In a discussion of worship (of which prayer is a type), James Torrance likens it to marriage. Why do people get married?
There is only one supreme reason for getting married—for love’s sake, for the other’s sake, for mutual love, self-giving, a longing for intimate communion, and sharing of everything. So in Christian worship, we worship God for God’s sake; we come to Christ for Christ’s sake, motivated by love. An awareness of God’s holy love for us, revealed in Jesus Christ, awakens in a longing for intimate communion—to know the love of the Father, to participate in the life and ministry of Christ. Worship in the Bible is always presented to us as flowing from an awareness of who God is and what he has done: I am the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob . . . I have loved you and redeemed you . . . I will be your God and you will be my people. Therefore this is how you will worship me.
As I indicated above, what Torrance says about worship is true also for our life of prayer. It isn’t all about me and my needs. We pray because we love the God who redeemed us with his own blood and so adopted us as beloved children.
It’s unfortunate that many believers think—even if they would never say it out loud—that prayer is a burden, something to be gotten through as quickly as possible so that they can get on with the really important things of life.
It’s true that prayer can be hard work. Praying requires you to be quiet, to stop your own strivings and know that the Lord is God. Prayer requires you to admit that you’re not the strong, self-sufficient person you’d like to be—or at least to have others think you are. Prayer confirms to you the truth of Jesus’ saying: apart from me, you can do nothing (John 15:5). Thus, as Calvin says, prayer is the chief act of faith—it requires you to leave off your own efforts, to confess that you are neither all powerful nor in control of things, to admit that God is these things, and that he wills to be so for you.
For this reason, prayer is called a spiritual discipline: you have to learn how to pray (Lord, teach us to pray, the disciples ask in Luke 11:1). In the habit of prayer, you learn to live by faith, to rest in Christ alone, and to have your attitudes, thoughts, and desires remade into ways that are Christ-like and pleasing to God our Father.
Another reason people find it hard to pray, perhaps, is that we don’t recognize what a stupendous gift we’ve been given in our freedom to pray. Let us then with confidence draw near to the throne of grace, that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need, Hebrews 4:16 says. God’s invitation to pray is an invitation for you to enter into the central mystery of your salvation, your free union and communion with God in Christ.
This is the greatest blessing of salvation, the one from which all the other blessings flow—union and communion with God bought at the expense of Jesus’ blood. When the baptized and believing people of God pray, either privately or corporately, we enter into—and in some measure experience—the inner life of the Triune God. When you pray, you experience the reality that Jesus is presenting you to the Father as you participate—humbly, wonderingly, joyfully, sometimes painfully—through the Spirit. At the right hand of God our Father, at this very moment, Jesus your Elder Brother is praying on your behalf. And whenever you pray, the Spirit of Christ is helping you, even as Jesus is perfecting your prayers and presenting them to the Father. But, in a very real sense, your experience of Christ is less important than the Christ of your experience, for it is only through the whole Christ—his true divinity and true humanity—the One who is your perfect Mediator, that you are able freely to commune with God in prayer. Indeed, one can say that the life of faith is summed up in prayer to the Father through the Son in the Holy Ghost.
What Is the Morning Prayer Service?
Traditionally, the Morning Prayer service has confession of sin, psalms, scripture readings, and prayers of thanks, supplication and intercession. In the form we will use here, it should last about 20 minutes. The schedule of readings comes from the Presbyterian Book of Common Worship: Daily Prayer and the written prayers come from various sources. The service follows what Jesus teaches us in the Lord’s Prayer and involves seven distinct activities:
- approaching God in adoration and trust;
- acknowledging his work and his worth in praise and worship;
- admitting our sin and seeking his pardon;
- asking that our needs be met, for ourselves and others;
- arguing with God for blessing, wrestling with God as Jacob did in Genesis 32;
- accepting from God our situation as he has providentially shaped it;
- adhering to God through thick and thin.
These seven activities (described in Growing in Christ by J. I. Packer, 157) together constitute faithful biblical prayer.
How Do I Use the Morning Prayer Cards?
Because the Morning Prayer service will be offered only on Tuesdays and Fridays, Morning Prayer cards with a somewhat abbreviated service for home/family use, are available in the literature rack. The Psalm and reading schedule for every day of the week will be printed in the bulletin, along with the prayer of the week (the prayer for grace we pray in the service). These cards are simply instructional tools—a starting point for prayer and Bible reading. This time-tested guide, making use of both the Word and prayer, will help the faithful pray-er learn to converse with God, to experience the joy of fellowship, and know better the grace and consolation of the Spirit through Christ whose redemption makes prayer possible.
Though this service is called Morning Prayer, the time of day, in and of itself, is of little consequence. The important thing is not when you pray, but that you pray.
Rejoice always,
pray without ceasing,
give thanks in all circumstances;
for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you.
~1 Thessalonians 5:16-18