Practical Steps to an Effective Prayer LifeSample

Our Attitude in Prayer

A prayerless life is a self-dependent life. A prayerless life is a proud life. One of the ways we can gauge how we are doing in the realm of humility is by asking ourselves: Am I praying? If I’m not praying, then who am I depending on? I’m just depending on myself. I’m thinking, “I've got this.” That’s a dangerous attitude.

But if I’m praying, then who am I depending upon to work in this situation? Who do I believe has the ability to work in the situation? If we are Calvinists, if we acquiesce to that descriptive term, we believe in the sovereignty of God in salvation. We have joked before that everyone is a Calvinist in their prayer closet, because if we desire for someone to be saved, what do we do? We ask God to save them, so He is the One is who is doing the saving. He is Sovereign over that need.

Well, that’s true of everything in life. What is there that God is not sovereign over? When we pray, we acknowledge that God is the Lord over everything He has made. There is nothing too difficult for Him.

Now, we pray submissively. We know God’s prescriptive will, as reflected in Scripture; we do not know all of what we might call God’s secret will—that will expressed in His decrees before creation, what He determined to do from before time began. We do not know all of that, and so we must pray, submitting our will to His, asking for His help to be content and satisfied with whatever He deems best. So, we pray for someone who is sick, and we want that person to get better, or we pray for someone who is lost, and we want them to be saved. We pray, asking God to do the things that we desire, but submitting to His Word. And we are encouraged as we pray, recognizing that God promises that He hears our prayers and answers them.

This devotional was based on an episode of the Straight Truth Podcast. If you’d like to know more about this subject, please follow this link: https://straighttruth.net/practical-steps-for-an-effective-prayer-life/