Genuine Prayer Out of Genuine Need

 

Genuine prayer is birthed out of genuine need.  If all we do is say to ourselves, “I ought to pray”, it won’t provide the necessary motivation.  We will pray little and our prayers will be little or ineffective.  We must be driven to pray out of heart-felt need.

Remember the woman with a daughter who was demon-possessed?   The story is told in Matthew 15:21-28.  Verse 22 tells us she cried out (or pleaded) with the Lord to have mercy. Now nothing grips our heart like one of our children being seriously ill or injured, so we can only imagine this mother’s anguish over the condition of her daughter.  When Jesus does not answer her, she goes begging His disciples, “she crieth after us” (verse 23).  She is desperate. That’s why she cries out like she does.  No one had to tell this woman, “you ought to pray.” Her cries were born out of heart-felt need.  The story has a happy ending.  Jesus honored her faith and completely healed her daughter.

Probably at least half the time, pastors, Sunday School teachers, and evangelists preach or teach to people in a “spiritual coma”.  They listen to our sermons and lessons but are unmotivated to pray.  Even when we teach about prayer they think to themselves “me, cry out to God?” Why? They have no such thing as a prayer-life and yet consider themselves good Christians. When a crisis comes, tragedy strikes or God forbid something serious happens to one of their children, or the Doctor says the “c-word” (cancer), then out of desperation they are driven to pray. As they cry out to the Lord and as they pray, they are drawn to pray even more and what-do-you-know, a consistent, effective, passionate prayer life is born.  What all the sermons and lessons could not do, one genuine crisis did.

Genuine prayer is birthed out of genuine need!


The Pastor's Pocket

Pastor Bruce Freeman


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