Everand Logo

Welcome to Everand!

  • Discover millions of ebooks, audiobooks, and so much more with a free trial

    Only €10,99/month after trial. Cancel anytime.

    What the Bible Has To Say About Prayer
    What the Bible Has To Say About Prayer
    What the Bible Has To Say About Prayer
    Ebook129 pages1 hour

    What the Bible Has To Say About Prayer

    By Augustus Nicodemus

    ()

    Read preview

    About this ebook

    The Scriptures provide essential guidance to believers on many subjects, and the topic of prayer is one of the most important legacies strengthening our faith. Prayer is crucial for survival in this modern world.
    The Holy Bible presents prayer as a permanent bond for communication between creature and Creator. It is both a manifestation of gratitude to God and a means of committing our desires and concerns to him. Prayer is a channel for praise, worship, confession, and intercession. It is relevant for all the moments and circumstances of our lives.
    In upholding its essential character, renowned theologian Augustus Nicodemus develops and clarifies various aspects of the practice of prayer. Understanding its true meaning is essential for God's people to know how to deal with God's silence when he doesn't answer our prayers or respond according to our expectations.
    You need to know What the Bible Says about Prayer!
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherEditora Mundo Cristão
    Release dateAug 30, 2024
    ISBN9786559882335
    What the Bible Has To Say About Prayer

    Related to What the Bible Has To Say About Prayer

    Related ebooks

    Christianity For You

    View More
    View More

    Related podcast episodes

    Related articles

    • Article

      Ask Val

      Jun 16, 2023

      Ask Val
      2 min read

    • Article

      Let’s Talk PRAYER

      Jun 24, 2022

      We pray for a variety of reasons: it is a form of serving God (Luke 2:36-38) and obeying Him (Phil 4:6-7). We pray to demonstrate our faith in God, but most importantly, because Jesus did it. Prayers not prayed will be prayers unanswered. If the Syri

      7 min read

    • Article

      Ask Val

      Apr 5, 2024

      Ask Val
      2 min read

    • Article

      3 Points To Ponder On PRAYER

      Sep 20, 2024

      3 Points To Ponder On PRAYER
      2 min read

    • Article

      Ask Val

      May 20, 2022

      Ask Val
      2 min read

    • Article

      Ask Val

      Dec 27, 2024

      Email your questions to: info@joymag.co.za I know we are supposed to forgive the same way God forgives us. He doesn’t hold grudges or hold our past against us. But if someone hurts you badly more than once, do you have to keep taking it? Forgive, fo

      2 min read

    • Article

      Letters To The Editor

      Aug 19, 2019

      Thank you for your wonderfully illustrated Biblical series of articles that you regularly publish. I find that I can’t concentrate like I used to, and love the short, precise, and factual articles. I have learnt so much from reading them. I was fasci

      7 min read

    • Article

      Ask Val

      Apr 22, 2022

      Ask Val
      2 min read

    • Article

      Ask Val

      Mar 18, 2022

      Ask Val
      2 min read

    • Article

      Ask Val

      Feb 9, 2024

      Ask Val
      2 min read

    • Article

      The Holiness Of God

      Nov 19, 2021

      The Holiness Of God
      3 min read

    • Article

      The Power Of Gratitude

      Dec 27, 2024

      The Power Of Gratitude
      2 min read

    • Article

      Living With Purpose

      Sep 7, 2021

      Living With Purpose
      3 min read

    • Article

      Authentic Prophetic Prayer

      Sep 16, 2019

      I have been pondering for some time about the immense power of authentic prophetic prayer. When we powerfully pray and speak the word of God over our circumstances, we are speaking life and change into situations. We must guard against negative words

      1 min read

    • Article

      A New Day Of Pentecost The Spirit Of Prayer

      Dec 1, 2023

      Over the last few issues, I have shared guiding principles that the early Church lived by (Acts 2:42). This included apostolic doctrine, fellowship, the breaking of bread, and prayer. Last month, we looked at the Christocentric prayer of Paul and the

      2 min read

    • Article

      The Parables Of Jesus

      Jun 14, 2024

      How many readers of JOY! Magazine wrestle with consistent, effective prayer? Our parable this month will help us in this struggle to maintain a persistent prayer life. In His parable, Jesus juxtaposes two people, a powerful albeit corrupt judge, and

      4 min read

    • Article

      Ask Val

      Jul 22, 2022

      Ask Val
      2 min read

    • Article

      Prayer Matters!

      Jul 19, 2024

      Prayer Matters!
      3 min read

    • Article

      Ask Val

      Nov 18, 2019

      Ask Val
      2 min read

    • Article

      Ask Val

      Aug 26, 2022

      Ask Val
      2 min read

    • Article

      Women Of Grace

      Oct 21, 2019

      Many who read the above scripture are usually quick to grab the promises of prisons shaking, stubborn doors opening, and chains falling away. However, upon deeper study of this scripture, it is evident that the “Suddenly” in verse 26 was a direct res

      3 min read

    • Article

      Ask Val

      Aug 25, 2023

      Ask Val
      2 min read

    • Article

      ‘Socially Acceptable’ Sins

      Apr 22, 2022

      In the church today, there are many sins that are seen as ‘socially acceptable’. Are we changing the Bible to fit our culture, or are we changing our culture to fit the Bible? While the sin of worry, for example, may not seem as severe as murder, it

      6 min read

    Related categories

    Reviews for What the Bible Has To Say About Prayer

    0 ratings

    0 ratings0 reviews

    What did you think?

    Tap to rate

    Review must be at least 10 words

      Book preview

      What the Bible Has To Say About Prayer - Augustus Nicodemus

      1

      What Is Prayer?

      Prayer is most likely the most complex experience of Christian life even though it is relatively simple. It was with good reason that the disciples asked Jesus to teach them to pray (Luke 11:1). Throughout the Bible, there is no other spiritual activity that receives as much attention, teaching, and exhortation as prayer does.

      The Old and New Testaments provide the greatest source for understanding prayer and how it should be practiced. Nonetheless, we also have an instinct that urges us to cry out to God and to seek him in moments of intense anguish and need. This instinct stems from the image of God in us (Genesis 1:26-27). The fall of Adam did not obliterate nor erase this image (James 3:9), although the fall did damage it so profoundly that it impedes us from recognizing the traits of our Creator in human beings. Yet by God’s mercy the reflection of his glory remains in humanity; this reflection naturally leads every human being to recognize the existence of a superior being and to seek him in the face of danger.

      We would not know how to pray pleasingly to God if he had not revealed it in his written Word. It is there that we find the answers about who we are, who the one true God is and how we can talk to him. Thus, only those who receive the Scriptures as God’s inspired and authoritative revelation can offer prayers that please him. Without the guidance of written revelation, people instinctively stray from the truth, create false gods and religions whose prayers are not addressed to the one true God, and offer up the sorts of prayers that are not properly motivated nor put forward in a manner that is acceptable to God (Proverbs 21:27; 28:9).

      What then is prayer?

      The Bible mentions men and women of God who cried out to him in times of need, and he answered them (2 Chronicles 14:11-12). Others raised their voices to heaven in gratitude and acknowledgment in times of joy and victory (1 Chronicles 29:10); some interceded for the deliverance of those who suffered or were in need (1 Samuel 7:9) and who, when falling into sin, sought God in confession, crying out for forgiveness (Psalm 51). It can be said that prayer is the sign of the true believer, of the one who truly believes that God exists and rewards those who seek him (Hebrews 11:6).

      As we analyze biblical examples of admonition and encouragement to pray, we find that prayer is nothing more than talking with God. This is the essence of the act of praying. We pray when we lift our hearts and minds to the presence of God and lay our needs before him, offer our gratitude, declare his praise, plead on behalf of others, and worship him from the depths of our beings. A good example of this is Moses, who according to Scripture spoke with God as a man speaks with his friend (Exodus 33:11).

      God continues to be accessible to his people today, so that we may seek him not in the hope of his visible or audible manifestation, but by faith, believing that he exists, hears us and responds to us, even though we cannot see or hear him with our natural senses.

      Let’s consider some of the issues that make the act of praying seem so difficult.

      God is invisible. Related to this seemingly simple definition are many circumstances that make prayer somewhat complicated. The fact that we cannot see, hear nor even touch him makes our relationship with God more difficult because it seems, at times, that we are talking to ourselves (1 Timothy 6:16)!¹

      God is omniscient and omnipotent. When we pray, we are not addressing another human being, but rather the Lord God, creator of heaven and earth, our redeemer, the triune God, almighty, who knows all things, including our needs and the words we will use to describe them (Matthew 6:8). He knows our motivations, the depths of our hearts, and has knowledge about ourselves that not even we possess (Jeremiah 17:9). Therefore, although we can define prayer as a simple talk with God, the fact that our interlocutor is the Lord renders the act of praying more complex. Unlike what happens in our conversations with other people, we cannot hide our true intentions from him, nor tell him only what we feel is appropriate. We control our conversations with others because we know they cannot know our minds and hearts, and that makes us feel safe. We know that no one can solve all our problems, and that no matter how much we trust them, we do not put our lives in their hands.

      We are sinners. As a result of our carnal nature, we resist direct contact with the one true God. Although we have been born again and therefore acquired a spiritual nature, the remnant of sin remains in us. Usually, we must discipline ourselves to maintain a consistent and fruitful prayer life because we are often distracted and our minds tend to wander (Galatians 5:16-18).

      To overcome these difficulties, we must recognize them. The Bible provides extensive teaching on how our prayers can be pleasing to the Lord. In summary, prayers should be made in the name of Jesus Christ. It is the duty of all Christians to pray daily, whether in private or in public. We should pray at all times and cultivate a spirit of prayer, a spiritual mindset by which we maintain constant communion with our Savior.

      Even though God already knows all things—including our needs and futures—and has already determined everything that will happen, we are exhorted to speak with him and cry out to him so that he might answer our petitions. But we are not alone: the Spirit of God helps us in this task since we do not know how to pray (Romans 8:26).

      The Bible also teaches that fasting helps us to pray in special times and in times of need. We can offer God various types of prayer: supplication, confession, requests, gratitude, praise, worship, and intercession for one another, for the conversion of sinners, and for the constituted authorities.

      When the disciples asked the Lord Jesus to teach them to pray, he offered the Lord’s Prayer as a model that makes clear what we should pray for.

      The Bible also explains why God doesn’t always answer our prayers. For our prayers to be answered, we must have faith and the object of our prayers must be according to God’s will. Unconfessed and unresolved sins can be obstacles. The book of Psalms offers a clear example of prayer. The old-covenant believers prayed, cried out, confessed, worshipped, thanked, mourned, and interceded with hearts full of faith, doubts, repentance, anxiety, fears and deep trust. Most likely there is nothing that inspires us to pray more than the prayers of the psalmists!

      The Bible provides these instructions on prayer so that we don’t pray in vain and to show that even though prayer is as simple as talking with God, the act itself can become quite complex if we consider our sinfulness. That’s why it is necessary for the church to study the subject and for its leaders to constantly encourage believers to develop a meaningful prayer life.

      The need to study prayer that is acceptable to God becomes even more urgent if we consider the current situation of the Brazilian evangelical church. On the one hand, we have the abuses committed by many Pentecostal and Neo-Pentecostal churches with regard to prayer, which is seen as a key to unlocking material treasures. The prayer of faith is used by some of these pastors to reassert their authority, since they consider themselves to be the only ones with enough faith to have their prayers answered. In their view, praying in tongues, praying on the mountaintop or at the Wailing Wall in Israel, is most effective. Prayer is also used to designate blessings and to speak out to demons in rebuke.

      From the perspective of these leaders, prayer has become a weapon in the spiritual warfare against Satan and his demons, the the prayer of warfare in which the supposed warriors come into direct conflict with demons. That which is taught in the Bible as a simple act of intelligible and spiritual relationship with God is twisted into a magical act, a mystical talisman in the hands of a leader who is supposedly more spiritual and endowed with greater faith, depriving believers of simplicity and of the confidence that they themselves can enjoy profound and rich communion with the Lord.

      On the other hand, we have the influence of Roman Catholicism, which transformed prayer into mere recitations and the Lord’s Prayer into vain repetitions. It elevated Mary and the saints to a special category, to whom prayers should be directed. Catholicism has had a profound influence on the Latin-American mindset, from which evangelicals are not always able to free themselves. Many confuse perseverance in prayer with vain repetitions before God. Others see their pastor as a clergyman who can intermediate their requests before God.

      Lastly, despite evident exceptions, one of the characteristics of traditional evangelical churches—such as Presbyterian, Baptist, and Congregational, among others—is a lack of prayer. I am referring not just to the dwindling number of people in prayer meetings, but also to the lack of intense prayer life. Amongst the congregation, prayer is often limited to mealtime utterances or to brief moments when waking up to going to bed at night. The situation is similar in Reformed churches. Public prayers in Reformed services are often offered up without fervor or intensity, as if they were only informing God of the sins and needs of the congregation.

      It is hard to judge which sin is more serious and detrimental: using prayer in a wrong

      Enjoying the preview?
      Page 1 of 1