Our Footsteps: Questions to Ask About Prayer

Tuesday, March 10, 2009

Questions to Ask About Prayer

Biblically Oriented Questions I Need to Ask Myself About “Prayer”

Are my prayers so excessively self-centered and self-serving that God is barely listening?
For whom am I interceding? Am I using prayer to make ME feel better? Is it really about what I want anyway?
Job 1:1-5

Do I bore God with my prayers? Is there any passion in my communication to him that show that I really love him like I say that I do?

Am I attentive and alert when I pray or do I insult the King of the Universe by letting my mind wander?
Colossians 4:2

Am I using my prayer time unwisely? Am I unprepared when I come to prayer? Do I rush in and rush out of the presence of God?
Psalm 5:3

Is there some sin that I am holding onto with a white-knuckle grip and yet I dare approach the God who let his only Son die to save me from the guilt and stain of that sin?
Psalm 66:16-20

More Questions to Ask Myself About Prayer:

When I speak to God, do I speak to Him with infinitely more respect and honor than I would speak to my own earthly father?

The Word tells me to make my requests known to God. When I present my requests to Him, do I ask in a way that makes God my personal bell-hop who should answer at the snap of my fingers? Or am I really asking humbly in faith for things that would be according to His will? Am I expectant? Am I presumptuous?

In corporate prayer, who is my audience? Am I trying to impress someone else with the same old, stale, predictable, flowery language? Or is it really God I am talking to?

What kind of empty and trivial things can I remove from my life that distract me in prayer and cause my mind to be dull? Furthermore, what IMPORTANT things are also distracting me and cloud my thinking when I come to meet God in prayer? Are these things that important that they interrupt my fellowship with God? How will I set these things aside for awhile?

More questions than answers sometimes...

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I Believe...

1). I believe that there is one God. I believe God consists of three persons, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.
2). I believe that God is holy, righteous, loving, and just.
3). I believe that mankind is separated from God by sin; that sin entered the world through Adam and death through sin.
4). I believe that, because of sin, man is condemned. Because of God’s utter hatred for sin, there is an eternal conscious punishment in hell for all those who do not come to God on His terms, dealing with their sin.
5). I believe that confessing our sins and confessing Jesus Christ as Lord is the only way to properly deal with the sin that has infected everyone. Jesus Christ paid our sin debt on the cross; reconciliation by substitution. There is nothing we can do to add to the finished work of Christ.
6). I believe in the security of the believer, that once he is truly born-again, there is nothing that would cause him to lose his salvation.
7). I believe that upon the death of a true believer in Christ, that he is ushered immediately into the presence of the Lord, where he will live in everlasting joy in Heaven, experiencing eternal fellowship with God.
8). I believe in believer’s baptism by immersion. I don’t believe baptism is necessary for salvation, but it is a beautiful outward profession of an inward possession.
9). I believe in a literal 6-day creation where God created the heavens and the earth and then rested on the seventh day.
10). I believe that the words written in the Bible are truth. I believe that the Bible is inerrant in its parts and in its whole. I believe that the 66 books that make up the canon of scripture make the Bible complete and that God inspired the words written therein. The things that were written down in the Bible are sufficient for every need we have. Not only is God’s Word sufficient, but it is far superior to any other method of handling the problems that man faces, since He has given us all things pertaining to life and godliness.