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from The Prayerline Newsletter by Darrell C. Porter

"What is Prayer?"

Jan - March, 2008

Everyone, at times, grapples with the question, “What is prayer?” It’s not always an easy answer, especially if you don’t do it often or, in your opinion, very well. Yet Scripture commands us to pray. So, no matter one’s opinion about it, prayer is plainly our duty.

Some suppose this requirement to pray is like a person being born. Do it once and you’re in. However, that is not the case. Rather, God’s people are commanded to pray, not just once or even now and then. We are commanded to pray again and again and again. In fact the Bible says we are to pray always. (Lu.21:36)

It is plain that we are to spend much time in prayer. It is also apparent that if one does not know how to pray at the start then simply by starting they will soon come to know how. Whatever we are required to do a lot of we will eventually come to know how to do it well.

Looking further at God’s Word we see that not only are we required to pray often we are also commanded to pray with all manner of prayer. (Eph. 6:18)

This might turn the heads of those who think there is only one way to pray. For the Scriptures reveal there are many ways to pray.

The Bible points out that we are not to become stuck in a single mode of prayer. Rather, we are to be attentive to the leading and direction of the Spirit of God so He can guide us in prayer.

Now if the Spirit of God meets you this way, leading you in the course of prayer, then “you have an unction from the holy One, and ye know all things.” (1Jn.2:20) For He guides you along as you continue to look to him from your heart.

He wonderfully fills your heart and mouth with words of power and faith as He helps you to pray. (cf. Jn.14:16; Rom.8:26)

Being borne along by Him your words of prayer come not out of your own planned position but from your soul’s submission. Your submission is to the Lord. His Spirit carries you.

Hence it is not our mere act of praying that makes the difference with God. It is our praying in His
Spirit that makes the difference. Prayers to God, apart from God, never reach God. It is more beneficial to look for His Spirit before, while entering, and during the prayer than to look toward heaven for what you want only, without ever leaning an ear to what God wants. (Matt.6:10)

Here is where “all manner of prayer” comes in; because at one moment you are in prayer for a certain thing and the Lord has you pray a certain way. The next time you are in prayer for something else and He has you to pray a different way. In one instance you are on your knees, praying aloud. In another you are walking down the street, speaking to the Lord softly in your thoughts. In still another you lock hands with a fellow Believer, the both of you, or many of you in a group, pray together. There are many ways to pray.

Furthermore, one prayer can be for repentance, asking God to forgive you for sins committed. Another is for petition, where you ask God for something you want or need. There are also prayers of praise and thanksgiving. Here you simply worship God or thank Him for what He has already done or what you know He can do or is about to do for you or for someone else. Furthermore, there are prayers of intercession, where you pray for others, with no focus on yourself at all. There are also
prayers for healing, prayers for mercy, prayers for strength. There are all kinds of prayer. (Eph.6:18;Php.4:6;1 Ths.2:1)

If you took one type of prayer, say for healing, and you prayed for ten different people God may well have you to do it ten different ways. The focus is not on the act of praying. The focus is on the Lord Who acts and Who brings you into His presence by prayer.

Here is the secret of pure prayer - the Holy Spirit. For “In Him we live and move and have our being.” (Acts 17:28) If you pray in Him then you have both the eyes and the ears of the Almighty. You need nothing else. Your dependency is on God. He is your aim and inspiration. Your heart is heaven. Your ambition is for God’s answer. The Lord is your desire.

If, on the other hand, your prayer rolls out conceitedly, impressed by your own spirituality and skills, with no dependence on His presence and help, then your words flutter in vain emptiness. They fall short of heaven and gain not the ear of God.

Prayer is meant for God. It is designed to commune with Him, person to Person. Indeed He desires this union of honesty and truth. For heart felt prayers of faith are of great value. The sweet aroma of trust in God is most welcomed and received by Him. The Lord receives those who put their trust in Him. (Ps.31:1) His reward is in His hand to those who seek Him. (Mk.7:7; Isa.40:10; Ps.118:5) The source of all good comes only from God. Hence He bids us to look to Him in prayer so much so that we pray always.

It is not that formal knowledge and skill are of no importance. It’s just that they are like emptygarments, attractive yet without life, when not worn by a body of faith and love.

For the Lord Himself gives knowledge and skill. Jesus’ very disciples asked, “Teach us to pray.” (Lu.11:1) And He taught them, and left a model of prayer for all generations.

Clearly, the Lord wants us to know how to pray effectively, and from the heart, so that we may be heard and He may grant our desires. (Mk.11:24)

Simply put, God looks for child-like trust that come from the true feelings and desires of the one who prays. (Matt.18:2-4)

With this mind prayer can be a way of commanding myself in God. Though he was cast down in heaviness and depression yet David commanded his soul to bless God. “Bless the Lord, O my soul: and all that is within me, bless His holy Name.” (Ps.103:1) I cannot give Him my physical possessions.

I cannot even give Him my body. That goes back to the ground. Yet I can give Him my spirit and my mind, my heart, my desires and my faith. That I give to the Lord. The world takes the rest. The most precious things go to the Creator. “My hope is in thee.” (Ps.39:7) The psalmist said. The world takes my stuff. The Lord, my God, receives my hope and my true life.

The Christian life is a life of prayer, a life of offering himself to God, continuously.

It’s not what you have but what you are that is most important to your heavenly Father. Heartfelt prayer gives God what you really are. The world readily rejects what you are. It only wants what you have. Jesus, therefore, said, “Render to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s, and to God thethings that are God’s.” (Mk.12:17)

Most often when you have prayed from your heart you will emerge with a bit more of God with you. You will rise up seeing things a bit more as He sees them. You will step out with some change in attitude, with a slightly different mind toward the matter over which you prayed.

Be ready for change when you enter prayer. Prayer brings forth change, not only in the things prayed for but also in you. The more troubling the matter the greater will be the change. Prayer is an agent of change. If nothing is to be changed then there is no need to pray.

The Lord never brings you into His presence to leave you the same as you came in. Something changes whenever you step into His presence. He never meets with you without also bringing something to the meeting, something new. He does something wonderful to or for someone simply because you came to Him in prayer. If you really understood this secret you would gladly abide with Him everyday, throughout the day. (Jn.15:7) You rejoice at the privilege to “Pray without ceasing.”
(1Th 5:17)

Prayer is personal communion with your God. Whenever you commune with your heavenly Father something of Him stays with you. It is this something that you cannot get from the world. For the world does not have it. You can only get it from God.

Prayer is Light. His Light reveals the truth. Nothing can hide from the Light of God, whether it is good or bad. Praying in the Light of God’s Spirit reveals things clearly that are approved of God. It also unveils things not of Him. By His simple, yet pure, Light the Lord allows you to see and understand what to pray for and how to pray for it.

Prayer is power with God! Power gets things done. It moves mountains, heals the sick, raises the dead. Power lifts the lowly and brings low the haughty. Power from on high delivers justice and righteousness where there is injustice and unrighteousness. Prayer without power is almost no prayer at all.

Prayer is tough. If prayer were easy then no one would have to be encouraged to pray. Everyone would pray all the time. Yet prayer, real prayer from the heart, very often is real work. Jesus,“being in an agony he prayed more earnestly: and his sweat was as it were great drops of blood falling down to the ground.” (Lu.22:44) Very often is the hand of God needed upon things that do not want to move in line with Him. Of certain stubborn spirits, Jesus said, “Howbeit this kind goeth not out but by prayer and fasting.” (Mt 17:21). It takes will power to stay the course with God in prayer, and to stay the course till God moves in accordance to His declared Word.

Prayer is challenging. For not all prayers are answered all the time or right away. Sometimes you must pray with importunity. That is, you must seek the Lord and His promises with persistence.(Lu 11:5-8)

He hears the cry of the humble. (cf. Ps.9:12)

Prayer is troubling when you discover it is you that you should be praying about and not the other person. The song writer wrote, “It’s me, it’s me, it’s me, oh Lord, standing in the need of prayer.”

Grace will not let you escape from the truth if you have the courage to face it. Prayer will sometimes grab you and slay you. It will dismantle you and utterly defame you. Prayer will make you want help, and will graciously reach down beneath you to lift you up into a liberty you had never known before.

Prayer is honesty, righteousness and truth. These are the things for which we pray; and such is in how we pray.

Prayer is sometimes ugly – very ugly. It’s engaging, troubling, afflicting, particularly when in prayer for someone or something in need of much deliverance. As the city worker climbs down the steps into the awful sewer, the work is not pretty. Yet it is necessary. The whole city needs what he does. Prayer enters deep, ugly places, and is not always pretty.

Yet prayer is a constant duty and obligation, charge and call, high privilege and heart felt delight. Every saint everywhere lives in prayer. If you live not in prayer you live not in His presence. Prayer is your virtuous life.

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The PRAYERLINE Newsletter is a quarterly publication of Darrell C. Porter Evangelistic Assoc., Inc.

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