Genuine Prayer
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, our prayers are little, and they’re 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, she pleaded with the Lord to have mercy. Nothing grips our hearts 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 she needs 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 who are in a spiritual coma. They listen to the sermons and the lessons but are not motivated to pray. Many 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 it’s 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. A consistent, effective, passionate prayer life is born.
What all the sermons and lessons could not do, one genuine crisis did. Genuine prayer is born out of genuine need.
Pastor Bruce Freeman
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