Making the Most Prayer 02 032714

Making the Most
of the means of grace
02

2.  Private prayer

This is not just "private" prayer - it is penetrating prayer.  It is prayer that calls upon God to show us, not just Himself, but our selves as well.  It is prayer that cuts through all the "I want," "I need," "Please give," and gets down to the, "have mercy upon me a sinner."

Most of us know the acronym ACTS
Adoration
Confession
Thanksgiving
Supplication

Now there nothing wrong with this as a reminder of the components of prayer but I think if falls short of the whole of it.  There is no explicit "letter" for seeking God's exposure of our hearts.  It's easy to run through these parts of prayer without ever seeking God's exposure of our true and hidden spiritual needs - the nitty gritty.  There is no depth demanded and I suspect (for I find it true in me) that there is no depth sought.

Prayer is, fundamentlly, a conversation - a two way conversation.  Certainly we ought go to God with the common and even mundane requests that we are aware of but to do this and only this is perhaps a great waste of a great opportunity.

Most of our private prayers could be prayed in public with little alteration.  They are shallow and halt - usually.  Private prayer, as the Puritains saw it, was deep, gut wrenching, no-holds-barred, open your soul and heart and seek to expose the deepest of corruptions kind of prayers.  They were blood-sweating prayers.  They were prayers for holiness and righteousness of life - here now - for Him.

Oh, we may get close to that when we pray the "C" (confession) but God desires so much more of and for us and we must dig deeply into prayer to touch it.  David asked God to "test," or "try" his heart to see if there was any wicked way in him.  That's "any" wicked way not just the easily seen and comfortably remembered evil ways that we are at ease acknowledging.

I think sometimes that we are too comfortble in our redemption and justification.  We wear it more tike a windbeaker than a heavy coat.  What I mean is that we are more than willing to see our easy sins and rejoice in their forgiveness but we are rarey willing go dig deep into the cold and dark recesses of our souls to find what the Puritains called "heart sins" or the sins under the sins that are uder the sins.  We fail to ask to see the utter corruption for which Christ came and suffered.

Private prayer is the time when we need to be digging deep.  We need to be seeking God's exposure of just how badly we need Christ - just how very very much we need Him.  It's the place where we drop the "I'm not so bad," approach to our sin and cry out to see exactly how "bad" we really are.

PS
Are these posts of any benefit to you?  If they are or are not I would like to hear from you. Your input and/or encouragement would be a blessing and mercy.  You can comment on the blog page of, if you want, you can email me at sheepdog.ms@gmail.com.

Bless you for your help!
Michael