Lesson

7/27/08

So, You Want to Be Like Christ
Eight Essentials to Get You There
Charles R. Swindoll

Prayer

Prayer is listening as well as speaking, receiving as well as asking and its deepest mood of friendship held in reverence. So the dialy prayer should end as it begins…in reverence.

Questions to Consider:
1. What is prayer? Communicating with God?, connecting with God in order to transfer His will into your life? Collaborating with God to accomplish His goals?
2. Read Matthew 6: 5-8 Are there things that prayer is not? Should prayer be bargaining or pleading? AN attempt to change God’s mind? Or an attempt to manipulate God? Should prayer be a wish list to a genie? Is prayer a proving ground for piety? Should prayer be meaningless repetition? Is prayer a last resort in our lives or a first response?
3. Read 1 Timothy 2:1-2; Acts 2:42; Acts 4:24; Acts 6:4 What priority did Paul urge Timothy to give prayer? (first, first, first). In Acts 2:42 what are the four cornerstones of the early church? What priority did the early church give to prayer?
4. Consider the following passage…. The stress from worry drains our energy and preoccupies our minds, stripping us of our peace. Few in God’s family are exempt. We fret over big things and little things. Some of us have a laundry list of concerns that feed our addictions to worry. Anxiety has become a favorite pastime that we love to hate.

Read Matthew 6:27 and Philippians 4:4-7

Discuss prayer as the “cure for worry” and honestly consider how successfully you use prayer to bring peace into your day. Consider 1 Thessalonians 5:17. If prayer is an easy or simple solution to worry would we be reminded to “pray without ceasing”? Do we perhaps need the persistence of prayer in order to relieve anxieties, worries, and tensions?

Perils of Promises and Prayer
Peril of Irresponsibility – is prayer a substitute for human responsibility?
Peril of Misperceptions – do your prayers reflect an awesome , sovereign God or merely a kind, old man?
Peril of Overcommitment – do we postpone prayer due to a busy schedule and miss the “investment” of prayer?
Peril of Oversimplification –have we reduced our prayers to shallow formulas and God to a vending machine?

Promise of Prayer
1. Read 1 John 5:14-15
2. Read 2 Corinthians 12:7-10
3. Read Philippians 4:7
What does God promise through prayer?

Consider and discuss the following:
Our primary goal in calling out to God throughout a life of prayer is not to make a daily existence easier or more enjoyable for ourselves – although from a certain point of view it will. The goal can be summed up in four words: intimacy with the Almighty. Seek that first and you will have everything you have longed for in life, including all the things you never knew you needed.


Jo Anne Robinson