We do not drift into spiritual life; we do not drift into disciplined prayer. We will not grow in prayer unless we plan to pray. We must self-consciously set aside time to do nothing but pray.
2. Adopt practical ways to impede mental drift.
3. At various periods in your life, develop, if possible, a prayer-partner relationship. Incidentally, if you are not married, make sure your prayer partner is someone of your own sex. If you are married, when is the last time you prayed with your spouse (dinner doesn't count).
4. Write down and organize your thoughts for prayer. Write down your requests, praises, thoughts of God, and confession of sin. When you make requests of God, try to tie as many requests to Scripture and the promises of God as possible. The essence of faith is to place your trust in what God has said in its proper context. Prayer is his ordained means of conveying his blessings to his people. That means we must pray according to his will in line with his values, in conformity with his own character and purposes, claiming his own promises.
5. If you are in any form of spiritual leadership, work at your public prayers.
If we must choose between trying to please God in prayer, and trying to please our fellow creatures, we must unhesitatingly opt for the former. But that is not the issue. It is not a question of pleasing our human hearers, but of instructing them and edifying them. The ultimate sanction for this approach is none less than Jesus himself. At the tomb of Lazarus, Jesus looks to heaven and prays, "Father, I thank you that you have heard me. I knew that you always hear me, but I said this for the benefit of the people standing here, that they may believe that you sent me" (John 11:41-42). Here is a prayer of Jesus himself that is shaped in part by his awareness of what his human hearers need to hear. The point is that although public prayer is addressed to God, it is addressed to God while others are overhearing it. Of course, if the one who is praying is more concerned to impress these human hearers than to pray to God, then rank hypocrisy takes over. That is why Jesus so roundly condemns much of the public praying of his day and insists on the primacy of private prayer (Matthew 6:5-8). Public prayer ought to be the overflow of one's private praying. Judging by the example of Jesus at the tomb of Lazarus, there is ample reason to reflect on just what my prayer, rightly directed to God, is saying to the people who hear me.
6. Pray until you pray. That is Puritan advice. God is not particularly impressed by long-winded prayers, and is not more disposed to help us just because of them. Our generation needs to learn that God is not impressed by the kind of brevity that is nothing other than culpable negligence. If we "pray until we pray," eventually we come to delight in God's presence, to rest in his love, to cherish his will. Such advice is not to become an excuse for a new legalism. There are startling examples of very short, rapid prayers in the Bible. However, many of us in our praying are like nasty little boys who ring front door bells and run away before anyone answers.
A few thoughts for today to help you pray from 2 Thessalonians 1:1-12
Paul begins his prayer with thanks. Why does Paul thank God? For what do we commonly give thanks? Our thanksgiving seems to be tied tightly to our material well-being and comfort. Think about what you give thanks for: homes, health, children, food, cars, safety, money, job. We should give thanks for these things. However, the truth is that what we most frequently give thanks for betrays what we actually most highly value. If a large percentage of our thanksgiving is for material prosperity, it is because we might value material prosperity proportionately.
1) Paul gives thanks that his readers' faith is growing. Paul is speaking of their continual reliance on the Lord.
2) Paul gives thanks that their love is increasing. Jesus said that love would be the distinguishing mark of his followers (John 13:34-35). The church is made up of people who are a varied as can be: rich and poor, learned and unlearned, practical and impractical, sophisticated and unsophisticated, disciplined and flighty, intense and carefree, extrovert and introvert -- and everything in between. The only thing that holds such people together is their shared allegiance to Jesus Christ, their devotion to him, stemming from his indescribable love for them. When Christians do grow in their love for each other, for no other reason than because they are loved by Jesus Christ and love him in return, that growing love is an infallible sign of grace in their lives. Such love is only attributed to the work of God, and so it is to God that Paul directs his thanks.
3) Paul gives thanks that they are persevering under trial. Paul is saying something like this, "Have you noticed how powerfully the grace of God is operating in the lives of the Thessalonian believers? The way they withstand the pressures of persecution and of assorted trials is truly remarkable, a compelling testimony to the grace of God." If what we highly cherish belongs to the realm of heaven, our hearts and minds will incline to heaven and all its values; but if what we highly cherish belongs to the realm of earth and the merely transitory, our hearts and minds will incline to the merely transitory (Matthew 6:19-21).
Here is the first point: If our prayers are to develop a biblical framework, we must look for signs of grace in the lives of Christians, and give God thanks for them. The specific elements of Paul's thanksgiving show the framework of values he brings to his intercession -- and we urgently need to develop the same framework.
4) Paul expressed great confidence in perseverance of their faith under trial. Beyond their conversion, Paul assumes that real Christians will ultimately persevere. The assumption is common in Scripture (Matthew 24:13; John 8:31; Hebrews 3:14; I John 2:18-19). Many Christians may stumble and fall, doubt like Thomas, and disown their Lord like Peter, but ultimately will utter their "Amen" to Thomas's confession (John 20:28) and weep with Peter (Matthew 26:75). Christians are not masochists: they do not want to suffer out of some forlorn but stupid belief that suffering is intrinsically good. They are prepared to suffer and to endure because they keep their eye on the goal: the consummation of the Kingdom of God. Here is a real sense of expectancy that is increasingly lacking in American churches. We are losing our anticipation of the Lord's return, the anticipation that Paul shows is basic to his thought.
Evidence of our short-sightedness is found in our seduction of devoting almost all of our time, energy, and money to the temporal (Matthew 6:20). Also, it is seen in our propensity to be bitter, unforgiving people. In vv. 6-10 Paul reminds them of the justice of God. The Christian gospel is solidly based on some elementary notions of retribution. Where evil occurs, it must be paid back, or God himself is affronted. If God forever overlooks evil on the ground that he is loving and forbearing, is he not also betraying the fact that he is pathetically unconcerned about injustice? The truth is that every Christian who has thought long and hard about the cross begins to understand that God is not merely a stern dispenser of justice, nor merely a lover who lavishly forgives, but the Sovereign who is simultaneously perfect in holiness and perfect in love. His holiness demands retribution on behalf of others. Forgiveness is never a product of love alone. Forgiveness is possible only because there has been a real personal offense, and a real sacrifice to offset that offense.
The final picture that Paul tells of is not a pretty one. Some people think of hell as a place where sinners will be crying out for another chance, begging for the opportunity to repent, with God somehow taking on a "tough love" stance and declaring, "Sorry, you had your chance, too late." The reality is infinitely more sobering. There is no evidence anywhere in the Bible that there is any repentance in hell. The biblical picture suggests that evil and self-centeredness persist and persist -- and so does the judgment. Men and women will maintain their perpetual desire to be the center of the universe; they will not accept that they are guilty of rebellion. In our pragmatic, materialistic society, where each of us seeks comfort and fulfillment and respect, it is hard to follow a despised, crucified Messiah -- unless we fix our eyes on the end. If we do not aim for the new heaven and the new earth, many of our values and decisions in this world will by unworthy, tarnished, and wrong. Can biblical spirituality long survive where Christians are not oriented to the world to come? And, in this context, can we expect to pray aright unless we are oriented to the world to come?
"With this in mind, we constantly pray for you" (v. 11). We have seen that "this" Paul keeps in mind is discerning gratitude for signs of grace among the people for whom he prays and simple confidence in the prospect of God's perfect vindication of his people when Jesus returns. That is the framework of his thought as he sets himself to pray for the Thessalonians.
Hopefully this will be a source of encouragement, conviction, and instruction for you today.
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