Prayer is one of those mysteries of the Christian life. Only the person who is helpless can truly pray. Prayer and helplessness are inseparable.

The Praying Life – the Power of Weakness
Thursday, May 20, 2010

Everyone believes in prayer. And later this week, many people who rarely pray, will pray. In America it’s Thanksgving week and heads that rarely bow in prayer, will be lowered before almighty God.
Swell
Welcome to HAVEN Today, I’m CM telling the GS that’s all about Jesus. Funny, isn’t it? People who never or rarely will pray in a family gather at a holiday like Thanksgiving. They may be “to whom it may concern” kinds of prayers, but for Christians, Jesus has taught us how to pray. This is program called “The Praying Life – the Power of Weakness. In a few minutes we’ll be joined again by Paul Miller, author of a brand new book called The Praying Life. Will be joined by Cindy Anderson from Virginia who as a Bible teacher has been learning how to pray and also with a California pastor, Scott Burns, talks about how nothing happens if you don’t pray. First, we open with a song from the Valley of Vision CD by Sovereign Grace in Gaithersburg, MD, based on the Lord’s Prayer – Let Your Kingdom Come.
SONG
The Praying Life – the Power of Weakness
Janet in the studio
C. Our Father in heaven, your kingdom come, your will be done.” – that’s how Jesus taught us to pray
J. It starts out “our Father” not “my Father”. It’s a corporate prayer, -- a together prayer – Jesus taught us to pray together for the Kingdom of God to advance.
C. – and we experienced the power of that kind of kingdom praying for the first time on a mission trip to Southall, which is a West Asian neighborhood in London. Hindus, Sihks, Muslims – it was like being in Bangladesh.
J. The full-time missionaries were due to arrive the following year. Our job was just to pray. I’ll never forget the first day we gathered in a little park, under our umbrellas, as the rain drizzled down.
C. Two Sikh men in turbans were watching us, and our team leader invited them to join the circle. “We’re here to pray that Jesus Christ will move into this neighborhood and bring his grace and salvation. “ They joined us – we were amazed.
J. And we began to pray. I have to admit, my faith was wobbly and I felt pretty foolish. But as we prayed, I asked the Lord to give me boldness and slowly a glorious reality dawned in my heart: Jesus is Lord!
C. Yes! The nations belong to him! We’re here on his authority! Walking around the neighborhoods, we felt the power of the barriers, we sensed the control that Satan had there – and it didn’t seem possible that the Gospel could break through. And our little prayers seemed so weak – but they weren’t they had great power.
J. But as we continued to pray we started believing that Jesus is in the business of claiming the nations for himself. Jesus is Lord and he can break down the walls. One of the first people the missionaries baptized was an old Sikh man.
C. Praying “thy kingdom come” is one of the most exciting things we get to do as believers.
(Song – from Valley of Vision)
There’s a direct connection between prayer and the Kingdom of God – we can’t do anything in our strength, we can produce a lot of religious activity but not the power of the Spirit – not God present and powerful among us. But when we pray, watch out.
(Scott interview)
How does the Kingdom come? It comes through prayer – God has made us his partners and given us real power by calling us to pray for his Kingdom to come. But we need to have in our minds a clear picture of what we’re praying for. The Kingdom of Christ advances when the Gospel comes in and breaks our pride. The cross cuts deeply into our pride – that’s the offense of the cross. It puts us all in the same place – all sinners with nothing to say for ourselves. The people of God are meant to be a humbled, people, Blessed are the poor in spirit – the humbled people, the broken people, the weak people -- for theirs is the kingdom of God – the power of the Spirit is poured out on us when we know we haven’t got anything in ourselves.
We’ve been talking about a book on prayer written by my friend Paul Miller – it’s a book that’s changing lives – Janet’s and my life included. Let me just quote one line from his book:
“You don’t need self-discipline to pray, you just have to be poor in spirit” -- you just have to know how much you need Jesus.
(Cyndi Anderson interview – put Charles in saying “Cyndi, you’ve been reading the same book on prayer that Janet and I have been reading and it seems like every one I know is reading. It got you thinking about being poor in spirit.)
When we’re poor in Spirit we can even pray for our enemies. The Lord breaks down our anger, and self-righteousness, and defensiveness, ad helps us see how much he has loved us in spite of ourselves and then, we can pray even for those people who’re thorns in our flesh.
Paul – on praying for Bob.

Copy to end with:
Sometimes I say the Lords’ prayer without grasping the breath-taking significance of that opening line. Jesus is granting us permission to pray to God the way he prays! Only the Son of God could teach us to talk to God as his sons and daughters. He’s been saying “my Father” for all eternity, but now he’s included us in that relationship. Now we can pray “Our Father” with him and with all our brothers and sisters in Christ.
He’s also teaching us the foremost desire sons and daughters of the Father should have on our hearts: “Hallowed be your name.” “Hallowed” is another word I pray without taking in its significance. It means, “considered holy.” Jesus’ passion was to see his Father’s name hallowed, to have it put on display in all its glory. Just before he died he prayed, “Father glorify your name” and then he accomplished that goal by going to the cross.
The Father’s name is hallowed when the cross is lifted up – the nations are streaming to the cross, one broken sinner after another. The Father’s name is hallowed when the meaning of the cross is etched deeply on our hearts. When we’re humbled, when we become poor in Spirit and lose our self-righteousness. And that’ when we start to pray – because we know we need the Lord – and we keep praying because we are poor in spirit and we know how much we need Jesus every day.

A missionary friend of ours has been evangelizing for years but he just had his own heart evangelized. This is what he wrote in his latest support letter: I have been drifting away from faith in the love and provision of God, and of constant, conscious reliance on the enabling power of the risen Lord. When ministry becomes just work, rather than participation with Christ in His grand cause, self-reliance is inevitable and little prayer is required. The Lord has brought me to a place of repentance and refreshing. I’ve repented again of seeking my own kingdom and not his.
That’s a beautiful picture of being poor in Spirit.
When we give Jesus all the glory and take none for ourselves. In that condition, we can pray with great power because the power of Christ is poured out on powerless people.