Prayer

“Living a Prayerful Life”, Andrew Murray

Posted by Ian Acheson on May 12, 2013 in Prayer, Reviews | 2 comments

Photo courtesy of Bethany House

“Satan endeavours to become the master of the Christian prayer time.”

That statement is written on the third last page of this marvellous book but is a great reminder of where the battle for our souls is played out. The enemy knows we are ineffective against him if we aren’t praying.

Andrew Murray in this relatively short book emphases the power of prayer by exploring Jesus’ commitment to it. His ministry wouldn’t have been as effective if it weren’t for His prayer life. I know I often forget this.

Murray regards prayerlessness as the scourge of the christian community: we just don’t pray enough. This book needs to be read diligently as Murray explores many new ideas. It isn’t a “To Do guide” only featuring the one small chapter on how to spend one’s prayer time but rather by focusing on the Word, the lives of Jesus, Paul and some more modern day Christian heroes like George Mueller and Hudson Taylor, encourages us to greater commitment to prayer.

It got me praying more which is the best recommendation I can make about a book on prayer.

Pray Like Jesus

Posted by Ian Acheson on May 3, 2013 in Jesus, Prayer | 2 comments

Photo courtesy of Ligonier Ministries

Jesus provides a wonderful picture of the power of prayer. His life revolved around it; His ministry would not have been effective if it hadn’t been for His commitment to prayer.

I often forget this about Jesus. It’s only been in recent years studying the Bible that I realised that Jesus was fully human. I had lived thinking He was God, so Jesus could do anything.

Jesus was only able to do what He did and fulfil His mission because of prayer. In living as a human for 33 years, Jesus provided the example for us to live by: be people of prayer.

Let’s have a quick look at some of the aspects of His prayer life. Some of this post I wrote 6 months ago, so some of you may be familiar with what follows. But I thought it useful to re-post it.

Regularity

Scripture tells us Jesus prayed constantly:

“But Jesus often withdrew to lonely places and prayed.” (Luke 5:16)

Praying the Word

Posted by Ian Acheson on Apr 26, 2013 in Bible Reading, Prayer | 4 comments

Photo courtesy of “Stuart Miles”/Freedigitalphotos.net

Memorise Bible verses.

For most of my Christian walk I would switch off when some one mentioned those 3 words. Reading the Bible, especially the Old Testament was hard enough without adding more work to it, like memorising verses.

Guess what? I didn’t actively do it. My heart didn’t value its importance.

“If you abide in Me, and My words abide in you, you will ask what you desire, and it shall be done for you! (John 15:7 NASB)

Jesus made that promise to us. I would often reflect on the second half of it: Jesus will give me what I desire. But there’s a two-letter word at the beginning of that sentence that makes the second half conditional upon the first half.

“If”

If we are walking with Jesus, His words will be inside of us. Remember those school and college days when we studied for exams? I found I got the best results when I didn’t just read material a few times, but I memorised it. There were some (not many) exams I knew the material so well, I could picture entire pages of stuff. It was those exams I blitzed.