Category Archives: prayer

Define prayer?

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How might you define or describe the biblical concept of prayer?

John Bunyan, the puritan author of PILGRIM’S PROGRESS, wrote several works, including a fine little volume on prayer (reprinted by the Banner of Truth Trust). His definition of prayer is one long sentence that’s hard to beat:

PRAYER is a sincere, sensible, affectionate pouring out of the heart or soul to God, through Christ, in the strength and assistance of the Holy Spirit, for such things as God has promised, or according to his Word, for the good of the church, with submission in faith to the will of God.
[page 13]

Bunyan identifies several qualities/characteristics in his definition. Prayer is:

• sincere and sensible
• deeply affectionate
• Christ-centered, Christ-enabled
• Spirit-assisted and sustained
• in accord with God’s Word/promises
• benefiting the church, the cause of Christ in the world
• submissive to God by faith

May we ponder how we pray, and aim to do better…
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Saturday’s Prayer & Praise Breakfast

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Saturday is our 15th annual Prayer & Praise Breakfast at church — an important conclusion to our Week of Prayer (with daily prayer meetings in homes). After we eat, we sing, I open the Word of God, then all share testimonies from the week before we spend one more session together in prayer.

The testimonies are not all “answers to prayers” but often are about how the week challenged (or changed) the person, and how thankful they are. And this is good! Our aim on Saturday morning is to raise praises and give thanks to the Lord!

In my sharing (on Romans 15:13), I plan to warn against cynicism and how it can undermine prayer. One of the key weapons against cynicism is thankfulness:

“Nothing undercuts cynicism more than a spirit of thankfulness. You begin to realize that your whole life is a gift. Thankfulness isn’t a matter of forcing yourself to see the happy side of life. That would be returning to näive optimism. Thanking God restores the natural order of our dependence upon God. It enables us to see life as it really is.”

— Paul Miller in his book, A PRAYING LIFE, page 89

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