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  • My Naughty Heart

    John Flavel was one of the great Puritan preachers and authors. Much of Flavel’s ministry was toward sailors, so he often relied on nautical metaphors and terminology. In An Honest, Well Experienced Heart, Adam Embry shares a poem titled “My Naughty Heart.” “Naughty” rhymes with “knotty,” a play on words that falls in the middle…

  • How Do We Keep Our Prayers Fiery?

    I have been reading Jeremy Walker’s The Brokenhearted Evangelist and in that book he includes a powerful section dealing with the importance of prayer in the practice of evangelism. After quoting John Sutcliff, who cries out against lukewarmness, Walker asks and answers this question: How do we keep our prayers fiery? How do we keep…

  • Prayer for the Ministry of the Word

    There are a few hymns–just a few–that have been written to be sung as a petition to God immediately before the minister opens God’s Word. A favorite of mine is John Newton’s “Prayer for the Ministry of the Word.” It can be sung to any number of tunes including “Amazing Grace.” The best lines come…

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    Making Our Requests Known to God

    In last week’s reading in David McIntyre’s The Hidden Life of Prayer we looked at praising God in prayer. This week we were to read two chapters, one that looked at supplication and one that looked at confession–two other integral components of prayer. I found the chapter on supplication–making requests of God in prayer–particularly helpful.…

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    The Main Lesson About Prayer

    The sexual relationship within marriage is powerful and beautiful, but it can only be described to a certain extent; eventually it must be experienced to be understood. The young soon-to-be-married man imagining the sexual relationship with his wife-to-be can really only guess at what it will be like; the bit he understands about it brings…

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    A Quiet Place, A Quiet Hour, A Quiet Heart

    A Christian cannot have a powerful prayer life unless he takes advantage of the equipment for prayer the Lord offers to him. In The Hidden Life of Prayer David McIntyre says this equipment “is simple, if not always easily secured. It consists particularly of a quiet place, a quiet hour, and a quiet heart.” Let…

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    Prayer Is Hard Work

    Today we begin reading a new Christian classic together–David McIntyre’s The Hidden Life of Prayer. If you would like to read along with us, consult this post where you’ll find instructions on downloading the free audio book or the $0.99 Kindle book and find some places where you can purchase the printed book. As is…

  • Prayer Is Hard Work

    Though prayer is instictive, it is also difficult labor. David M’Intyre makes and explains this point in his book The Hidden Life of Prayer: Instinctive as is our dependence upon God, no duty is more earnestly impressed upon us in Scripture than the duty of continual communion with Him. The main reason for this unceasing…

  • Seven Ways To Pray For Your Prayer Life

    Seven Ways To Pray for Your Prayer Life

    Here are seven ways that you can pray about your prayer life. These are seven items you can add to your prayer list as you consider your own prayer life or another person’s. 1) Pray that your prayers would be the expressions of a humble heart. And when you pray, you must not be like…

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    7 Scripture Texts About Evangelism

    I find it tremendously valuable to have my prayers guided by Scripture. As I pray about sharing the gospel with others, or as I pray for those who do not yet know the Lord, there are many passages from the Bible that can give focus and direction. Here are just a few of them. 1.…

  • Stuff and Contentment

    This topic has been much on my mind lately–possessions, stuff and contentment. Not too long ago I found a prayer by Scotty Smith that did a great job of asking God for contentment admist all the stuff we do have and amidst all the stuff we could have. He looks to these two Scripture passages:…

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    PrayerMate

    If you keep up with this blog, you know that I’ve been trying to learn how other people–pastors in particular–organize their prayer life. The fact is that I am a forgetful person and, at heart, a selfish one. Yet I want to pray for the things that I ought to pray for–the things that are…

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    Teach Me How to Pray (II)

    A few days ago I shared some wisdom from my friend Tim Kerr who told me how he organizes his prayer life. Obviously the most important part of a prayer life is just praying–I’m sure it’s very easy to get hung up on questions of procedure while forgetting to actually just pray–but I am also…

  • Teach Me How to Pray

    Last year I was ordained to the ministry at Grace Fellowship Church. Since then I went on-staff as a part-time pastor and, more recently, as a full-time associate pastor. Needless to say, this has given me great opportunity to closely examine the calling and task of the minister. At its heart, this task is very…

  • I Asked the Lord

    Have you ever asked the Lord that he would teach you to grow in faith and love and grace? Have you ever asked the Lord that you might know more of him, or that he might give you the desire to more earnestly seek his face? John Newton asked this of the Lord and later…

  • A Preacher’s Prayer

    As I mentioned a couple of days ago, I have the privilege of preaching at Grace Fellowship Church this morning. I awoke feeling tired and worn, believing that fatigue is God’s means of rebuking me, of calling me to depend on him instead of myself. So I turned to the Valley of Vision, looking for…

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    How Do You Do a Week of Prayer?

    I recently received an email from a long-time reader of this blog who asked if I could write about a week of prayer. Your blog is the third time in the last month that I’ve heard of churches having a week of prayer once a year. You state that you pray 2 hours a day…

  • Teach Me to Pray!

    The Lord has been forcing me to learn about prayer. And it’s a good thing since I’m finding myself in one of those times in life when prayer is coming only with difficulty. It was a blessing to attend a local pastors’ fellowship on Monday where I enjoyed a panel discussion about prayer and the…

  • Praying Scripture

    Do you ever find that you just don’t know how to pray? You know that you need to pray for someone, but you don’t know how? That is a great time to turn to the Bible and to pray to God the words of God. Mary Kassian once wrote a brief overview of praying Scripture…

  • When You Don’t Feel Like Praying

    Here’s another good prayer from Scotty Smith. This is one for a day we’ve all experienced; it’s a prayer for days when you don’t feel like praying. Scotty and I aren’t the only one who have these days, are we?–those days when you’re just so glad that God’s delight in you isn’t contingent on your…