“Prayer and I are all one.” Those are the sincere words of the Puritan minister Thomas Watson as he reflected on what a godly man should be. Watson presents a heart that loves prayer and yearns for communion with God. Yet, Watson was not the first man to express this heart of prayer – surely, he was not the first to desire this heart of prayer, nor the last. Throughout redemptive history, from Adam until today, all true children of God have been marked by spiritual, godly, sincere prayer. In fact, without prayer, one can scarcely be thought to be a Christian. However, many Christians would confess that their prayer lives are not what they want them to be, and are definitely not what they should be.
All Christians can admit, at least intellectually, that prayer is important and integral to the Christian life. So, why do so many Christians struggle to pray as they ought to? Donald Whitney is helpful here when he explains that “truly born-again, genuinely Christian people—often do not pray simply because they do not feel like it.” There is the conundrum: despite the importance of prayer, the Christian’s knowledge that they ought to pray, and the countless exhortations to pray that one may have read in the Bible, Christians still are burdened with this old man that resists praying to God. Yes, life is busy and there are countless distractions to face every day. However, many Christians still do not think prayer is important enough, or desirable enough, to practice regularly. As David Gibson states succinctly: “We don’t pray because, ultimately, we don’t think we need to.”
Yet, Christians do need to pray. Prayer is as important to the Christian as breathing is; without it, he or she will suffocate to death. Prayer is so important, in fact, that if a Christian makes no effort to pursue it, they should have no assurance that they are indeed a Christian. John Owen, the Prince of Puritans, writes: “the neglect of [prayer] is a sufficient evidence of practical atheism, for he that prays not says in his heart, ‘There is no God.’” When one prays, he or she is confessing that there is a God and that they need Him. Likewise, when one refuses to pray, they are in the same way confessing that there is no God and they do not need Him. This is the dividing line; if there is one thing that all Christians, in every time and nation, can confess in unanimity, it is that they need God. J.C. Ryle, the 19th century Anglican bishop, went as far as to say (and rightly so), “I ask, ‘Do you pray?’ because prayer is absolutely necessary to a person’s salvation.” Ryle goes on to explain that reading the Bible is not absolutely necessary for salvation; listening to sermons is not absolutely necessary for salvation; however, “it is absolutely necessary to salvation that a person should pray.” Surely then, if prayer is essentially important in a Christian’s life, defining it correctly is vital.
Next time, that is exactly what we’ll do.