Let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, looking to Jesus. the founder and perfecter of our faith. They that wait upon the Lord shall run and not be weary. We gain strength for life's race by waiting on God through prayer, but only if we make prayer a priority. Today, what it means to have a consistent, meaningful prayer life.
From the Moody Church in Chicago, this is Running to Win with Dr. Erwin Lutzer, whose clear teaching helps us make it across the finish line. Pastor Lutzer, prayer is hard for many when they don't see prayers answered. Are you teaching that we need to pray whether or not we ever see answers?
Well Dave, the short answer is yes. And the reason for that is that prayer is not merely for us to be able to get our requests answered. Prayer enables us to get to God whether our prayers are answered or not. and oftentimes those who struggle with prayer, because their prayers are unanswered, don't recognize the fact that God wants us to be able to get beyond that. to him.
I'm holding in my hands a letter from someone greatly blessed as a result of the ministry of running to win. This person tells us that they were not a believer when they began listening. It's a wonderful example of how God is using this ministry in the lives of others. And at the end of this broadcast, I'm going to read that letter to you. But at the same time, remember this.
The reason that we receive letters just like this is because of people just like you. Would you consider becoming what we call an endurance partner? I'll explain that at the end of this message. For now let us listen, And let us remember that God encourages us to come directly into His presence. Years ago there was a survey taken.
At a convention with 17,000 Christians. And they were there for a conference, and the conference emphasized the theme of prayer and revival. And the survey revealed this: that the average Christian, and these probably are people who are above average. The average Christian spends less than five minutes a day in prayer.
Now, at this conference, there were 2,000 pastors and their wives, and of course, pastors would do a lot better, wouldn't they? Wouldn't they? Amen. They did 40% better. Seven minutes.
Why is it that we don't pray more?
Well, I know that the devil hassles us, but rather than talking about him, let me give you some other reasons today. First of all, because we don't feel like it. We don't necessarily feel this great urge to come to God, and sometimes what happens is we. Don't get close enough to God for Him to share any particular burdens with us, and so there is really no compulsion to pray, and so we don't pray. There's a second reason, and that is that And I speak more plainly here maybe than I should, but prayer is boring.
Because we say the same thing about the same things. We ask God to bless our families. We always use the word bless, whatever that means. And then we always add a new crisis that comes, and all of us have our crisis sees, and we kind of ask God to take care of this, to take care of that, and then the prayer is over, and it's gone. And we say the same thing tomorrow, and 10 years from now, some Christians are saying the same thing about the same things.
Third. All communication is one way. We're talking to God. We think that He's listening because His word says that He is, but we're getting no response. And that's tough.
True story, one day I was sitting on a couch talking to a man and trying to help him understand the interaction between Satan and God in Job chapter 1. He had a different opinion and I was trying to help him to see the truth. The problem is, after I went on with my exposition, I noticed that he was nodding off. And then when he drifted into a light snore, You know what I did? I stopped talking.
If I'm talking to you, I at least want a grunt. And not necessarily in this context, though sometimes that wouldn't hurt either, but I need some kind of a response. And if I'm talking to God and I'm not sure that God is listening. And I'm not sure that he's hearing, and I don't really believe that anything will be changed. Either I will be changed or circumstances will be changed.
It's tough to pray. under those conditions. And sometimes Christians just don't believe in prayer. You also remember the other story. About the liquor store, the pub that was built right next to the church.
And Christians told the owner who built it there that they were going to pray that God would intervene and take care of the problem. And wipe them out. The next night, A great thunderstorm came and lightning struck it and the place burned down. He took the Christians to court. saying that it was their prayers that caused the lightning.
What did the Christians do? They hired an attorney. And they said, we're not responsible. For this pub burning down. And the judge said, I don't know which way it's going to go, but one thing seems clear: the bar owner believes in prayer, and the Christians don't.
That much seems to be clear. And so, if you don't really believe in prayer. It's hard to pray. Let me give you another reason. We've lost the meaning of prayer.
And this is essential. We think that prayer is getting a reluctant God to finally do something. If we could just find the key. That's, I think, one of the reasons why the book, The Prayer of Jabez, has sold so well. There are many people reading it, and they're interpreting it as an opportunity to finally figure out how they can get God on their side and to do something.
I met a woman at O'Hare Field. She was reading it, so I struck up a conversation with her. She said, I'm a Mormon and I'm reading it because I'm beginning a new business and I want God to prosper it.
So, you know, if there's some way that I can finally get the Almighty to do something good for me, I'll read any book. That's not the purpose of prayer, as we shall see in a moment. We need to renew our minds as to how to pray.
Now, I want you to know today, and I'm making this promise to you, that I'm going to outline a method of prayer, and we're even going to maybe take the opportunity of praying right here in such a way that, number one, you'll never have to say the same old thing. about the same old things again. Always fresh, always new. Secondly, God will respond. A way in which you interact with God, you can say something, and He can say something.
And then third, your soul. will be satisfied. Aren't you glad you came?
Now How do we do this?
Well, the answer is we combine two disciplines. We combine the discipline of meditation, which we spoke about last time. If you weren't here last time, I encourage you to get a copy of the message. Meditation involves, as we know, we analyze, we personalize, we memorize, and we gave examples and illustrations of how to do that so that your Bible reading is transformed. And now, what we're going to do is we're going to combine that meditation with.
Prayer. This message, by the way, is for average Christians. You know, the super-average Christians, the real superstars, they don't need to hear this. This is for struggling Christians. average Christians struggling in their prayer life.
Does it include you? Or are you beyond it? It's for all of us.
Someone, by the way, who did this in a remarkable way, combining the two, was George Mueller.
Now George Mueller lived in the 1800s and he ran orphanages over in England and never asked for any money. And he just, through prayer, God supplied. And he did this, he said, for three reasons. First of all, there were some young people who did not believe that God would answer prayer.
So he had to prove to them that God was trustworthy. And then he said that there were businessmen who were cheating because they thought that if they were honest, God would not, they would not be able to compete in the business world. And therefore, they were not trusting God. And he wanted to illustrate to them that God takes care of them. And then he said there were old people, older.
People who didn't think that God would take care of them in their final days. And those were in the days, you know, before. before Social Security. And he said he needed to prove the faithfulness of God.
Now, some people think that. He represents the fact that nobody should ever ask for money.
Well, that's not true biblically. The Apostle Paul even. urged the people to give. But That was the way in which God led George Mueller. But let me tell you about his devotional life.
He says, before this time, my practice had been, for at least 10 years previously, as an habitual thing, to give myself to prayer after having dressed in the morning.
Now I saw that the most important thing was to give myself to the reading of God's Word and to meditate on it, that thus my heart might be comforted, encouraged, warned, reproved, instructed, and that thus by means of the word of God, while meditating on it, my heart might be brought into communion with God. I need to pause here and say. That in this series of messages next week, we're going to speak about the discipline of worship incredibly. incredibly important because what God wants to do in worship It is to bring us into communion with the Lord, and next message, God willing, will illustrate exactly.
So that can occur. But he says, The result I found to be most invariably this: that after a few minutes, my soul has been led to confession, to thanksgiving, to intercession, to supplication, so that I did not, as it were, give myself to prayer, but to meditation, yet. Listen here. Yet it turned almost immediately to prayer. When thus I have been for a while making confession or intercession or supplication or giving thanks, I then go on to the next words or verse, turning all as I go on into prayer for myself and for others, as the word may lead me to it, but still continually keeping before me that food for my own soul, which is the object of my meditation.
The result of this is that there is always a good deal of confession, thanksgiving, supplication, and intercession mingled with my meditation. That my inner man almost invariably is sensibly nourished and strengthened, and that by breakfast, With rare exceptions, I'm in a peaceful if not happy state of mind. Would you ha like to have breakfast with that guy? Wouldn't that be wonderful to, by breakfast, having your soul in a peaceful state of mind through meditation? and through prayer.
Now what we're going to do here is to illustrate how this is done. And in the process of illustrating it, hundreds of you, I believe, who've not been doing it this way, some of you already have been, are going to go home and you will find your prayer life transformed. You'll actually be excited. About that sweet hour of prayer. Let's begin with one of the most familiar passages of Scripture.
In all the Bible. It's one that all of us can quote. If you've been saved more than two weeks, I'm sure you can quote Psalm 23. You'll notice it. How do we take Psalm 23?
and translated into a prayer.
So that we learn to begin to both meditate and to pray the scriptures. How is that done? Perhaps like this. The Lord is my shepherd. I shall not want.
And then we pause and we say, Oh Father, I want to thank you today. that Jesus is my shepherd. Thank you for the privilege of being one of your sheep. I pray that you will make me an obedient sheep. And then, as you begin to meditate in the scripture, you begin to realize, at least in my case.
that I also am a shepherd. And I pray, O God, make me a good. Shepherd. of the people. that you've entrusted to my care.
And then I began to think of other shepherds at Moody Church to pray for, the pastoral staff and the elders. And so after you've begun at a time like that, then you go on to the next verse. He makes me lie down in green pastures and leads me beside quiet waters. Father, I pray today that you might enable me. to be led beside quiet waters.
May my soul rest in you, satisfy, O Lord God. I pray, satisfy my soul with you. And then it says, He restores my soul. We need to pause there and say, Father, I know that so often I wander from you. There are things that I do that, oh, prone to wander, Lord, I feel it, prone to leave the God I love.
Oh, Father, restore me. Keep me in the path. Keep me walking righteously. And so you go all the way through this psalm. And you use the psalm as a basis of meditation, yes, but you're combining the discipline of meditation and the discipline of prayer.
And after you have finished Psalm 23, the next day or the next segment of time, you go on to Psalm 24. And now, of course, doing that with the Psalms is easy. Because most of the Psalms are prayers. But we're taking those prayers and we are personalizing them. We are making those prayers our own.
The simple fact is it is our opportunity to pray back to God the things. that have been written in God's Word.
Now there are so many examples that obviously every psalm is an example. But let's suppose that you're going through a difficult time because someone at work is persecuting you or you're in a situation where someone has it in for you and you're going through this difficult time of wondering whether or not God is going to defend you because you have an enemy or two out there somewhere. What about a psalm like Psalm 31? We don't have time to read it. But many of you are going to remember that now, aren't you?
Psalm 31. In you, O Lord, I have taken refuge. Let me never be put to shame. Deliver me in your righteousness. Turn your ear to me.
I must skip these beautiful verses. Verse 4: Free me from the trap that is set for me, for you are my refuge. Into your hands I commit my spirit. Redeem me, O Lord, the God of truth. And on and on it goes.
And one of the loveliest passages quoted by Jesus. Even on the cross. Verse 13: For I hear the slander of many, there is terror on every side. They conspire against me and plot to take my life. But I trust in you, O Lord.
I say, you are my God. My times are in your hands. Deliver me from my enemies and from those who would pursue me. Let your face shine on your servant. Save me in your unfailing love.
What an expression. for those who are going through times of difficulty. What a way in which we can pray to God as we take His Word and we're praying His word back to Him.
Now, I could give you many other illustrations. You say, well, that's the Psalms. What about the epistles of Paul? They are very, very easy to pray. By the way, the Epistles are not the wives of the Apostles.
The word epistle means letter or writing. You know, in in Ephesians, for example. You have two wonderful prayers. If you ever wonder how you should pray for us as members of the pastoral staff, If you're ever thinking of, how do I pray about a missionary and I don't know what his needs are, that's not right. You know exactly what his needs are.
Ephesians chapter 1, you pray that the eyes of his heart will be enlightened, that he might know the hope of his calling and know who he is in Christ and experience the length and the depth and the love of Christ. That's the next prayer, actually, in Ephesians chapter 3. And you begin to pray this because when the Apostle Paul prayed, he was always praying for people spiritually.
Now I don't want to play down the need to pray for people. In their physical ailments and in their needs and so forth. But when you look at Paul's prayers, and there's more than a dozen of them in his writings. Every one of them focused on people's relationship with God, and nothing was said. Nothing was said about their physical needs, about their conflicts, because Paul was convinced that if people are rightly related to God and if the eyes of their mind are enlightened as to who they are in Christ, they can endure what it is that they're going through.
My friends, this is Pastor Lutzer. Are you encouraged as a result of the ministry of running to win? If so, It's because people just like you have invested in this ministry. I'm holding in my hands a letter from someone who writes, Thanks for your teaching. I learned about a God who loves me and can transform lives.
He transformed mine. And to use Pastor Lutzer's words, I was not a believer until one day I started listening to your radio messages. From that day on, I decided to learn more and guide my son through God's teachings. I've had my ups and downs. But thank God for putting your ministry.
In my life. Let me ask you a question, my friend. Would you like to become an endurance partner, a part of testimonies just like that? Very quickly, I want to give you some info so that you can investigate what an endurance partner is. Here is what you do.
Go to rtwoffer.com. That's rtwoffer.com. Or you can call us at 1-888-218-218. 9337. By the way, when you go to rtwoffer.com, be sure to click on the Endurance Partner button.
Or as I mentioned, simply pick up the phone and call us at 1-888-218-9337. Become a part of what God is doing through running to win. Time now for another chance for you to ask Pastor Lutzer a question about the Bible or the Christian life. What do you do when your mate's personality changes? That's Martha's question.
Here's what she writes. I was married for about six years, and my husband and I have a four year old daughter. Early on in our relationship my husband became depressed and verbally abusive. He would be very inward looking, and virtually say nothing unless it was to yell at me. We are now separated, and I am living with my parents, because we know he could turn violent.
In the past year my husband has gone from job to job. He wants to get back with my daughter and me, and I do love him, but I can't trust him. he spends very little time with our daughter. but what confuses me is that there are times when he's a wonderful husband and father. He seems to be two different people.
We've been to counseling, but now he doesn't want to continue because, quote, we've tried it and it doesn't work. Both of us are Christians. But I can't live with my parents for ever. Martha. My heart goes out to you to day, and I need to just simply tell you very, very plainly a couple of things.
First of all, your husband, as you have described him, he's not ready to come back into the home and live with you and your daughter. The abuse that you have suffered will occur again. You need to understand that. You also need to realize that this confusing situation where he sometimes can be very nice as a father and as a husband, that's very common among abusers. abusers can in fact be charming.
That's one of the characteristics of the kind of abusers, is the charming kind of abuser.
So uh he's not ready to come back and you're not ready to receive him back. Your husband needs help. and he needs more help than he probably realizes he does. and what you need to do is to have someone else intervene in his life.
Someone else has to befriend him besides you.
Somebody t has to tell him some hard things that he might not take from you. and unless he goes for help, I really don't see reconciliation happening any time soon.
Now you do say that you can't live with your parents forever, and that's true, but You certainly have to live with your parents for now. Because, after all, you do have that daughter she's a precious little girl who's going to be deeply wounded if her daddy comes back and begins to hauler and swear at her.
So, you need to continue to live there. Maybe you can get a part-time job. Maybe your parents can do some babysitting. while you can help out with the expenses. And all that I can ask is once again find someone to intervene in your husband's life.
And even as I speak, I'm praying in my heart for you. that God in His grace might be able to grant the kind of grace that you need to put your marriage back together again. God bless you. Thank you, doctor Lutzer, for those compassionate thoughts. If you'd like to hear your question answered, go to our website at rtwoffer dot com and click on Ask Pastor Lutzer, or call us at one eight eight eight two one eight ninety three thirty seven.
That's 1-888-218-9337.
Okay. You can write to us at Running2Win 1635 North LaSalle Boulevard, Chicago, Illinois, 60614. Running to win is all about helping you find God's roadmap for your race of life. Running to Win comes to you from the Moody Church in Chicago. There's a startling disconnect between the kinds of things the Apostle Paul prayed for and the things most of us pray for.
We focus on our physical needs while God wants to work on our motivations. Here's the question, are your prayers mostly all about you?
Next time on Running to Win, Erwin Lutzer talks further about self-absorbed praying and what to do about it. We'll learn to pray for the things God wants by praying His word back to Him. Thanks for listening. For Pastor Erwin Lutzer, this is Dave McAllister. Running to Win is sponsored by the Moody Church.
