Does the Time I Spend in Prayer Reflect Who I am in Christ?

If God didn’t hear your prayers, there really would be no reason to pray, would there?

Or, if God did hear but didn’t care, there still would be no reason to pray. Why would you bother pouring your heart out to a brick wall? Or suppose that God did hear and care, but He was utterly powerless to answer?

Thankfully, none of the above is true. The testimony of Scripture is that God not only hears your prayers, but He is incredibly interested in the details of your life.

“You know when I sit and when I rise; you perceive my thoughts from afar. ...Before a word is on my tongue you know it completely, O Lord” (Psalm 139:2, 4 NIV).

Because of your righteous standing through the shed blood of Jesus Christ, God not only hears your prayers, He delights at the sound of your voice!

Not only does God hear, but His compassion defies measure.

“The Lord is close to the brokenhearted and saves those who are crushed in spirit” (Psalm 34:18 NIV).

Rather than a cold and impersonal machine, God is deeply touched by your petitions.

When you grieve, He grieves. When you rejoice, He rejoices with you. To be compassionate is to be like Him, because He is the epitome of compassion.

He hears, He cares, and, yes, He answers prayer. Just ask Moses and the Israelites who cried out to God as Pharaoh’s chariots bore down upon them (Exodus 14:10).

Or read the answer to Elijah’s prayer during the showdown with the prophets of Baal (1 Kings 18:37).

And I wonder what Rhoda would say about prayer after Peter’s miraculous deliverance from prison; of course, it was during a fervent prayer meeting at the church (Acts 12:5-14).

You get the picture: powerful and effective. That’s how the Word of God describes the prayers of righteous people.

The great prayer warrior, S.D. Gordon, once stated, “The greatest thing anyone can do for God and man is pray. It is not the only thing, but it is the chief thing. The great people of the earth today are the people who pray. I do not mean those who talk about prayer, nor those who say they believe in prayer, nor yet those who can explain about prayer; but I mean those people who take time to pray.”

The question is, how much are you missing in your Christian life simply because you’ve become discouraged or lazy in prayer?

Don’t believe Satan’s lies that God doesn’t hear you, care about you, or answer your prayers. Instead, He anxiously waits to hear from you. Spiritual transactions will be left undone unless you meet with Him.

Larry Burkett (1939-2003)