The Importance of Prayer

"Ask, and you will receive, that your joy may be full."
John 16:24b
Prayer is not a normal part of the life of the natural man. We hear it said that a person’s life will suffer if he doesn’t pray, but I question that. What will suffer is the life of the Son of God in him, which is nourished not by food, but by prayer. When a person is born again from above, the life of the Son of God is born in him, and he can either starve or nourish that life. Prayer is the way that the life of God in us is nourished. (Chambers, The Purpose of Prayer)

Prayer is important to see amazing things.  The natural man expects natural things.  (1 Corinthians 2:14)  They are just natural.  Oswald Chambers is right.  Our natural life will carry on without prayer.  We may not notice for quite sometime that our spiritual life is suffering because we cannot see spirit, only flesh.  We can, and do, ignore the life of the Son of God in us; we get consumed by the natural life.

The Spirit accomplishes amazing things.  Things that are not natural.  Without the Spirit we are left with the natural.  What is the natural?  I’m a physicist; my entire education and career was based upon the natural.  The natural expects disorder and decay.  Once things are broken they stay that way.  More than that, they get more broken.  Things that aren’t broken become broken.  Because of that, people get sick.  People have diseases and cancers.  Cars break down.  Roofs leak.  Tragedies and problems of all kinds happen.  Things that man can’t fix.  But, the Spirit accomplishes far more than we can ask or even imagine.(Ephesians 3:20)

Chambers also says in the same devotional, “We complain before God, and sometimes we are apologetic or indifferent to Him, but we actually ask Him for very few things.”  After reading Chambers’s devotional I had to ask myself, “Do I ask or do I complain?”  The Lord tells us in John 16 to ask.  We are not told to complain, implore, beg, but ask like a child.  A child knows they cannot accomplish what they ask for.  I know that I approach God with requests that I feel I can still play a part.  That’s not asking like a child in faith.  That’s being self sufficient.  When I reach my wits’ end, then I’m asking like a child.

  1. Are you starving or nourishing your prayer life?
  2. How often do you recognize the amazing things God has done in answer to your prayers or do you explain His amazing things away?
  3. Are you asking or complaining when you talk to God?

Chambers, Oswald. The Golden Book of Oswald Chambers: My Utmost for His Highest ; Selections for the Year. New York: Dodd, Mead & Company, 1935.


--Zine

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