*WHY WE DO NOT PRAY*

Christians have a multitude of EXCUSES as to why they do not pray, but these can be boiled down to four basic ones:

*. ”LACK OF TIME”*: Most Christians acknowledge that prayer is necessary but they cannot find time to commune with God. They have forfeited the best things for good things. This excuse usually shows where our hearts really are, for men do what they want to do. We are told to “redeem the time” (Eph5:16), and prayer is a good way to do it. Part of our spiritual warfare is to make time to pray.
NOTE: Martin Luther said, “I have so much business I cannot get along without spending three hours daily in prayer.”

*B. ”LACK OF KNOWLEDGE”*: Some Christians claim that they do not know how to pray. Perhaps they have thought of prayer as some emotional experience and they have never had it. Real prayer is as natural for the Christian as breathing, for it is simply talking with God. Besides, a knowledge of how to pray can be gained by a diligent reading of the Bible.
NOTE: It is one thing to know about prayer and another thing to be praying in the Spirit. We need to talk less about prayer and pray more.

*C. ”LACK OF RESULTS”*: A person may have tried praying but did not see instantaneous results so he became discouraged. We are told to keep on asking, expecting God to answer (Matt7:7,8). Christians must learn to persevere in prayer.

*D. ”LACK OF FAITH”*: This is undoubtedly the basic reason for failing to pray. We simply do not believe that the omnipotent God can meet our needs. The Lord’s word, “Oh, ye of little faith…” Mat8:26.

*PRAYER QUOTES:*

*Bible Illustrator:* It takes effort to pray well. It takes preparation to pray meaningfully. It takes diligence to pray faithfully. Yet prayer is not a burden, but a glorious opportunity that brings rich rewards.
*Biersdorf, John E.*: In prayer we have the courage, perhaps even the presumption and the arrogance or the audacity, to claim that God’s love can be operative in the very specific situations of human need that we encounter.
*Billheimer, Paul:* Prayer is not begging God to do something He hesitates to do. It is not overcoming reluctance in God. It is enforcing Christ’s victory over Satan. It is implementing upon earth heaven’s decision concerning the affairs of men.
*Blanchard, John:* No answer to prayer is an indication of our merit; every answer to prayer is an indication of God’s mercy.
*Boone, Wellington:* Prayer laid the tracks where the gospel was going to come.
*Booth, William:* Work as if everything depended upon work and pray as if everything depended on prayer.
*Bounds, E.M.:* The more praying there is in the world, the better the world will be; the mightier the forces against evil everywhere.
Prayer means to pray with God till you are like him. If we really pray, we will become more like God, or else we will quit praying.
God shapes the world by prayer. Prayers are deathless. They outlive the lives of those who utter them.
John Wesley spent two hours daily in prayer. He began at four in the morning. Of him, one who knew him well wrote: “He thought prayer to be his business more than anything else, and I have seen him come out of his closet with a serenity of face next to shining.
Trouble and prayer are closely related to each other. Prayer is of great value to trouble. Trouble often drives men to God in prayer. Prayer is but the voice of men in trouble.
We do more of everything else than of praying. As poor as our giving is, our contributions of money exceed our offerings of prayer. Perhaps in the average congregation, fifty aid in paying, where one saintly, ardent soul shuts itself up with God and wrestles for the deliverance of the heathen world. . . . We emphasize other things more than we do the necessity of prayer.
God shapes the world through prayer.
Prayer is a wonderful, powerful; tool placed by Almighty God in the hands of His saints, which may be used to accomplish great purposes and to achieve unusual results. Prayer reaches to everything, takes in all things great and small which are promised by God to men. The only limits to prayer are the promises of God and his ability to fulfill those promises.
Prayer is God’s life-giving breathe. God’s purposes move along the pathway made by prayer to their glorious designs. God’s purposes are always moving to their high and beneficial ends, but the movement is along the way marked by unceasing prayer. The breathe of prayer is from God.
To pray is the calmest things we can do, and to do it well, there must be calmness, time and deliberation.
God shapes the world by prayer. The more praying there is in the world the better the world will be, the mightier the forces against evil.
The prime need of the church is not men of money nor men of brains, but men of prayer.
What the church needs today is not more machinery or better, not new organizations or more novel methods, but people whom the Holy Spirit can use—people of prayer, people mighty in prayer. The Holy Spirit does not flow through methods, but through men and women. He does not come on machinery, but on men and women. He does not anoint plans, but men and women—men and women of prayer. AMEN