Devoted to Prayer - Part 1

Welcome to this weekend's In Touch Podcast with Charles Stanley. Do you ever struggle with what or how to pray? Let's continue the study of Colossians as we focus our attention on the Apostle Paul's encouraging call to prayer.

What would you say? And that is a question oftentimes a young pastor will ask, and they're usually expecting some big, long, theological, philosophical answer, and my answer is very simple and very plain. It's the same answer I want to give to you today because it is the most important thing any preacher ever learns. It must be his priority, and it should be the priority of every single believer. And that is if I had one thing to say to a pastor, whether he is 16 or 106, it would be the same. The most important activity in your life as a man of God is the time you spend alone with him in the Word of God on your knees in prayer.

That must have priority above everything else in your life. And what is true in a pastor's life is true in everybody else's life. There isn't any activity in all of our life that can equal the importance, the effectiveness and the power of spending time by yourself in the Word of God alone with him, fellowshipping and talking with God. So would you turn to Colossians chapter four and let's pick up there beginning in verse two and read verses two, three and four. Remember now that Paul is writing this from jail and he says in verse two, Devote yourselves to prayer, keeping alert in it with an attitude of thanksgiving, praying at the same time for us as well that God may open to us a door for the word so that we may speak forth the mystery of Christ for which I have also been imprisoned.

In order that I may make it clear in the way I ought to speak. Paul in this passage in these three verses really says two things. In essence, he tells us, first of all, what the proper attitude of our prayer should be. And then he issues us a powerful appeal to pray. So let's look, if you will, and what he says about the attitude of our prayer. Notice, if you will, in verse two, what he says. He says, Devote yourselves to prayer, keeping alert in it with an attitude of thanksgiving.

Paul says our attitude should be and he uses the term devote here, which is the idea of commitment. But the term here in the Greek is that is persevere. That is stay at it. That is hang in there. Don't give up.

Don't stop too soon. But keep on praying. You remember what Jesus said, ask and it shall be given you, seek and you shall find, knock and it shall be open unto you for everyone who asks and keep on asking. And he who seeks and keeps on seeking and the one who knocks and keeps on knocking will receive. One of the problems with the believer today is that we ask and expect an instant reply. And if we don't get it, we give up and quit and we say, well, God must be angry at me. Secondly, there must be sin in my life.

Thirdly, it must not be God's will. There isn't anything in the Bible that says that God is going to hear and answer our prayer and give us an instant answer every time we pray. In fact, the implication of scripture is and what Paul is saying when he says devote yourself to prayer.

Each of these words in this verse are all in the continuous idea. That is to keep on devoting yourself to prayer and keep on being alert and keep on doing it in the spirit of thanksgiving. He says this is the attitude that our prayer should be in. Now, I believe that Paul's motivation for encouraging the people to whom he wrote to pray is the same motivation that I have in my heart and the same motivation I want to share with you.

So I want you to get your pencil out. I want you to jot down these things. And then I want you to ask yourself the question, if prayer will do this in my life, surely does not prayer and should not prayer be the priority of my Christian activity? So what happens and why would Paul say to us, devote yourselves to prayer, persevere in it, be steadfast, endure under all kinds of trials and temptations and all kinds of satanic harassment?

Well, first of all, because he knew and jot these down, going to start them all with a piece so you remember them. First of all, our personal intimate relationship with Jesus Christ is greatly enlarged, greatly deepen when you and I spend time with him in prayer. Secondly, our perception and our perspective of who God is and what he's like and the vastness and the greatness of God is going to be enlarged. Number three, we're going to have a positive faith attitude, not a positive mental attitude, but we're going to see things from God's perspective and begin to trust him in ways we've never trusted him before. Number four, there's going to be a purifying process in our heart as we begin to make prayer a priority. Number five, we're going to develop a passion for obedience.

When you begin to pray, God does something in your heart, creating a passion for obedience. Number six, the pressures of our life are going to begin to dissipate and we're going to begin to experience a peace with God that heretofore we've not been able to experience. Likewise, something else is going to happen, the provision for our needs. We're going to see God as the provider for our needs and we're going to begin to rely upon him and depend upon him.

Then there is the idea that fellowshipping with him, prayer, is the pathway to our spiritual growth. As you and I begin to spend time with him, we're going to grow spiritually. Something's going to happen in our life. Number nine, there is going to be a greater power in your spiritual life, in your devotional life, in your witness to others than ever before. And number ten, something is going to happen to your entire life. You're going to experience a productivity. You're going to be able to produce. Your life is going to be fruitful in ways not only in your life spiritually with God, in your family life, in your business, whatever it is. Prayer deserves the priority.

Anything that will do that to my life deserves number one priority. Because remember what's happening. When you're talking to God, you're talking to the creator of the universe. You're talking to the sovereign, ultimate, final, supernatural, omnipotence that there is.

And God can engineer anything, anywhere, anytime, under any circumstance that is in his will. Now you would think anybody who knows that, and all of us already do know that, that we would make prayer a priority. So Paul isn't talking about little, now Lord bless me, thank you in Jesus name, amen. He's not talking about dragging yourself to prayer when you're about half asleep. Because the next thing he says in this passage is this, if you'll notice. He says devoting yourself to prayer, keeping alert in it.

Now let me tell you something. Just because you're talking and you're sort of sending it up that way doesn't mean you're praying. Well listen, when you and I address God, remember who he is. You don't come to almighty God half sleep after you've watched the world and filled your mind with a bunch of junk for two or three hours. And then you are going to approach a holy God and pour out your heart to him. He says be watchful in your prayer. Be diligent.

Stay with it. You're not going to keep on being diligent in your prayer if you come to him half asleep. The best time belongs to God. If it's early in the morning or late in the evening or whatever time it is, the best time belongs to God because of God's purpose for motivating us to pray. So he says keep alert.

Now keep alert not only is the indication here that we have a tendency sometime to drift. If I should ask you how many of you begin to pray and the next thing you're thinking about something way over yonder somewhere had nothing to do with what you were talking about in the beginning. Or we get sleep in drowsy or keeping alert vigilant against Satan because Satan will attack you when you're praying. You get your mind off what you're talking about, get you to thinking about things you shouldn't think.

Anything to keep you and to distract you, to harass you, to keep you off your knees. Because as long as you are off your knees, the truth is there's not real in much real power and effectiveness in your Christian life. You see, Paul isn't talking about crucial critical emergency praying.

He's talking about a way of life because Paul knows the effect when God's people begin to pray. And so he says the first requirement is that we must be persistent, endure under all kinds of satanic harassment. We must be vigilant. We must be alert and alive and awake to doing it. And thirdly, he says we should do it in the spirit of what? In the spirit of Thanksgiving. Now, why does he say that?

Because remember that Paul is writing from jail. If you and I are praying about some difficult circumstance in our life and we are moaning and groaning to God and telling him how bad things are and how awful it is. What are we doing? But more than likely, we're having a submission problem because the truth is, if I am in a difficult situation and I'm crying out to God and I can thank him while I'm in that.

Here's what it says. It says, first of all, I'm in the process of learning something that I have submitted my will to the will of God in this situation, though I may not particularly like it. I have opened myself up to learn. I've opened myself up to grow. I've opened myself up to see God from a different perspective. I'm learning the ways of God. I'm open for God to teach me new ways about himself.

And I am willing to wait. It speaks of patience. So when Paul says that we are to diligently pursue and diligently to plead and diligently to cry out with a spirit of wakefulness and vigilance. But to do so in the spirit of Thanksgiving, Paul is giving us the proper attitude to a prayer.

So let me make several suggestions. First of all, if prayer is going to be a devotion in your life, if it is going to be that to which you devoted. That is, if prayer deserves the priority that it does, having given you those 10 effects of prayer and there are many more, of course. If prayer will do that in your life, surely it ought to be a priority. If it's a priority, then we ought to have a plan some way that we go about it.

So let me suggest something. First of all, a period of time. If you don't set some time to pray, you're not going to find it. Listen, you don't find time to pray. You make time to pray. You set aside time to pray.

If you work by calendar, you put it on the calendar. If you don't, you won't do much praying. He says alert, diligently crying out to God. So you have to decide when are you at your freshest? When are you at your best? You say, I'm at my best in the morning, but I don't have time to pray in the morning. Yes, you do. You say, oh, I don't have time.

I have to get up and run off to work, get up a little earlier. The truth is we do have time to pray. The other truth is we put other things before we put our priority on prayer. We choose. Listen to this. We choose to talk to other people rather than God.

Listen to that. We choose to talk to other people rather than God. And worse than that, we choose to listen to the world's crowd rather than to listen to God speak to us. Shame on us for that. We know better than that. You say, well, if God wanted to speak to me, I'd listen to him first.

Well, he wants to speak to you every day. But you cut on the television, listen to somebody else blaring out a bunch of junk. And then when it comes time to listen to God, you don't have time.

What in the world is wrong with their thinking? It isn't we don't have time. We don't take time. But first of all, you've got to set aside some time. Secondly, a place. You say, well, man, I can pray anywhere.

You sure can. But there's something about your place. For example, let's say that you have a particular room that you pray in. Let's say you have an extra bedroom at your home and are someplace that you can pray in and you don't really go in there very often. If you choose a place like that.

Here's what happens. You begin to program your thinking and you program your mind that when you go in that extra bedroom, the only thing you do in there is pray. When you walk in, it is amazing how emotionally you get you're ready. It's like when you when you go in there, you and God do business. That's where you and God fellowship. That's where you bring your burdens and you unload to him and you cry out to him and you plead with him. There's something about a place that can be can become very, very precious to you in your prayer time, because that's the only thing you do right there.

There's something about having a time and a place, but there's something also about having a plan. And if you don't have a plan for praying, you say, well, I just I just pray the first thing comes to my mind. You may be surprised if you were to tape your prayers, how many of them sound just alike. And what we said in the very beginning, you could just kneel and say, God, remember last night, ditto in Jesus name. Amen.

Go to bed. I'm here to tell you it wouldn't be much difference than what happens. A lot of people, they pray the same thing. The Lord, I want you to bless my family, provide my needs, protect me. And on and on we go with the same old things over and over and over again. And it's amazing how people just pray the same words. And that's why I'm saying just because you're saying words does not mean you're praying. Listen, when you're praying, you're talking to God.

Remember who you're talking to. So our praying needs a plan. Now, that plan is very simple.

It's different plan for different people. But let me just suggest two or three things that'll be helpful. Number one, get your notebook or something to write down what your prayer requests are and have a place on the right hand side where you put a date. So when God answers your prayer, you can put one line through it. And every line in your prayer book is an answer to prayer and an experience of faith. Likewise, in your praying, remember that you're praying on include several things. You ought to begin by just praising God. Listen, if you wake up in the morning and get on your knees and begin to praise God.

You'll be surprised what happens all day long. There must be praise. There should be confession.

There should be Thanksgiving. And then there is petition crying out to God for your needs and intercession for other people. So don't just get out and ask God for a bunch of things and get up and go on your way to work. That's not that's that's no way to pray. But begin by thanking him and praising him for who he is and what he's doing in your life.

And the fact that he's living on the inside of you confessing whatever sin he surfaces in your mind. And then part of that plan and listen carefully, part of that plan should be the word of God. If you want to make your prayer life effective, you've got to mix the praying and the scriptures together. If you don't, you're going to miss something. Now, let me just tell you what I do.

Don't you have to do what I do, but I just happen to know this works. If you will start out in the morning before you start talking to God about anything except and I'll tell you what I do. I just begin with the word of God. And what I do is I read two chapters in the Old Testament one day, two chapters in the New Testament the next day. You read those two chapters, Mark, whatever you think you ought to mark, write down whatever you ought to write down. But then after you've read those two chapters, go back and start your praying.

But you pray, first of all, the Lord, I pray the Holy Spirit just speak to me today and let me see in here what I need to see. Then you read those two chapters. And as you read, God begins to work in your mind. Here's why it's so important to read the Bible. When you start reading the Bible, what happens is God then begins to put his word into your mind, flushing out what you've been thinking. And so you begin to think God's way.

Two chapters in the scripture. You begin to think God's thoughts. You begin to get his idea. And what happens is then when you begin to pray, you're already God conscious. That is, when you get in the words, you begin to get God conscious. You begin to see God's ways. You begin to think God's thoughts. Now, you say, well, I just don't have time to read two chapters.

Let me tell you why I know you do. Because if you took an average two chapters, not all of them, there are some long ones. If you took a couple of average two chapters in the Bible and strung them out end to end, it'd be like one column in the newspaper. Now, you folks who read the funniest and I mean you read the sports part and you read the stock market and you read the front page. You read all of these things. You mean to tell me that you can't read one column from God? When all most of what you read in the newspaper doesn't make any difference anyway. Now you're listening to God.

You're reading two chapters in the scripture, two in the Old Testament in the morning, two in the New Testament the next morning or the evening of whenever you choose to do it. But you see, that's a simple plan. Anybody can do that. So you can do it. So let's say it one more time. We do have time. We do have time. It is a matter of whether we're going to take the time to make our priority what God intends for it to be. And that is fellowshipping with him so he can speak through our heart and work in our life. Now there's one other thing you need and that is a purpose.

What are you praying for? Primarily, you want to develop your intimate relationship and fellowship with the Lord Jesus Christ. So you're developing a relationship with him.

That's number one. That's your first purpose. Second purpose is to receive from God that which you need, whatever it may be, no matter what it is. And the third purpose for your praying is for God to use you to intercede for other people, to make change in other people's lives or their families or other nations or whatever it might be. So I've given you in just a few moments a whole plan by which you can pray, which you can develop your own prayer life, and it'll make all the difference in the world. You don't just get down and just sort of fumble through. You have a plan. Now I challenge you to do it.