest need is for our sins to be forgiven.  A healthy prayer life should include daily confession.  But can we really be sure that God accepts our prayers of confession?  After all, our prayers are so weak and shallow.  We don't pray nearly enough and when we do, we get easily distracted.  Our prayers seem half hearted and we feel like hypocrites.  So we can easily doubt whether our prayer is good enough.  But Paul Miller points out that prayer works exactly the same way as the gospel itself.  Of course your prayer isn't good enough!  But God doesn't accept our prayers because they are good enough, he accepts them joyfully and completely because Jesus is perfect.  

"We look at the inadequacy of our praying and give up, thinking something is wrong with us. God looks at the adequacy of his Son and delights in our sloppy, meandering prayers."

Being weighed down by our own sin and weakness can make us think we have to get things together before we come to God in prayer.  But the gospel says "Come as you are!"  Or as Paul Miller says "Come overwhelmed with life.  Come with your wandering mind  Come messy."  Daily confession should be a conscious time of remembering and naming the ways in which you've ignored and disobeyed God  It's about being honest with the one who sees our inmost thoughts and not trying to hide our sin - Psalm 32 verse 5, 139 verses 1 and 2.  Put out of your mind the idea that God might not hear or accept your prayer.  "If we confess our sins, God is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness."  1 John 1 verse 9

Thanksgiving focuses on what God has done for you.  The most basic and universal sin, according to Romans 1 verse 21 is that we do not glorify God or give him thanks.  Being thankless is sinful; but through faith in Jesus God enables us to begin to learn how to live with thankful hearts.  1 Thessalonians 5 verses 16 - 18 tells us to "give thanks in all circumstances."  But as with any area of godliness, we must make a determined decision to develop thankfulness to God.  Your daily prayer time is a good way to start to learn.  As you become better at seeing ways in which God has been good to you, you will more easily recognise his loving hand in daily life.  Think of ways in which God has been kind to you:

the spiritual blessings that are yours in Jesus: forgiveness, adoption - Ephesians 1 verses 3 - 7

God's help in specific moments during the past day or week

answers to prayer that you or one of your brothers or sisters in Christ have received recently

the people in your life

any tiny 'gifts of love' you received over the past day: daily bread, beauty in nature, a kind word from a stranger.

"Give thanks to the Lord for he is good, His love endures forever." Psalm 136 verse 1

Supplication - simply means asking God to supply what we need  God loves us to ask him for all of our needs, but we must also learn to ask for the most important things.  As well as forgiveness we could summarize our greatest needs under 2 headings:

Faith - not just initially trusting in Jesus as Saviour and Lord but also trusting him in our day-to-day difficulties, and persevering in faith until we reach our eternal heavenly inheritance

Growth in godliness - growing in the fruit of the Spirit, fighting against sin, becoming more like Jesus.

Both of these can seem impossible.  Our faith is so weak and our growth so slow.  But as we bring these things before God we can rest on his faithfulness, goodness and power.  "He who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus." Philippians 1 verse 6

"Therefore I urge you, brothers and sisters, in view of God's mercy, to offer your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God - this is your true and proper worship.  Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God's will is - his good, pleasing and perfect will." Romans 12 verses 1 and 2

Intercession - one of the most wonderful truths of the bible is that Jesus is interceding for you right now.  "Because Jesus lives forever, he has a permanent priesthood.  Therefore he is able to save completely those who come to God through him because he always lives to intercede for them." Hebrews 7 verses 24 and 25  But what does Jesus pray for us?  For one thing, his prayers guarantee that you are constantly forgiven and justified before God: "Who will bring any charge against those whom God has chosen?  It is God who justifies. Who then is the one who condemns?  No one, Christ Jesus who died - more than that, who was raised to life - is at the right hand of God and is also interceeding for us." Romans 8 verses 33 and 34.  John 17 gives an even deeper insight into Jesus' prayers for us.  As the hour of his death approached, Jesus poured out his heart to his Father.   

"I have revealed you to those whom you gave me out of the world ... I pray for them ... My prayer is not that you take them out of the world but that you protect them from the evil one.  They are not of the world, even as I am not of it.  Sanctify them by the truth; your word is truth. ... I pray also for those who will believe in me through their message, that all of them may be one, Father, just as you are in me and I am in you.  May they also be in us so that the world may believe that you have sent me. .... Father, I want those you have given me to be with me where I am, and to see my glory, the glory you have given me because you loved me before the creation of the world." John 17 verse 6, 9, 15 - 17, 20 - 21 and 24

When it come to supplication, the bible shows us the richness of bringing other people's needs to God, not just our own.  Jesus intercedes for us; and God had given us the wonderful privilege of being able to intercede for others.  And just as God loves to answer Jesus' prayers so he loves to answer our prayers for each other!  Paul's prayers are a wonderful model of how to pray for other Christians.  As he shares his prayer life with his readers, we see how the gospel of Jesus shaped his most important priorities for his brothers and sisters in Christ. Think of a few people from your church family who you could pray for today. 

someone with a particular need or difficulty

a new person at church

someone you are close to

"And this is my prayer, that your love may abound more and more in knowledge and depth of insight, so that you may be able to discern what is best and may be pure and blameless for the day of Christ, filled with the fruit of righteousness that comes through Jesus Christ - to the glory and praise of God." Philippians 1 verses 9 - 11

We all struggle sometimes to stop our minds from drifitng when we pray.  One useful practical tip is to pray out loud.  This can keep your mind engaged and it can also help you to be more 'real' and honest.  We can also pray for our world and for those who have not turned to Jesus.  And the bibles most urgent concern is that people hear about Jesus, believe, and are saved from the coming judgement.  There are good reasons to work hard at praying for people who do not know Christ both near and far.  For one thing, we pray out of love for those who are "without hope and without God in the world" Ephesians 2 verse 12.  But there is an even greater reason, which is God's own glory and the honour of Jesus' name.  As we grow in our delight in God we begin to long for the spread of the gospel to reach its glorious end point: "For the earth will be filled with the knowledge of the glory of the Lord as the waters cover the sea."  Habakkuk 2 verse 14  In fact Jesus said that when the gospel has been preached in the whole world as a testimony to all nations, "then the end will come" Matthew 24 verse 14.  Decide on 2 or 3 specific ways you will commit to pray regularly for those who don't know Christ, including those who are close to you and those around the world.  You could pray 

for friends family members or co-workers who aren't saved

for your own witness and preparation to answer people who ask you about the hope that you have - 1 Peter 3 verse 15

that God would raise up more workers for the harvest - Matthew 9 verse 37 - 38

for particular gospel workers - your own paster and one missionary and ask God to open doors for them to proclaim Christ and for boldness - Colossians 4 verse 3, Ephesians 6 verses 19 and 20

"I tell you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, that you may be children of your Father in heaven." Matthew 5 verses 44 and 45

For many Christians, loving our enemies can seem impossible.  It mya require many years of slow, painful growth and healing before it is possible.  Jesus gives us a very practical way to start down that path of learning to love our enemies - pray for them!  This is not a 'quick fix' for instantly turning hatred into love.  You might struggle with a desire for revenge.  But if you come before God each day and pray for them - if you ask the Father io be merciful to them and to do what is best for them - then bit by bit, your own heart may become softened and you may start to really want what is best for them.  And the best thing you can ask for them is that they would turn to Jesus and be saved, or that God would make them more like Jesus.  As you wrestle with this very challenging word, remember that our greatest example and constant motivation for loving our enemies is God's own love, since it was while we were his enemies that he sent his Son to die for us - Romans 5 verses 8 to 10, Colossians 1 verses 21 and 22.

Why do we bother praying at all?  Some Christians wrestle with why we ask God to do things when he already knows everything and will act according to his will whether or not we ask him.  Do our prayers actually change anything?  The answer is a very definite yes!  "The prayer of a righteous person is powerful and effective." James 5 verse 16  And if you trust in Jesus and have given your life to him, you are a "righteous person" - so your prayers do bring about powerful changes.  But we need to understand why. The reason is not because there is something magical about prayer itself.  It is not some kind of spiritual 'force'.  The reason the prayer of a Christian is powerful and effective is simply because God delights in making it powerful and effective.  That is, God delights in acting in response to the requests of his beloved children, rather than acting without their involvement.  God will still carry out his plan if we don't ask him to - though the result may well look very different than if we had asked him.  But his delight is to do things because we asked him to!  

"It appears that God has so ordered life and the world that our praying is a vital part of the redemptive plan for individual and the entire universe." Maxie Dunnam

God reeally does act powerfully and make things happen in response to the requests of his children.  But there is a second way in which prayer changes things.  Prayer not only changes the world; it also changes us!  Prayer is not for God's benefit.  It is for ours.  We do not pray to inform God of the things that have slipped his notice.  He knows better than we do what things we should ask, and what thing we could ask if only we had his wisdom. That is why his spirit improves our requests and makes them better than we know.  "In the same way, the Spirit helps us in our weakness.  We do not know what we ought to pray for, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us through wordless groans.  And he who searches and hearts knows the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for God's people in accordance with the will of God."  Romans 8 verses 26 and 27  There are 2 aspects of prayer.  It is not only about depending on God; it is also our most intimate way of delighting in God himself - learning to love him, revere him and enjoy his love which is bigger than we can ever imagine - Ephesians 3 verse 19  And as we spend time in the presence of our Father- delighting in him and depending on him - he draws us closer to himself, purifies our thoughts and motives, reminds us of who we are and what is most important, and strengthens us to live for him.  For all these reasons, our prayers also fill God with delight - like sweet-smelling incense - Revelation 5 verse 8.