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When We Do Not Pray…
“Dear friends, let us love one another, for love comes from God. Everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God” (1 John 4:7).
Prayer, at its heart, is communicating with God. What does it say to Him when we fail to find time to talk with Him? Do we say by our lack of prayer that we are not at all interested in spending time with the Lord or hearing anything from Him? When we do not pray, we move away from any possibility of intimacy with Christ.
When prayerlessness is prevalent in our lives, we are also guilty of failure to love one another. There is scarcely any greater way to demonstrate love than to pray for someone. In godly intercession, we lift the needs of another to God and watch as He moves to meet needs and provide for the one we are praying for. Through prayer, bodies are healed, families are knit together, individuals are saved, and churches are revived. When we withhold prayer on behalf of others, we demonstrate hardened hearts and a failure to love them enough to bring their needs before a loving Father.
Lord God, my desire is to love You deeply, and to spend time developing my relationship with You. Draw me to Your heart so that I might love others the way that You love them. May I never pass up opportunities You give me to bring others before You in prayer.
--Adapted from the article The Sin of Prayerlessness by Dave Butts, author of Prayer, Peace and the Presence of God. This book is available at prayershop.org.
Prayer Points
Praise God for his great love and mercy shown to you (Eph. 2:4).
Give thanks that nothing can separate you from the love of Jesus (Rom. 8:35).
Confess any lack of love which you have shown to God or to another person.
Commit yourself to loving God with your whole being (Deut. 6:5).
Ask God to prune your life so that the spiritual fruit of love will grow large and appetizing to others.
It was Jesus’ love for sinners that sent him to the cross. Pray for an opportunity to share that kind of sacrificial love with another person (Jn. 15:9).
Prayer Points taken from Patterns for Prayer by Alvin VanderGriend. This book is available at prayershop.org.