BE RENEWED IN PRAYER!
FOREWORD
Are you aware that there may be obstacles in our prayer, which prevent
us from praying trustfully and sustainably? Even if we have received
Christ into our lives and been saved, starting to pray, trusting prayers and
perseverance are not always so simple; many obstacles may come in the way of
our prayer.
Sometimes the reason may simply be that we do
not understand our position before God, through Jesus. Even though Christ
should be our righteousness, and through Him we can approach God, we might not
properly understand or fully realize this important basic fact. Instead, we may
concentrate on ourselves and our imperfections, and therefore do not expect God
to answer our prayer. We expect that He will answer other prayers by
"holier people”, but we ourselves do not have this kind of a trust in our
prayers.
Another obstacle for prayer can be the wrong kind of
teaching, such as in matters like where to direct our prayer and how many times
we should pray. If we have received the wrong kind of teaching in this area, it
may unnecessarily lead us astray or paralyze our prayer. If we forget that the
God to whom we pray is in Heaven, or always think that it is enough to pray
once for each issue, our prayer may be paralyzed. Then, the form of the prayer
changes and it is only words among other words, which is far from the purpose
of prayer.
On the next pages, we are going to study this important
issue and also see why it is so important to pray persistently. The purpose is
that we would learn to pray enduringly and trustingly, and that we can remove
all the obstacles disturbing our prayer. If this is done, your prayer life is
sure to be a lot easier!
