The Privilege of Prayer

F.B Myer said “The greatest tragedy of life is not in unanswered prayer but in unoffered prayer”.

Scripture clearly emphasises the absolute importance of prayer offering us captivating glimpses of the importance and priority Jesus gave to prayer. Jesus said in Luke 18 to always pray and not give up.

Mark 14:38 “Watch and pray so that you do not fall into temptation”.

1 Thessalonians 5:17 commands us to pray without ceasing.

Romans 12:12 tells us we have to be faithful in prayer.

Prayer allows us to pour our hearts out to God, to meditate and wait upon Him and enable us to build a personal relationship with Him. By spending time with Him, we equip ourselves and God blesses us with access to His strength, peace, patience, grace, love and mercy that we need, to be the person He has called us to be. Yet prayer is the one thing we tend to do the least.

There is no substitute for prayer.

So let’s get into some of the incredible privileges of prayer:

Being able to enter the throne room of grace.

This is the privilege the old testament saints did not have, no one dared to go near the inner room of the temple. Only the High priest was allowed once a year to be in the presence of God.

Hebrews 10: 19,20 “we have confidence to enter the Most Holy place by the blood of Jesus, by a new and living way opened for us the curtain, that is, His body”.

The shedding of Christ’s blood has allowed us to enter and draw near to god. What an incredible and undeserved invitation we have been given. We should never cease to be in awe of that. When we brush aside prayer, are we are trivialising the sacrifice of Christ for us?

No matter how often we approach the Lord in prayer, we are always welcomed, accepted and cherished.

Hebrews 4:16 tells us that we should approach the throne of grace with confidence.

God is never too busy for us; He will never turn us away. We can be rest assured that when we spend time at His feet, we are always welcome, and find what we need. What a remarkable privilege.

Don’t miss out on the opportunity of being in the presence of God. We may be rejected by anyone or everyone but God has His arms open wide, we are always accepted into His presence once a day or multiple times a day.

God truly understand what we are going through.

Have we ever refrained from sharing an innermost hurt or sorrow, feeling like the other person is just not going to get it?

Jesus experienced every pain and struggle while on earth. When we go to Him and pour out our struggle and sorrows, frustrations and hardships; he knows, he understands and he cares because we are not speaking to God who is distant and aloof. He understands, maybe even better than we can comprehend what we ourselves are going through.

Hebrews 4:15 says that we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathise with our weaknesses but we have one who has been tempted in every way and yet without sin.

He became one of us to save us and in doing so humbly identified himself with us.

We do not have to be polished and practised in prayer to talk to God

There are days I wonder how I can be so unable to string a coherent sentence to formulate a meaningful prayer. Thank God that it is not a requirement to be practised and polished in prayer to pour out my heart to God. He just wants to hear from us. Imaging our kids talking to us always in a formal and rehearsed manner, it would not be real and would not appropriately reflect the relationship between parent and child. Let prayer be real, raw and heartfelt. We do not need to complicate it. Just talk to Him. An honest and open conversation.

God always hears us when we pray.

Anyone who walks with God has had a season in our life where we experience silence from God making us question whether He is hearing us at all. None of our cries, our tears go unheard or unnoticed by God.

1 John 5:14 says “This is the confidence we have in approaching God; that if we ask anything according to His will, he hears us”.

God’s timing may not be our timing, we may not understand His reasons but we can be absolutely sure that He is listening. Give prayer the rightful place in your life and not take this privilege for granted.

God Bless