A Life of Prayer [Part 1]

Men ought always to pray. (Luke 18:1, KJV)

I will, therefore, that men pray every where, lifting up holy hands, without wrath and doubting. (1 Timothy 2:8, KJV)

I ask you one question: Do you pray?  Truly, prayer is essential to the life of the Christian believer. It is as necessary as air, food and water are to our bodies.  Prayer is necessary for salvation.  In A Call to Prayer, J.C. Ryle discusses the implications on the soul of a Christian life without prayer.  He begins the booklet by asking the same question I asked above, and then tells us why he asked that question:

“I ask whether you pray, because prayer is absolutely needful to a man’s salvation.I say, absolutely needful, and I say so advisedly.  I am not speaking now of infants or idiots.  I am not settling the state of the heathen….I speak especially of those who call themselves Christians, in a land like our own. And of such I say, no man or woman can expect to be saved who does not pray.

“I hold salvation by grace as strongly as anyone.  I would gladly offer a free and full pardon to the greatest sinner that ever lived. I would not hesitate to stand by his dying bed, and say, ‘Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ even now, and you shall be saved.’ (Acts 16:31.) But that a man can have salvation without asking for it, I cannot see in the Bible…I can find that nobody will be saved by his prayers, but I cannot find that without prayer anybody will be saved.”¹

So if you are a Christian, and you are asking yourself if you have ever prayed or you’re wondering how to pray, I would say you already have. When you asked God for salvation and believed that Christ rose from the dead, you prayed.  Most likely, when you prayed it was simple.  In the video, Don Carson shows us that prayer is simply talking to God; it is asking God for our needs and desires.  He outlined what prayer was and why we should pray.

Carson also quoted Luke 10:20 which says: “And he said to them, ‘The harvest is plentiful, but the laborers are few. Therefore pray earnestly to the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into his harvest.’”  We should be praying not only for our needs, but more importantly that others may hear and know the gospel, and that God would do an amazing work through us so that Christ may receive all the glory.

Christ was seen throughout his life praying to God, should we not follow?  In Part 2 of this post, I will pause a moment on scripture and really unpack how Christ taught us to pray.

1. Ryle, J.C. A Call to Prayer. p. 3-4 [↩]

TagsA Call to Prayer, Don Carson, J.C. Ryle, Pray, Prayer