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PRAYER TIMEGUIDE BOOK
 
CHAPTER ONEFollowing Christ in Biblical Prayer
 
Katy and Brian were among the first converts of a new church. They were not surehow to pray "the right way." They were sure they wanted to talk with their newfoundLord and Savior. As members of a new church, there were not a lot of other maturebelievers around to disciple them. They began to read everything they could find onprayer. Some of the books were biblical, but many of them were based on humanexperience or opinion, and some were just weird. They very quickly learned "a lot of people talk about praying, but very few people understand and practice biblicalprayer."Satan hates prayer. He prefers that believers do anything except pray. Even peoplewho believe in prayer and have seen its power wake up one morning to discover thattheir prayer life is powerless. It is interesting that prayer does not move to asecondary priority in the believer's life. It is either a top priority or it moves to theperiphery of our lives.Many people desire to renew a personal passion for prayer. They want to discoverwhat the Bible means when it commands us to "pray without ceasing" in 1Thessalonians 5:17. Believers know in their spirit that obedience to the living Lordmeans responding with a lifestyle that allows unceasing prayer. People for all faithbackgrounds are interested in prayer.Some people have a tendency to rely on processes and effective models. Sometimes,this results in a dangerous autonomy from essential spiritual resources. A veryimportant verse for believers is Zechariah 4:6, "This is the word of the Lord...'Not bymight, nor by power, but by my Spirit says the Lord of hosts.'" Put that verse onyour dashboard and on your bathroom mirror. Do not let Satan turn your self-confidence into self-sufficiency, nor to turn it into arrogance.
Differences in Biblical Prayer and Popular Prayer
Edmund was one of thebackbones of the church. As a core group member, he was there every time thedoors opened. Everyone knew they could count on Edmund. He prayed often atchurch but it had been years since he had spent any time alone with God in prayerand Bible study.Prayer is popular in the postmodern culture. But popular prayer is often verydifferent from biblical prayer. A March 2001 Internet search of the word "prayer" inthe northernlight.com search engine resulted in 2,280,745 responses. Many peopletalk about the importance of prayer. A March 1994 article in Life magazine, reportedthat "nine out of 10 Americans, . . pray frequently and earnestly." Eighty percent of Americans pray for their families, 92 percent pray for forgiveness, and 25 percentpray for relatively unimportant things like victory in a sports event. The articleindicates that 28 percent spend more than an hour in prayer each day. It alsoreveals that more than half of all people pray for five minutes or less.George Barna more recently (2000) indicates that 83 percent of North Americanspray during a typical week. However, only 39 percent consider themselves as an"evangelical Christian" and only 17 percent regularly attend a small group. . . forBible study, prayer, or Christian fellowship." He too concludes the typical daily prayer
 
time is less than five minutes long.iThink about that fact. Most evangelicals only pray five minutes a day or less. Thatmeans that even believers rely on ourselves for the remaining 23 hours and 55minutes each day. No wonder the culture and the church are in such disarray. Nowonder that so many unbelievers are uncertain if there is any difference betweenChristians and non-Christians. (An unbeliever is defined as someone who has notaccepted Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior).Barna concludes, "In one recent survey we found that almost nine out of ten adultsbelieve they know all of the basic teachings of Christianity very well. But when youexplore what they think the Bible actually teaches, ...many theologicalinconsistencies and inaccuracies emerge. Unfortunately, correcting people's mistakenassumptions about Bible content is made nearly impossible by their self-assuranceabout their beliefs. Even if they are exposed to good Bible teaching they typically failto absorb that input because they think they already know it all...."ii Where thendoes a person begin to renew a personal passion to pray unceasingly?Jesus said "follow Me" (see Matt. 4:19; 16:24; 19:21). Prayer flows from ourpersonal relationship with Jesus. It is a gift to His followers. A gift that is oftenunopened and unused. Every believer needs to clearly share what the Bible saysabout becoming a follower of Jesus Christ. Those seeking a relationship with God willfind it through the life and teachings of Jesus.
Becoming a Follower of Jesus
 Believers need to share a clear call for people to follow Jesus. Unbelievers need torespond to God's call too. The followers of Jesus Christ were first called Christians inthe first century (see Acts 11:26). Like today, it was probably intended to be aninsult. The term had become so widespread that by Acts 26:28, King Agrippa usedthe word "Christian" when talking to the apostle Paul. The followers of Jesus Christacted so much like Him that the people of Antioch, and the Empire, called themCHRIST-ians. Like today, there was conflict between those who listened to what Godwanted and those who imposed on God what they wanted. God's way is better.The followers of Jesus need to act like Him so much that there is no doubt that theyare Christians. The word "believers" is now being used for the followers of Christ.This became necessary because so many people who are called Christians do notresemble Christ. The Creator is quite clear what He requires for a person to becomea Christian. Be careful not to compromise these truths under the guise of being"seeker sensitive."
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