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School of prayer with an attitude to pray

I never thought I would look at the Book of Revelation with the idea of investigating the prayers that are found there.

Today, as I started to read the first chapter, I am engaged with a vital, vibrant prayer from John who experiences, in the Spirit, on the Lord’s day, a time where he and Jesus were in a conversation.

This symphony of prayer being exchanged, the message and the reactions, tend now to become my own as I engage in prayer.

Happy is the one who reads this book, and happy are those who listen to the words of this prophetic message and obey what is written in this book! For the time is near when all these things will happen. – Revelation 1:3 GNT

Prayer and praise become part and of the dialogue.

He loves us, and by his sacrificial death he has freed us from our sins and made us a kingdom of priests to serve his God and Father. To Jesus Christ be the glory and power forever and ever! Amen. – Revelation 1:5b-6 GNT

My prayers must have a component where I am listening to God, a God who speaks to me. While I am intent at getting to making my asks, I must prioritize my praise for His love and for His gift of Jesus from whom I receive my strength, hope and salvation.

My prayer then sees the love of God on the Cross and I am then asked to live consistently as a disciple of Jesus. When I am consistently in prayer, I am reawakened with the sense of His presence in my life – both past and present. His presence moves me into the future for I am sustained, guided, given hope and I am never alone for it is my life blood.

In this time I see clearly my relationship with Jesus. I can see Him, hear him, understand His call to action, the needs of the community, and I am close to Him.

I am John, your brother, and as a follower of Jesus I am your partner in patiently enduring the suffering that comes to those who belong to his Kingdom. I was put on the island of Patmos because I had proclaimed God’s word and the truth that Jesus revealed. On the Lord’s day the Spirit took control of me, and I heard a loud voice, that sounded like a trumpet, speaking behind me. It said, “Write down what you see, and send the book to the churches in these seven cities: Ephesus, Smyrna, Pergamum, Thyatira, Sardis, Philadelphia, and Laodicea.”

I turned around to see who was talking to me, and I saw seven gold lampstands, and among them there was what looked like a human being, wearing a robe that reached to his feet, and a gold band around his chest. – Revelation 1:9-13 GNT

I love John’s reaction when he hears the voice of the risen Jesus – fulfilling the priestly role of mediator with the Father.

We hear much in our day of the rest of faith, but there is such a thing as the fight of faith in prayer as well as in effort. Those who would have us think that they have attained to some sublime height of faith and trust because they never know any agony of conflict or of prayer, have surely gotten beyond their Lord, and beyond the mightiest victors for God, both in effort and prayer, that the ages of Christian history have known. When we learn to come to God with an intensity of desire that wrings the soul, then shall we know a power in prayer that most of us do not know now. – R. A. Torrey

Do not forget to pray and rely on Him

There are times, in the middle of me enjoying my time of praise and worship, I feel a need to pray for Christians who need God’s help and comfort for they are living in moments of distress.

 Give thanks to the Lord, proclaim his greatness;
    tell the nations what he has done.

Say to him, “Save us, O God our Savior;
    gather us together; rescue us from the nations,
    so that we may be thankful
    and praise your holy name.”
Praise the Lord, the God of Israel!
Praise him now and forever! – 1 Chronicles 16:8, 35-36 GNT

While I enjoy God’s favour, I pray for those who need salvation and others who need deliverance. It is then that I can end my prayer with an “Amen.”

I think of Peter’s prayer sometimes.

When Simon Peter saw what had happened, he fell on his knees before Jesus and said, “Go away from me, Lord! I am a sinful man!” – Luke 5:8 GNT

It sounds like a good prayer, but I believe I need to pray a better prayer by praying, “Come nearer to me, for I am a sinful man, O Lord!”

I learned a few lessons regarding what to pray and how to pray from the leper.

Once Jesus was in a town where there was a man who was suffering from a dreaded skin disease. When he saw Jesus, he threw himself down and begged him, “Sir, if you want to, you can make me clean!”[a]

Jesus reached out and touched him. “I do want to,” he answered. “Be clean!” At once the disease left the man. Jesus ordered him, “Don’t tell anyone, but go straight to the priest and let him examine you; then to prove to everyone that you are cured, offer the sacrifice as Moses ordered.”

But the news about Jesus spread all the more widely, and crowds of people came to hear him and be healed from their diseases. – Luke 5:12-15 GNT

He begged Jesus – that is more than a prayer – more about pleading, passionate prayer. It is not a half hearted prayer.

He asks Jesus and no one else. I must turn to God alone.

There is a humbleness in saying, “if you want to.” Sometimes I weary of those who sound like they are making demands when they pray.

Jesus prays at His busy moments.

“But he would go away to lonely places, where he prayed.” – Luke 5:16

He takes moments to withdraw from times when I would be basking in the limelight of what had just happened. I am empowered to pray because of Jesus’ model. He was God and needed to pray. If He needed to pray, then He needed to and did.

He found time to pray. He made time to pray. Nothing was more a priority than prayer.

What is keeping me from prayer? Praying for His grace and enabling power for me to walk an obedient walk?

Jesus’ prayer life helps me to pray.

I need to find those quiet corners of my world where this can happen. Maybe because that is where my prayer is uninterrupted.

Prayer brings power from God for my life and my ministry. I think God delights to use me and others who rely on Him through prayer.

The reason for constant, persistent, sleepless, overcoming prayer is that prayer, in every care and anxiety and need of life, with thanksgiving, is the means that God has appointed for obtaining freedom from all anxiety, and the peace of God which passesth all understanding. – R. A. Torrey