Chapter 3 - Abiding with Christ Through Prayer and Fasting

I was with Hammer when he had the “MC” at the front of his name. When I was a teenager, I was a sucker for any popular artist that would throw in a Christian-themed song on their album. I would even accept a shout out to God in the CD liner. That was the only justification I needed to listen to all the other songs on the album that definitely did not have a Christian theme.

MC Hammer was well known for the hit “Can’t Touch This” but he also did well with the song “Pray.” A little known fact is that “Pray" was actually his biggest hit on the Billboard Hot 100. In “Pray” Hammer hits the nail on the head over and over again as he used the word "pray" 147 times during the song. This is the record for the number of times a song title is repeated in an American Top 40 hit. I think the great theologian Hammer was just pounding home his point, “We got to pray just to make it today.”

Hammer’s repetitive tool had a worthy purpose. If a believer wants to reach spiritual healthiness, then praying is a prerequisite. We all know this. But I don’t think we really understand this. Prayer is one of the most misunderstood aspects of Christianity. Probably right behind *transubstantiation vs consubstantiation. 

The idea of prayer is typically something we know about and is probably something that was taught to us very early on. I actually have no recollection of what I first prayed, but my wife remembers her first prayer. Like a lot of kids, she had a bedtime prayer ritual with her parents. Her first prayer was:

       “Now I lay me down to sleep.

       I pray the Lord my soul to keep.

       If I die before I wake,

       I pray the Lord my soul to take.  Amen.”

Ummmmm…I’m not so sure a 4-year-old should pray every night “If I die before I wake.” I’m convinced that nighttime routine is why my wife likes horror films.

I was fortunate to grow up in a home where prayer was taught and shown. Early on I was praying even though I don’t remember what I was praying about. Maybe you didn’t grow up in a Christian home and praying was more foreign. Maybe you were older when you said your first prayer so you remember it vividly. Maybe you still have yet to pray. I want you to know I’m glad you are reading this book. I am praying as I write this that God would speak to you and you would understand His love for you and you would put your faith and trust in Jesus.

In our culture prayer is important only in theory. In the aftermath of a tragic event, a lot of thoughts and prayers are said to be “with” people. At least there is an awareness that supernatural help is necessary. However, prayer is much more than good vibes sent someone’s way.

Deep down a lot of us know we really need to pray, but in a moment of honesty, we’d have to admit we don’t pray because we don’t genuinely believe it works. There are plenty of people who claim to love Jesus but don’t pray because some time ago a request went “unanswered.” Sure, they might lob a prayer grenade here and there, but they aren’t really getting on their knees and seeking God.

No doubt, it can be a frustrating experience to pray and pray and ask God for something and the answer you desire never comes. Chirp chirp. That seems to be the sound from Heaven when God doesn’t seem to care what you are praying. This can be difficult to understand because your prayer may have been perfectly legitimate. You weren’t asking for a banking error to deposit a million dollars into your account (although that would be nice). You were pleading with God to heal a child. And not only did He not answer your prayer the way you wanted, things got drastically worse. It’s in those moments, understandably, many people decide, “That’s it, I’m done with prayer; it’s just a waste of time. God doesn’t hear me. God’s going to do whatever He wants no matter what I pray.” That’s when your prayer life flatlined.

I understand that dilemma. The reason most people pray is to get something. We view prayer like a cosmic vending machine, we hope to press the right button and get what we want out of it. When we get what we want, it’s great, and when we don’t, we assume something is broken.

In this book, we are going to spend a lot of time in Paul’s letter to the church in Ephesus. In Chapter 3, Paul explains one reason he prays. 14 For this reason I bow my knees before the Father, 15 from whom every family in heaven and on earth is named, 16 that according to the riches of his glory he may grant you to be strengthened with power through his Spirit in your inner being, 17 so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith—that you, being rooted and grounded in love, 18 may have strength to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth, 19 and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled with all the fullness of God.

Paul’s request is for his readers to be strengthened in better comprehension of the love of Christ. This is a comforting prayer, but I find it interesting that Paul tells them his physical posture when he prays. It was important for Paul to let us know that when he prays for them, he does so bowing before the Father.

When is the last time you bowed for anything? Bowing isn’t a typical act in our culture. You have probably heard the phrase, “Take a bow.” This is simply someone humbly accepting the applause of others. Paul is expressing how he humbly prays by acknowledging Someone greater.

It isn’t a requirement to pray kneeling down. I have led thousands of prayers standing. In fact, Jesus once used a tax collector as the hero of a story. Luke 18:13 But the tax collector, standing far off, would not even lift up his eyes to heaven, but beat his breast, saying, ‘God, be merciful to me, a sinner!’ 14 I tell you, this man went down to his house justified, rather than the other. For everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, but the one who humbles himself will be exalted. (emphasis mine)”

The issue isn’t a literal standing or kneeling. The true issue is our emotional posture. That’s why Jesus said the tax collector went home justified because he humbled himself. We must make sure our hearts and wills are bowed in submission to the God to whom we are praying. It is what Jesus meant when he taught his disciples to pray in this way, “Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name. Your kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.” In prayer we are to bow our hearts and our wills and our minds to God saying, God may your will be done in this prayer, in this request.

Your physical posture is important if it correlates to the attitude in which you are praying. But your posture isn’t the only aspect that is important in prayer. So is your place.

In Matthew, Jesus taught on prayer: Matt 6:5 “When you pray, don’t be like the hypocrites who love to pray publicly on street corners and in the synagogues where everyone can see them. I tell you the truth, that is all the reward they will ever get. 6 But when you pray, go away by yourself, shut the door behind you, and pray to your Father in private. Then your Father, who sees everything, will reward you.

Jesus begins His prayer talk like a realtor. Location, location, location. Jesus states that where you go to pray is important. Yes, it is true you can pray anywhere and anytime. But Jesus mentions there is a good place and bad place to pray. The reason isn’t because there’s something supernatural about the physical place. His focus is on the motive of the space you choose to pray.

Jesus mentions first the place of prayer for the hypocrite - the street corner. “Hypocrite” was a common term referencing actors. Jesus is thus referring to a group of religious people who wanted others to see how religious they were, so they performed public prayers in order to be seen.

Jesus says that people who pray in that way will get a reward, but that reward is simply praise from people. That’s all they’re going to get. They are only going to get a congratulatory pat on the back and a spiritual “Atta girl! You stood out there and prayed for an entire hour. You are soooo spiritual!” That’s your whole reward.

Just for the record, Jesus isn’t against all public praying. John 11:41b Then Jesus looked up to heaven and said, “Father, thank you for hearing me. 42 You always hear me, but I said it out loud for the sake of all these people standing here, so that they will believe you sent me. Jesus is on record praying out loud. He’s not against public praying but He is against pretentious praying. Jesus is saying prayer is not about impressing people - prayer is a personal and intimate conversation with God.

For most of us, that does not reflect our prayer life. Most of us pray on the run. We pray that quick prayer before walking into the big meeting. Or before we go to the doctor’s appointment. But you have to admit a relationship is different when you intentionally set aside time for someone. It’s a special and unique relationship when you’ve intentionally changed the calendar to take the time to talk and meet with someone one on one.

I love the promise Jesus gives: “Then your Father, who sees everything, will reward you.” The Greek word here for “reward” means give back. This causes some confusion. Some people reason that if the reward comes from praying in private, it’s time to make a prayer closet and get to praying. This screams manipulation. It’s trying to find the right cheat code to get the advantage you so desire. The real reward has less to do with the temporary and more to do with the eternal.

The reward isn’t getting everything you want, but that the God who created the world, the King of kings, the Lord of lords, steps into a personal moment and spends time with little ‘ol you. The reward is a richer relationship. God invented prayer for you and Him to hang out and be together. Prayer has nothing to do with people noticing or affirming you. It’s about God seeing you and spending special moments with you. This is a relationship characterized by transparency and intimacy.

Imagine if the only time you ever talked to or spent time with a close friend, or a romantic partner was for short times at random moments during the week. If all of your communication was brief and superficial, you could be on the same couch with that person and feel completely disconnected. Connection comes from intention. If you intentionally plan time to be together and seize that opportunity to know one another, intimacy will increase. The same is true with our relationship with God. The space doesn’t have to be filled with words but the space should be filled with His presence.

Because here’s the reality - we can talk to God the rest of our lives and never feel connected to Him. If we don’t go to a place where we intentionally meet with God, we are missing out. The strength of our relationship will grow when we decide to spend time with God regularly. There’s nothing magical about the location of the space, but there is something amazing about being focused and intentional about your time.

In the New Testament, the two primary Greek words used for time are chronos and kairos. Chronos is clock time. We get chronological from this word. In mythology, Chronos was the name of a short Greek god whose legs were muscular and whose heels were winged. He moved fast but he had the worst hair cut known to man. He unfortunately was said to have a reverse mullet. He had hair in the front but was bald in the back. The implication was that if you could grab him as he came toward you, you could take hold of him and make him do what you want. But it was too late if he went ahead since he was “Mr. Clean” in the back, you couldn’t grab him. Time had passed you by. 

Kairos is vastly different. Kairos is time as substance, it is non-sequential and indivisible. Kairos means the "right or opportune moment." This is God’s category of time. Wise and healthy living is not focusing on literal seconds and minutes but for us to make those seconds and minutes count for something bigger and better. We must seize the time and use it for good.

No matter how long your chronos time is, life is short compared to eternity. We don’t know how much time we are given. All we know is that we have the present second in which we are existing. We don’t know when the seconds run out. So we must surrender the gift of time He has given us back to Him second by second. We don’t need to get caught up in what the future will look like, but how are we doing right now. I’m not saying we don’t need vision or good planning. I’m saying vision and planning don’t amount to much unless you are faithful and obedient in the current moment.

We must seize the divine moments every chance we have. For this to happen, we must change time zones from chronos to kairos. We need to take our eyes off of the clock and put our focus on God. This is where prayer comes back in to the conversation. Again, prayer is less about requests and more about the relationship that you have with God. If you have any type of relationship with someone you would not want that person only conversing with you when he or she wanted something. How annoying, right?

Prayer is an avenue to ask requests of God, but it is how we talk to and with God about anything and everything. It is our chance to communicate in the relationship. In any relationship, you want to communicate in a variety of ways. Sometimes that looks like chit chat. Other times you want a chance to express feelings, you want to bring serious needs. The desire can also be to celebrate collectively. Overall you want to be strengthened in weakness.

If your prayer life is unhealthy, maybe you aren’t focused on the relationship and caught more so in the chronos time zone. Your focus is only on current needs. To get out of this time zone, you must remember how fortunate you are that you even have the opportunity to meet with God. We must hunger for the relationship more than the intercession and petition. Discovering the pleasure of His presence is learning that prayer is not a monologue but a dialogue. And our part of the conversation doesn’t have to be a performance where we pretend to be the holiest person we can be. “Oh how I praiseth theth God up aboveth. Thine is the glory thy Lordth.” The words you pick aren’t like ordering off the secret menu at In and Out.

Jesus said. 7 “When you pray, don’t babble on and on as the Gentiles do. They think their prayers are answered merely by repeating their words again and again. 8 Don’t be like them, for your Father knows exactly what you need even before you ask him! Talk with God in a way where you are self-aware enough to know what you are praying. We all probably know people that when they pray they constantly say “Father God.” If you talked to me and threw in “Pastor John” every 2 seconds I would say “Yo, I got it, I’m Pastor John.” Just talk to God normally. It’s a relationship!

Prayer is simply being with God. The basis of real prayer is longing after relationship. Healthier relationships never keep their eye on the clock. When I get home, my wife doesn’t announce, “You got 5 minutes to tell me about your day…go.” How off putting would that be? But that is often what we do when we come into God’s presence. We will let God know He has 10 minutes before our favorite show starts or He’s got 5 minutes before we have to get ready for work.

God longs for an intimate relationship with you more than anything. He’s proved that time and time again. God wants us to understand the fullness of who He is and what He wants for us. But that will not happen randomly and occasionally.

If the only time you pray is when you need something, you’re not going to have a rich relationship with God. What you will have is jealousy and confusion. You’ll see people who have this close connection to God and think, “God must like them more than me.” No, this can happen for anyone who would go into their room, close the door, and be intentional about spending time with Him.

So where is that place for you? When is that time? In my life, nothing happens randomly. I run into people, when I see them, I say, “We should get together,” but it never happens unless I intentionally make a plan to get together with them. The same thing happens with God. I don’t just “find time” to get alone and pray, I have to make time. It has to be intentional or it will never happen.

If you can’t find the time, then take something out of your schedule. Maybe it means that you don’t check your all your social media first thing in the morning or before bed every night. For others, it may mean that you don’t watch TV or play video games for hours. For some, it means waking up a little earlier. If you don’t have the time, cut something else out. If you don’t make time, it’ll never happen.

Find a place with few distractions where you can get alone, just you and God. Then close the door and spend time with Him. I don’t want you to spend your whole life missing out on what God ultimately has for you. I don’t want any of us to wake up one day so disappointed with God because we pleaded and pleaded with Him, thinking that was all there was to prayer.

What a tragedy! Prayer is not just asking and waiting like a spiritual Christmas letter to the Santa of the sky. Prayer is the incredible opportunity for us to have an intimate connection, a vibrant relationship with God Almighty.

“We need to pray
Just to make it today
That's word, we pray”

*Just a joke.