A common reason why we cease to pray effectually or fervently is because we fall into a rut. When this happens we pray more by habit than in the Spirit. We do indeed go through a routine of words and lists but the fire is just not there in the soul. This is one reason why we must be careful not to be dictated to by our prayer-lists. They may have their place but they must never become our masters. At times–perhaps at frequent times–we must leave our prayer-lists aside and turn from our conventional patterns of prayer. There are times when the mould of our intercession is to be discarded entirely and we are to devote our whole minds and souls to the great task of calling on God for nothing less than revival. 

It is a question worth pondering as to whether there is much serious prayer being offered up in our busy age. There is undoubtedly a welter of other things being attempted: files of paper are prepared on a host of topics; memoranda by the score are recorded; statistics are noted; committees are formed and then disbanded; agendas are drawn up and discussed; ideas are floated and debated; proposals are offered and turned this way and then that. But in the face of the massive onslaught of secular and spiritual forces hostile to the gospel of Christ there appears to be little agonising prayer. Perhaps it is time to ask ourselves if this is why nothing seems to get any better.
Behind this lack of real prayer–if the above observations are just–there would appear to lie just one basic explanation: prayer is extraordinarily difficult. At least prayer which involves wrestling is so. There is a common style of praying found in many places today which makes but little demand upon those who offer it up. We do not set ourselves up to be the judges of other men’s spirituality. But if our eyes and ears do not deceive us it would seem that a style of prayer is widespread which consists very much of saying thank you to God for a large number of things, yet never goes on to lay hold of the Almighty or to make massive demands upon his promises.
It is time to ask ourselves whether such praying is worthy of being called scriptural or evangelical. The prayers of the Bible concentrate on the great emergency and crisis of the times. Examples of this abound. The prayers of Ezra, Nehemiah,  and Daniel may be taken as notable examples. They grapple with the main issue of the day, which is that God should pardon his people and restore to them the power of his grace. No doubt these holy men were grateful to God for the mercies of life and thanked him no less than we do today. But their chief energies in prayer were spent, not in reference to the common mercies of life, but on those themes and subjects which most concerned Christ’s kingdom at that hour. So they contain the element of striving with God. They are hot and passionate. They amount to a spiritual wrestling and to a laying hold of God in downright earnest.
If anyone thinks that we go too far in so speaking of prayer in Bible times, let him recall the marvellous earnestness recorded for us concerning the prayers of our Lord in the garden. How deeply did he experience agony! There was immense conflict in his mind and soul. This was registered in his tears and in his sweat which dripped from his brow like clots of blood. Such intensity of prayer may perhaps be unique to our blessed Redeemer. But there are expressions elsewhere in the Bible to show that prayer is hard and demanding to man.
The Psalmist speaks of an experience which must be exceeding rare in our times. His knees were weak through fasting (Ps. 109:24). Intercessory prayer requires us to ‘afflict our souls’ (Lev. 16), to ‘watch’ and not to sleep (Matt. 26:38), to ‘labour fervently’ (Col. 4:12), to persevere (Eph. 6:18) and to engage in an exercise which is intensely spiritual (Rom. 8:26).
When we study the practice of Old Testament saints we find not a little to humble and inspire us. Elijah’s prayers stopped heaven and brought a drought on the land. Again, his prayers opened heaven and poured forth rain on the parched earth. What prayers these biblical men and women offered up and with what effect upon the world! They stormed Zion in their fervour to be heard. They petitioned the throne of heaven and laid siege to its walls. They would scarcely take No for an answer. In so praying they stopped the sun in its course; they called down fire from above; they opened prisons; they overturned the schemes of armies; they raised the dead; they toppled thrones; they wrought mighty deeds of victory.
It cannot escape our attention that such wrestlers with God seem to be few today. We are grateful for those who serve Christ in whatever capacity. We value highly all who walk with God and are true to his Word and sound in their faith. But it would be good for our land and for our churches if there were a larger army of wrestlers, all taking God at his Word and pleading relentlessly the promises which he has made to his people in a dark day. In a word, we need an army of men and women who are so devoted to praying for the Spirit to come down that they give God no rest (Isa. 62:7).
Too many prayers lack steam. Too many prayers are predictable. Too many prayers are marked by sameness and tameness. But prayers which are ordinary are not sufficient to turn the tide of evil in these days. What is called for in such a dark day is for men and women of exceptional dedication to God who will plead for a mighty change in the state of things. Perhaps this is the main reason why there has been a recovery of much truth but little public manifestation of it. We are all guilty in that we have not waited with sufficient seriousness on God to give the church the power of preaching and the unction of spiritual energy.
It is a fault to treat prayer as the Cinderella of our spiritual duties. To read and to preach is essential. But the oil of divine blessing must needs be poured on the means of grace if they are to be effectual. Too many of our services to Christ are performed with little water on the mill. It is the way of God that he will have us beg for our blessings. Little prayer usually means little unction. There are exceptions but we must not take advantage of God’s kindness. At times we get unusual help in our work with but little intercession beforehand. But it is presumptuous of us to take this as our rule of action.
A common reason why we cease to pray effectually or fervently is because we fall into a rut. When this happens we pray more by habit than in the Spirit. We do indeed go through a routine of words and lists but the fire is just not there in the soul. This is one reason why we must be careful not to be dictated to by our prayer-lists. They may have their place but they must never become our masters. At times–perhaps at frequent times–we must leave our prayer-lists aside and turn from our conventional patterns of prayer. There are times when the mould of our intercession is to be discarded entirely and we are to devote our whole minds and souls to the great task of calling on God for nothing less than revival. Let the soul pour itself out to its Maker in anguished groans. Let the heart within us feel free to roam up and down the land in its search for a way to give vent to our burden and to our grief that Christ’s cause is so low.
We shall probably seldom if ever pray in the manner of the saints of the Bible if we are not full of the knowledge of the Scriptures. This is clear from a perusal of the great prayers of the Bible itself. The Bible-characters whom we referred to as great in prayer were themselves men who were full of Scripture. Their prayers are often a tissue of biblical language. They quote not only the ideas of the Bible but also its very text. Of course there is a danger even in this. It is possible to use the Bible as mere padding in our prayers. It is sometimes the case that men who have little to say in prayer fill out their prayers by reciting texts of Scripture which may be only partially what they are trying to say. We have all been guilty, no doubt. This is an abuse. Real prayer shoots upwards, being impelled by the inward fire and animation of the soul. No one needs to be told when we have offered up a real prayer. It is something which all feel who have any spiritual life in them.
Read More
Related Posts:

Pastors and bishops tell CityServe leaders their greatest needs are helping young mothers who are now widows, the elderly and traumatized children. CityServe President Wendell Vinson is grateful to Ukrainian pastor and churches. “We get to link up with the church Jesus already has in Ukraine; it is moving forward, and the gospel is advancing throughout eastern Europe,” Vinson said.

The little known story of war in Ukraine is how churches are turning what the enemy intended for evil into glory for God through ministry to millions of people traumatized by Russia’s aggression.
With support from Christians in America, Ukrainian churches have shared the gospel with millions of people, filled empty stomachs, sheltered the homeless, and prayed for peace.
A prayer leader in Ukraine, Vitaliy Orlov, is thankful for spiritual and financial support from American intercessors for neighbors and a family member who’ve suffered as a result of the war.
“It is true that daily we are being bombed, especially my city and region, along with thousands of other towns in Ukraine. I know that almost every Ukrainian is traumatized today,” Orlov told American prayer warriors.
Orlov, the leader of Intercessors for Ukraine, said his brother expressed doubts that he will survive the war as a member of the army.
“There are hundreds of thousands like my brother,” Orlov told Intercessors for America (IFA). Watch here: Watch – Intercessors for America (ifapray.org)
People without food for months heard the gospel and received prayer booklets, thanks to IFA, which  provided one million meals after the war began.
Still, spiritual, emotional and physical tolls mount for Ukrainians in the second summer of war, according to a pastor whose church’s doors are open to hurting people.
“It’s tough to see families that have lost fathers and homes,” said Pastor Maksym Bilosouv, who weekly serves hundreds of refugees at his church in Dnipro.
Praying for and over refugees, church members lead them to the Lord around tables set up for meals and conversation, said Bilosouv, who calls it a starting point.
“When I look ahead, I see problems in the future that only God can deal with,” said Bilosouv who, despite adversity, retains joy.
Though the church responded wonderfully at the beginning of the conflict, fatigue is now a factor.
Both leaders ask prayer for the military, more prayer book resources, and care for orphans.
Read More
Related Posts:

Written by Carl R. Trueman |
Tuesday, November 9, 2021
The Reformation, Protestant and Catholic, may have been fueled by pamphlets. But who, beyond a small group of scholars, reads those pamphlets today? To the rest of us they are, at best, the throwaway productions of a bygone age, at worst an example of the way in which human beings can treat each other with pride and venom and no concern for the truth. 

It is in many ways odd that we observe Reformation Day on October 31. Setting aside the somewhat fruitless debates about whether Luther actually posted the Ninety-Five Theses on the Wittenberg castle church door on that day in 1517 (for the record, I believe he did), it is well-known that he had said more radical things about the Church before (for example, in his Disputation Against Scholastic Theology in September 1517) and would do so again shortly afterward (at the Heidelberg Disputation in April 1518). Intellectually, either is a better candidate for the dating of the inception of the Reformation than the often obscure theses against indulgences that triggered Luther’s rise to fame.
Still, the very obscurity of many of the individual theses points to an interesting element in the Reformation’s popular success. The Reformation was not a popular success solely—or even primarily—because the populace read and embraced the arguments of the Reformers. As a Protestant, I rejoice that the Reformers carried the day in many places, with their appropriate emphasis on biblical authority, divine grace, and the finished work of Christ. They recovered the gospel and paved the way for many of the freedoms we in the West now take for granted. But I am not naïve enough to believe that they won simply by force of argument. Few people would have had the background to understand the issues, and that would have applied to many subsequent debates, particularly regarding the real presence of Christ in the Lord’s Supper. Few members of the populace could actually read. So what made the Reformation a popular success in so many places?
There is no simple answer to this, but a key element was the pamphlet war: the production of short, cheap, polemical publications, often illustrated with woodcuts, that served to shape the mind of the populace. Both Protestants and Catholics engaged in this pamphlet war, which was perhaps the first battle for the popular mind in Western history. What is interesting about these pamphlets is that they were not in general designed to seek and establish truth, but rather to discredit the opposition. It takes no advanced degree in theology to understand the intended message of woodcuts depicting the pope being excreted from the backside of a horned and cloven-hoofed devil. And it takes no training in Thomist metaphysics to understand the intended message of sexually explicit pictures of Luther and his wife. It is also rather obvious what kind of publication—major expositions of the faith by Calvin and Bellarmine, or the penny dreadfuls that the presses churned out in vast numbers—had more immediate effect.
Read More