Prayer

Oswold Chambers writes “The reason many of us leave off praying and become hard towards God is because we have only a sentimental interest in prayer.” The word sympathetic according to the Merriam dictionary means “resulting from feeling rather than reason or thought.” When you pray, do you actually think about getting close to Christ and talking with Him? Is the goal of your prayer to commune with God himself and come in contact with his heart and mind? Or is it simply a feeling that you should pray or something you were taught how to do while young?

Chambers says “we hurl our own petitions at God’s throne and dictate to Him what we wish for Him to do”. Unfortunately, I identify with these types of prayers myself and these prayers are not worshipping God nor seeking to form the mind of Christ. Chambers questions “Are we living in a holy relationship with Christ or are we hard and dogmatic?” I did not understand the word dogmatic so I looked it up and it means “characterized by or given to the expression of opinions very strongly or positively as if they were facts.” God does not want us to pray to him with all our requests. That is treating God like he is Santa Clause. God wants us to seek communion with His mind. God wants to talk with us. He wants to develop a true friendship. God does His part in listening to us, but are we listening and seeking Him?

Chambers writes that intercession and worship must go together because one is not possible without the other. If this is true, then have I not really been worshipping before because I was not in true intercession? Intercession means that we rouse ourselves up to get the mind of Christ about the one for whom we pray. Chambers says intercession is a “work that has no snare”.