House of Prayer: Part II - June 11, 2009

 

Jesus said, “My house will be called a house of prayer.” (Mark 11:17)

 

Somewhere along the line it is easy for one teaching about scripture to be elevated above another. Sometimes this happens as a kid. Sometimes by not knowing other teachings. And perhaps sometimes by neglect. Whatever the case those long held beliefs are hard to abandon.

Jesus said, “whatever you ask in prayer, believe that you have received it, and it will be yours.” (Mark 11:24) Pray without ceasing. (I Thes 5:17)

For me, I recall as a kid learning that, if you pray for something once and believe that God will do it, then that shows the depth of your faith. But if you pray for it a second or even third time, it shows that you really didn't believe it the first time you prayed. I'm not sure if that teaching was from the Mark passage above or not.

But as I have spent more and more time with scripture and prayer I find that there are far more passages that say pray without ceasing. Jesus even tells a parable about the persistent widow and the unjust judge, in Luke 18, to teach that we should always pray and never give up.

As I mentioned last week my hope is for us to work to make Jesus' statement about being called a “house of prayer” true. And it seems to me that in order for that to be true we need to become a people who pray. Yet, I am more prone to think I have already prayed about it, and since God knows my prayer, I don't need to pray for it ever again, than I am to spend time daily without ceasing. So too, we all may have patterns of prayer that keep us from becoming a people of prayer.

We need to re-vision the way that I pray. As I have been seeking to do that I have seen God leading me to find new ways and new opportunities to be in prayer. I want to just share one of them with you this week.

I have a friend who has started a new church in Sioux Falls. Each week he puts out a prayer letter to include request for the church and for himself.  When I asked him if I could receive the prayer letter his reply was, only if you are serious about praying for us each week.  I was taken a little back by this responses at first.  But then I realized just how often I hear, what Reggie McNeal calls Christian for the conversation is over, “I'll pray for you.” I realized that far to often we say we will pray for someone with great intention but we never actually do it.

So with, a greater sense of commitment to pray, I told him that I would commit to pray for him every week. That as soon as I got his e-mail I would pray.  After receiving and praying for him and his church for a month I sat down to pray for them again upon receiving his e-mail.

Now before I share what struck me, I just want to talk a bit about how most pray lists/requests I have seen are often organized. Most often, what I have seen is a list of names followed by the request. Some may include a section for prayer for external issue events too. But in most cases what it is, is a list of who and for what you should pray for.

This letter started out the same way. Please pray for the following..... But in the middle of the second paragraph it was different. It said Lord we pray for.... Wow! What a difference it made for me. Now, I was not reading a check list of things to include when I prayed, I was praying as I read it. This idea and experience so impacted me, that I have begun using it myself. Now instead of listing prayer requests I write out prayers to be read, over and over without ceasing.

Perhaps, one of the reasons we are not yet a “house of prayer” is because we have been listing prayer requests instead of actually praying. We have been giving people a list of selections and leaving it up to them to know how to do the rest. Jesus didn't just give his disciples a prayer list and say go pray for these things. No. He gave them and example of how to pray and what to say. So, if we want to become a “house of prayer” maybe we should do the same.