A Praying People

May God bless the reading and the proclamation of his promises.

So we've got a lot to work through this morning.

This passage is chocked full of different information and things that we can expound on.

What I want to have us really look at is this is that after admonishing Timothy on the message of the church and charging him to wage war against false teaching, Paul's now transitioning to instruct Timothy on the conduct of the church's members.

We have to understand that this instruction is a universal truth, which was established for us in the beginning of the book by Paul's statement of his authoritative office.

He is an apostle speaking on behalf of God.

This instruction is not bound by space or time, but it is for the health and life of the church universal, all people through all time.

This is our truth.

Paul would draw Pastor Timothy to this point on his second letter that he actually writes, where he states, All scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, for training in righteousness, that the man of God may be complete, equipped for every good work.

This is 2 Timothy 3, 16 and 17.

So, what's the primary instruction that Paul has given to the church in direct response to his previous charge to wage war?

Pray.

Pray.

First of all, then pray.

See, prayer, it's such a neglected aspect of our spiritual lives.

Why is that?

It's not as if it's a difficult feat to accomplish or as if we are unequipped to perform the task.

It's not as if it would occupy much of our time or would cost us great sacrifice.

It's so neglected yet so accessible.

It's so overlooked, but it's so transcendently powerful.

If we look at this first verse, he says, first of all, then I urge that supplications, prayers, intercessions, and thanksgiving be made for all people.

First of all, Paul is laying claim that prayer is the primary weapon in the war that he has shared Timothy to engage in.

Prayer is a weapon wielded by man, but empowered by God.

You see, we need God to move in power in our mission.

And prayer evokes his intervention.

Now, what would you have thought that the Holy Spirit would have prompted Paul to charge the church to conduct themselves in when he's just said, we have to fight for sound doctrine, we have to contend for truth.

Timothy, you have to wage war.

What would you think the first response would be?

Bold preaching?

Radical evangelism, theological study?

No.

Humble yourself before an Almighty God and plead for him to move.

Humble yourself before a mighty God and plead for him to move.

You see, he calls us to do these four kinds of movements of prayer supplications, prayers, intercessions, and thanksgivings.

You see, George Knight, professor of New Testament at Greenville Presbyterian Theological Semine Seminary, Seminary, in Taylor, South Carolina, translate these four movements of petitioning God as follows.

So let's look at these.

Supplications means making requests for specific needs.

Supplications, making requests for specific needs, prayer, bringing those in view before God, bringing those who have the specific needs in view before God.

Intercessions, appealing boldly on their behalf.

And then thanksgivings, giving thanks for them.

You see, these four movements of petition are intertwined in fulfilling the scope of prayer that we're called to.

It's an evangelistic prayer that pleads for God to bring salvation to people.

I love how specific these definitions are.

Notice they don't have unspokens anywhere in there.

I hate unspoken prayer requests with my inner being.

I will tell people, I will not pray for your unspoken.

I won't do it.

I don't know what it is.

I have no idea.

It could be all kinds of crazy stuff.

It could be like harm on someone else, it could be like some type of voodoo prayer, something where you're just wishing.

I I don't know.

I just ain't praying for it.

Especially if it's like my my pet, like my cat.

I love animals to a measure.

They don't have souls.

I didn't, that's how God created them.

So therefore, moving on.

Animal people are great people.

In fact, the Bible calls us to pray for all people.

Let's transition into that.

This is what the Bible says, for all people.

This is an evangelistic prayer in nature that pleads for God to bring salvation to all people.

This phrase, all, is universal in nature.

While there are two other alls in this passage of scripture that are not universal in nature, this one is.

Now we have to work to see the whole picture of God's counsel here.

You see, this all is speaking about to whom our prayers are to be made about.

We do not share in the same divine omniscience of God.

We are not brought into the unfolding of his full will.

We see in a mirror dimly, the Bible says, as the scripture tells us, only enabling us to see parts and pieces of God and his will.

Now, what that means, though, is that what he has revealed to us through his word, through the person and work of Jesus, is sufficient but not exhaustive.

We will spend eternally completely discovering who God is.

I love what theologians kind of reflect on the picture of God's throne as angels circle his throne crying, holy, holy, holy.

It's a direct response that is every time they make full circle, they see another attribute, another aspect of the beauty, glory, and majesty of who God is.

And as in the midst of that discovery, that divine discovery, their only response is holy, holy.

So we will eternally seek to discover the fullness of who God is because he is that expansive.

Yet what he has revealed to us is sufficient to know him and to know his will.

The thrust of this urging is to cause us to be in prayer for the scope of all humanity, for every ethnicity, religion, gender, social ranking, age, etc.

Since we cannot gaze into the fullness of God's will for whom he might save, we plead for him to save them all.

Verse 2, for kings and all who are in high positions, that we may lead a peaceful and quiet life, godly and dignified in every way.

See, here the scope is brought even more into focus.

We see that our prayers should also include those who rule over us.

Now, how relevant is this today?

We reside in arguably the most polarizing government culture in American history.

I don't care what side of the line you stand on, you stand far on that line.

You see, culture seems to be on two sides of this position.

We either argue to defend our position and our heroes who embody them, or we argue to tear down others' positions and their enemies who embody them.

Either way, what you have is a grave absence of sincere prayer.

We don't pray for people in power.

We don't pray for those who are in authority and rule over us.

You see, we often misunderstand the thrust of this charge.

It's not a command to support those in power.

No, that's absolutely absurd.

Especially in the context of this passage of Scripture.

You see, the Bible charges us that in our lives, living among rulers, that we should submit to them, be obedient, be subject, not speak evil against, oh, and so often miss that we should pray for them.

Let's think about the context of which this passage of scripture is being written.

Nero was the ruler of this time.

The Roman emperor who was reigning when Paul had penned this letter.

Now, were the people of the church supposed to support Nero?

Were they supposed to be on his side and behind him in every regard?

No, now if our theology is good, we would affirm a few things.

Number one, we would affirm that Nero was placed in power, ultimately by God.

Romans 13.

For there, for there is no authority except from God, and those that exist have been instituted by God.

The church was called to honor and subject themselves to him.

1 Peter 2, be subject for the Lord's sake to every human institution, whether it be the Emperor as supreme.

And they were called to pray for him.

Now, why is this such a crazy statement?

Well, let's look at the history of Nero.

You see, Nero, one of his greatest uh legacies is his persecution of Christian people.

Some of the ways that he would persecute Christian people would be this: he would kill wild beasts and he would gut them, and then he would take a living Christian and he would put them in their carcass, sew them up, and then have wild dogs eat at them.

He would dip them in shirts of candle wax, crucify them in his own garden, and light them on fire to create light in the night.

He would hang them upside down and skin them alive, with their flesh being trophies for his soldiers.

Some historians would even say that he was even directly involved in the executions and martyrdoms of both the Apostle Peter and Paul, of whom I quoted, to honor, to submit, to pray for.

You see, nowhere does the Bible say support, but the Bible continually calls us to subject, to not speak evil, because every authority and power is instituted by God alone.

So it doesn't matter if you hate our current president, have you prayed for him?

Did you hate our last president?

Have you prayed for him?

Have you prayed more than you've complained?

Have you prayed more than you've slandered, gossiped, backbited?

Have you prayed for God to save them?

Because neither, none, who will be instituted currently are our saviors.

Or reflect the character of the Savior we serve.

But do we pray?

You see, we're never called to support or blindly endorse those in power.

We have a more supreme ruler, we have a more true morality, we have a higher calling to conduct ourselves.

So why are we called to pray for them?

Paul gives us a direct explanation.

So that the church might go forth without trouble or issue.

You see, if the rulers of the world were doing what they were supposed to do, enforcing the law and word of God, the church would be able to live in peace and minister without persecution.

So we pray for God to save them and we pray for them to conduct themselves in such a way that we might live at peace, dignified.

Verses 3 and 4.

This is good.

What's good?

Praying for all people, especially those in power.

And it's pleasing in the sight of God, our Savior, who desires all people to be saved and come to the knowledge of the truth.

Who desires all?

Who desires all?

This can come as a difficult part of the passage for some of us.

Now, whether we come from a position of Jesus' death as atonement for every single person throughout history, or we hold to a more historical doctrine of predestination and election, when we read this, there is a tension felt.

Now, my aim in walking slowly through this part of the passage is not to defend myself or the doctrine that Mystio holds on salvation.

My aim as one of your pastors is to help display for you how we approach the scriptures in our own studies.

How do we seek understanding of truth and knowledge?

Now, two things we need to understand about studying scripture.

I'll give you two big things.

Number one, context is king.

Context is king.

Number two, scripture interprets scripture.

Let's look at the first one, context.

We have to ask who is saying it, to whom are they saying it?

What are they saying, and why are they saying it?

Let's look at the bookends of this passage of scripture.

You see, Paul's admonishment to pray for all people is uniquely defined or qualified by what?

By people of power.

When Paul says pray for all people, he uniquely defines and qualifies what he means by that by people in power.

Paul's legitimizing efforts at the end of this passage of scripture of his ministry are then also uniquely defined by Gentile people.

You see, in this time period, there were no Christian or Jewish kings.

All leaders were pagan Gentiles.

So when Paul admonishes the church to pray for all people, and then he qualifies his ministry by that which goes to the Gentiles, what he's trying to do is broaden the scope of whom the gospel is for.

He was trying to get the church at Ephesus to not be so inclusive and sucked into their own culture and their own selves.

He was trying to help them understand that there is, which we'll get into, one God, one mediator, one gospel for all people.

And it stretches beyond ourselves, especially to those in power and authority.

Now, if we look at scripture interpreting scripture, we have to understand this: that scripture itself is self-interpreting.

We have to pursue an understanding of all of Scripture for a more robust understanding.

We can't isolate Scripture and create doctrine out of it.

We've tried to do that for so long, right?

Some of us try to approach Scripture like it's a golden corral buffet.

You can't do that.

You can't just pick what you want and then leave off everything else that you don't like.

Why you're at golden corral anyway, I'm not sure.

But nonetheless, we can't isolate a passage of scripture and try to build a doctrine out.

We can't go, boom, there it is.

Proof, evidence.

No, no.

We have to look at the whole scope of Scripture.

See, God has revealed Himself in all of Scripture, and all of it is beneficial in gaining wisdom and understanding.

Another key point of this is that we have to understand that larger themes help to identify the meaning of smaller instances.

Larger themes help to identify the meaning of smaller instances.

So when we see something that tends to contradict or seemingly contradicts what we know to be true by reading scripture, we don't take the small instance and try to make an argument out of it.

We look at the whole of scripture and try to interpret the small instance in the midst of the grander theme.

So when we look at all of Scripture from Genesis to Revelation, we see God pursuing actively those whom he would save, right?

Who chose who?

God or Adam?

Adam had no free will to be created.

He had no choice.

He had no say in the matter.

God created him.

Who chose who?

God or Abraham?

Who chose who?

God or Noah?

Who chose who?

God or Joseph?

Who chose who?

God or David.

We look, this isn't just a New Testament paradigm.

This is God whose will be accomplished, pursuing and calling to himself those whom he would save.

So when we look at the grander theme, it helps us to identify and interpret the smaller instance.

In sum, this passage in the all statement that will follow is more accurately understood as all types, all types of people.

Because Paul's main influence in communicating this to us is not to make a statement on God's plan for salvation as much as it is to push the scope of our prayer life.

No nation of the earth and no rank of society is excluded from the offering of salvation, since God's will for us is to offer it to all without exception.

Verses five and six, for there is one God, and there is one mediator between God and man, the man Christ Jesus, who gave himself as a ransom for all, which is the testimony given at the proper time.

One God, one mediator.

This is universal truth.

This is a radically exclusive statement.

There is one way to be reconciled to God the Father, and it's through the person and work of Jesus.

No matter who you are, what rank in society you hold, where you live, what culture you're a part of, there is one exclusive truth and one exclusive way to salvation.

The mediator, the man, Christ Jesus, who gave himself as a ransom.

Anselm of Canterbury, the Archbishop of Canterbury from 1093 to 1109, says it this way Salvation could not have been done unless man paid what was owing to God for sin.

But the debt was so great that while man alone owed it, only God could pay it.

So that the same person must be man and God.

Thus it was necessary for God to take manhood into the unity of his person, so that he in his own nature ought to pay and could not, should be in a person who could.

Only Jesus was able to pay the debt we owed, and it is only through Jesus that we are able to be gifted such rich benefits of his work.

You see, there was this eternal debt that we owed because of our sin and rebellion.

Now it was our responsibility to pay it, but we checked the bank account and it was negative.

There was nothing that we could do to ever even begin paying back God that which he owed him.

But it counted against man.

And so God in his gracious, loving work, sent forth his son Jesus to become one of us, so that a God who had the resources to pay it could represent man who owed the debt and complete the work of reconciliation on our behalf.

Now, what about the all here?

A ransom for all.

If all means universal here, then what does it mean about the person of Jesus?

What does it say about his accomplishments?

You see, we don't believe in a God who does not accomplish that which he wills.

He perfectly accomplishes all that he wills because he is perfectly powerful and able to do so.

You see, we serve a mighty God whose arm is not too short to save or who is too weak to accomplish the task necessary to save his people.

We believe in a gospel where there is not one drop of blood wasted, but it is perfectly poured out for those of whom he would save.

Jesus is not weak.

Jesus did not die for possibility.

Even in our theology, we have to understand this.

If Christ paid the ransom, you then must either understand this text in for all, in its true purpose, which is all types, or you have to understand it in a universal base.

Christ paid the ransom for all people.

And that means that that salvation would then be guaranteed universal.

Because when a person comes to heaven and says, Well, God, I didn't believe in the gospel, I didn't believe in this uh this saving work of Jesus, but then he checks the record, well, Christ paid for your ransom, sir.

Christ paid for it.

It's good.

Or do we approach heaven and say, Well, Jesus did pay for that?

I remember crushing him.

I remember turning my back on him, but he paid for it, but I'm gonna make you pay for it again.

Now, that's weak theology.

That's not a definite work of atonement that we see in the scripture.

Christ paid the price to guarantee our salvation, not for a chance.

We don't go to heaven and see the riches of his ransom laid out before us, and God still say that's insufficient.

No.

There is a better and more faithful way to understand this.

There's only one God, one Savior, and one ransom for everyone.

Therefore, there is only one gospel for everyone.

So we should be above all a praying people.

Because Jesus is the one and only way.

Verse 7, for this I was appointed a preacher and apostle.

I'm telling the truth, I'm not lying, a teacher of the Gentiles in faith and truth.

See, Paul summarizes his charge to Timothy to call the church at Ephesus to be a praying people for this.

For what?

That the one true gospel of Jesus would go out to all people.

So here's our main idea.

The Great Commission demands the Great Intercession.

The Great Commission demands the Great Intercession.

Jesus' commission for his church is powered and equally accomplished through prayer.

If we truly understood the scope of mission, we would be driven to revival prayer.

Our prayer life should model and echo the image of the mission at hand.

Since the gospel scope is for all, the church's concern should be for all, reaching them in earnest prayer and in urgent witness.

We should be a people, a church who prays for revival.

Revival in this city, revival in this nation, revival in this world, that the Spirit of God would be drawing men unto himself, since we cannot see in the future the omniscient will of God, where he has predestined, elected men to be saved.

We're just, we are just finite beings.

We are servants of him.

And so therefore we pray for all because we should bring the gospel to all.

But we fail to do this.

We fail in our strivings.

We fail in the absence of our strivings.

Some of us fail to pray because we fail to see the scope of war.

Some of us fail to pray because we fail to see the scope of war.

We don't set our gaze on the vastness of mission.

Too often our eyes are fixed on our own circumstances.

We have a narrow prayer life because we have a narrow vision of God's plan and purposes.

How many times are we just so focused on ourselves?

Right?

All of our prayers to relieve us of these sufferings and struggles and trials that we are going through.

I love the way one of my pastors used to put it.

Our life is kind of like, imagine you're a child and there's the back alley of your house, there's a circus going by, and you hear the noise and you see some of the some of the imagery, and so you run out to the backyard, but you got this huge privacy fence, and you can't get up over it.

You're just a child.

But you know that there's this one hole in the fence, so you go and run to it, put your eye up there to try and see what you can, and right there is just an elephant pooping.

Like that's all you can see.

But if you could get above that fence, if you could see the wholeness of the beauty of that parade, of the color, of the sound, of the livelihood, of the dancing, of all the actors, you would be able to enjoy the full scope of what's there.

So many of us are that kid looking through the hole in the fence.

That's all we focus on.

That's all we can see.

We don't have an eternal vision.

Our scope of mission is so narrow.

I love what Pastor John Piper says.

Until you know that life is war, you cannot know what prayer is for.

Our war is so often on ribboning our own circumstances that we neglect the need for prayer for the global church and those who are to be added to it.

Some of us fail to pray because we're too distracted from mission.

We're too distracted from mission.

We are soldiers on a battlefield with our arms full of distracting, useless weapons.

God has called us to participate in a war for the gospel, in a war for people to be saved, and we drop our most effective weapon to the ground.

You see, we have to pray.

We have to pray.

When it comes to our understanding of prayer and our understanding of the reach of the gospel, the question is not, do we pray like the devil's real?

You see, that that's the wrong question to ask.

Do we pray like the devil's real?

Of course he's real.

His this adversary that roams the earth like a roaring lion, he is real and he is against God's people.

The question isn't, is the devil real though?

The real question to our prayer life is do we pray like God is even real?

Do we pray like he can actually accomplish these things?

Do we pray like he is all-powerful, all-knowing, all-encompassing, majestic, holy?

Do you pray for your children like God is real?

Like he can save them?

Do you pray for your family members like God is real, like he can save them?

Do you pray for this nation and our leadership like God is real and he can do something about it?

Do you pray for the things that are happening in our culture when we look at the wickedness that is being celebrated and elevated to just normal day function?

Do we pray like God is real?

Not like the devil's real, but like God is real and he can do something about it.

Or do we just sit there silent?

Do we just sit there silent and hope for the best?

Do we bunker down in our bomb shelter and just pray it passes over us?

But the beauty of the gospel is that Jesus' prayers are effective for the accomplishment of his mission.

Jesus' prayers are effective for the accomplishment of his mission.

Even in our failure to pray, we have one who prayed for us and for those we fail to pray for.

Looking at John 17, Jesus' high priestly prayer in verses one through three, Jesus says this: when Jesus has spoken these words, he lifted up his eyes to heaven and said, Father, the hour has come.

Glorify your son, that the Son may glorify you, since you have given him authority over all flesh, to give eternal life to all whom you have given him.

And this is eternal life, that they know you, the only true God, in Jesus Christ, whom you have sent.

Jesus prayed for you.

If you have faith in the gospel, if you've been saved, if you place your trust in Jesus, it is because Christ prayed for you, and it is because his prayers were effective for the accomplishment of his mission.

Christ prayed for you.

That you might be saved, that you would be saved by through his power and purchasing of the authority and right to give salvation to whom the Father had given him, you are saved.

Praise God.

And not only has he prayed for us to know his salvation, but he continues to pray for us in eternal care as his children.

Hebrews 7 25.

Consequently, he is able to save to the uttermost those who draw near to God through him, since he always lives to make intercession for them.

Christ continually, eternally, perpetually interceding for his children.

What comfort, what assurance that should give to us as believers not to rest from mission, but to run headfirst into mission.

You see, he has guaranteed our salvation.

He has prayed effectively for us, and then he continues to intercede on our behalf.

What care, what confidence we should run headfirst into this battlefield.

Because we have Christ.

Because we have Christ.

And so, church, what do we do in response to this?

What do we do in response to this passage of scripture?

Well, pray.

What more can we walk away from this sermon and seek to apply to our lives but to pray?

But if we're all honest, to build a stronger spiritual discipline of prayer in our lives is something we could really all strive for.

It's something that we could all foster and cultivate and build up in our own spiritual lives.

But it's not enough for me to say, leave now and pray more.

We need instruction, insight on how to build such a discipline into our lives.

Because that's what it is.

At the end of the day, it's a discipline.

You have to build it into our lives.

It's not going to come intrinsically or naturally.

Some of you, I believe God has supernaturally gifted for more fervent prayer life than others.

I believe that is a spiritual gift that the Holy Spirit imparts into certain individuals that isn't shared universally throughout the body.

But the call to pray, the admonishment to pray, the benefit of prayer is for the body at large.

And so for some of us, we strive and struggle to develop a discipline of prayer and we fail.

I fail.

I fail.

And so I tried to work through a list of what would help me, and I hope that this helps you to build a better discipline of prayer in your lives.

Here's some practical steps to begin building that discipline.

Number one, prepare to pray.

Prepare to pray.

And I've got three supporting points for this.

A lot of peace happening.

A lot of peace.

Prepare to pray.

Number one, set apart time.

If it's important to you, you will schedule for it.

Plain and simple.

If it's important to you, you will schedule for it.

This is something me and my wife have tried to learn over the uh years of our marriage.

Uh, scheduling date nights, scheduling family worship time, scheduling things uh that we we have to say, if this is important to us, we are going to put it on the calendar and we're going to schedule for it because we want to make sure that it gets done.

Now, does that work 100%?

No, but I will tell you something, it works more often than it fails.

If it's important to you, schedule it.

If we wait for moments, when we discover them, we'll fill them with vanity.

If we wait for moments, look, think about rest.

If rest is important to you, we should schedule rest.

What happens when we don't schedule rest?

And we discover a moment where we don't have to do anything, we just fill it with vanity.

You're gonna fill it with your Instagram feed, your Facebook feed, you're gonna fill it with Netflix, you're gonna fill it with vanity.

Because you didn't proactively pursue rest, you uh just discovered it.

A moment came.

And because you weren't ready, you filled it with vanity.

You know what I'm saying?

I do this all the time.

If we wait for moments, when we discover them, we'll fill them with vanity.

Schedule it, schedule it, schedule it.

Number two, withdraw.

Withdraw, get away from distractions.

Discover solitude so that you can pray with purpose.

Get away from TV, get away from your phone, get away from anything that beeps, buzzes.

Even children, they beep and buzz, get away from them if you can.

If you're a parent and you know how that can be, you're trying to go to the bathroom and you see these tiny little fingers come underneath.

Mom, mom, mom, mom.

Uh withdraw.

Try to withdraw from your children.

If your children wake up at 5, try to get up at 4 30 and pray.

If your children wake up at 6, try to get up at 5 30 and pray.

If your children go to bed at 6 30, start praying at 7 p.m.

You don't have to do all this in the morning.

That's no, there's nowhere is there a mandate from God in the scriptures.

You thou must do it before the suneth rise.

You don't have to.

You just pray.

Withdraw.

Discover solitude.

Number three, posture yourself.

Posture yourself.

Listen, church, prayer has a voice.

Prayer has a voice.

Pray out loud.

Pray out loud.

Don't let prayer contend with your never-ceasing thoughts.

I know when I pray silently, my prayer words in my brain are constantly at war with my thought words in my brain.

And then I get on some tangent of like thinking, and then I just forget what I was even praying for, and it's like 15 minutes later, right?

And somehow I got to like, I don't even know.

The places that my mind goes is supernatural, supernatural.

But look, don't let prayer contend with your thoughts.

Pray with a voice.

Pray out loud.

Posture yourself.

If you got to get on your knees to pray, if you have to lay prostrate before the Lord on your belly and pray, if you have to stand and uh pace back and forth like a panther in the zoo, do that.

That's what I do.

I just pace.

I like like I'm getting ready to walk into a ring and fight somebody.

I just go back and forth, back and forth.

And when we have elder prayer, some of the elders just sit there and that's their posture of prayer.

Praise God.

Some of them do other things.

Mine is pacing.

I don't know why, but I love it.

That's how I do.

So that's prepare to pray.

Set apart time, withdraw, posture yourself.

Number two, practice your prayer.

Practice your prayer.

A lot of you would say you're horrible at prayer.

Yeah, probably.

You probably are horrible.

I'm horrible.

When you try to sling words together on the fly, most of you are gonna do a bad job at that.

That's okay, though, right?

Practice your prayer.

Number one is pray scripture.

Pray scripture.

Begin with praying through the Psalms.

Just crack open to Psalm 1.

Read the first section of Psalm 1, and then just pray that passage over your life and the life of others.

The Lord's given you a prayer guide, right?

It's called His Word.

Like if you're not good at it, use the script.

Don't try and go freeform.

Pray the scriptures.

Number two, pray specifically.

Pray specifically.

When we saw Paul's charge for supplications, prayers, intercessions, thanksgiving, there was this scope of specificity there, right?

Keep a journal of prayer requests.

Write them down.

Follow up with them.

If you prayed for somebody that day, text them and let them know that you pray for them.

Say, hey, I pray for this.

I'd love to know if you make way or if you see God moving in this, and I'd love to pray again for the next steps of what you're believing God for.

Write that down.

Keep a list of the things that you should be praying for.

Your prayers should be like arrows.

And you should be seeking to make the strike with maximum impact.

Don't pray so broadly, pray specifically.

And then thirdly, is wrestle with your prayers.

Wrestle with your prayers.

Many of us don't pray because we aren't good at it.

Listen, God never cares about the eloquence of your speech, he only cares about the sincerity and faith of the heart delivering them.

Of course, you're bad.

Like who are you comparing yourself to anyway?

Jesus?

Like he's a much better prayer than you.

That's just so pray his prayers.

He gave you one.

Our Father who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name.

Pray that.

Pray and wrestle with the fact that you're not good, and then pray and wrestle and striving to believe that God doesn't care.

You're his child, and he loves you.

And to petition him to move gives him great delight and pleasure.