A few months ago, many 5:17ers shared in our community groups what they would like to grow in as Christians – and prayer was a common thread in our discussions. So how do we grow in prayer?

The first thing we need to grasp is that we have no right to pray to God, except through Jesus. 1 Timothy 2:5 says: For there is one God, and there is one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus. We can only approach the perfect God if all of our sin, guilt and shame has been lifted off us. To understand this in more detail, have a read here. As Christians, we can pray to God. That’s a simple statement, but a profound truth.

Following on from this, we need to understand what prayer is? I think the Westminster Shorter Catechism gives us a wonderful answer when it says (in Q&A 98):

Prayer is an offering up of our desires unto God,(1) for things agreeable to his will,(2) in the name of Christ,(3) with confession of our sins,(4) and thankful acknowledgment of his mercies.(5)

(1) Ps. 62:8. (2) I John 5:14. (3) John 16:23. (4) Ps. 32:5-6; Dan. 9:4. (5) Phil. 4:6.

Have a read of the Bible verses referenced above. Prayer really is a multi-faceted act between fallen people and the glorious God. In line with this, I was recently reading an autobiography by an ex-American basketballer, Bill Reiser, and he made the following statements on prayer that I really like (p63ff):

Prayer tells your problems how big your God is instead of you telling God how big your problems are.

True prayer is not overcoming God’s reluctance but laying hold of His willingness.

I think the above two points are really good distinctions to make, and give us some interesting things to think about in regards to prayer.

Prayer is one of our immense privileges – we can with confidence draw near to the throne of grace, that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need (Hebrews 4:16). So let’s keep praying – individually and as a church community – so that we and the people around us can receive mercy, grace and help in our time of need.

At our Community Groups (CGs) this week we looked at something of an ‘inventory for Christians’ – a non-exhaustive list of components of the Christian life.  The idea behind the list is to recognise that life as God’s people is holistic or multi-faceted, and growing in our relationships with Him isn’t uni-dimensional or simplistic.

There were 3 categories to measure our growth by:

• Character (spiritual formation) – developing in personal godliness, and thus reflecting the heart of a Christian character
• Knowledge (theological formation) – developing a Christian mind based on a working understanding of the Bible
• Skills (ministry formation) – developing skills and an attitude of Christlike service

…and a common element of stunted character growth for our CG members was prayerfulness.  It was great to see lots of us wanting to grow in this.  I myself have been a bit of a silly duffer for many months – knowing that I pray best when prompted by a personal prayer schedule, but not having an updated one to work (or pray) from – because of my own tardiness in putting a fresh one together.  So last night at CG was the perfect opportunity to do so, and my prayer life has already benefitted!  I used it this afternoon to pray from and it helped my brain enormously to have something concrete to work from and concentrate on.  

Does that mean I’m left-brained?  I think it might.  So I thought if I shared my left-brained praying method with you, other left-brainers out there might similarly benefit.  Hope this works –  

It looks a bit clumsy here, but you get the idea.  Just fill it in for the week – all 7 columns and 4-5+ rows – and voila, a personalised, specific, other-person-centred prayer schedule.  

As for prayer points – what a great act of service to ask someone what you can pray for them, or make up some prayer points – based on the plethora in God’s word.  :)