Do you pray to get things done? Do you believe some things will only occur if you pray, or that God can refuse to act until someone prays? How Jesus sees prayer An event in the life of Jesus clarified the relationship between prayer and God’s activity. Mark’s gospel tells the story of Jesus and three of His disciples who, along with Moses and Elijah, gathered on the Mt. of Transfiguration (Mark 9:2-8). In His absence, the other disciples at the base of the mountain were overwhelmed by a … [Read more...]

Does your morning schedule affect your prayer life? Is the time you pray important? Someone once said that there are two kinds of Christians: One wakes up and says, “Good morning, Lord!” The other says, “Good Lord…morning.” Should this difference affect your prayer life? The morning difference In the Harvard Business Review, Dr. Christoph Randler, a neuroscientist from the University of Tübingen, writes about the advantages of early rising. His research finds that early risers, “…get … [Read more...]

John Wesley took a dim view of pre-revival America, but he had a plan to change it. Wesley spent time in the colonies and reported, “I desired as many as could to join together in fasting and prayer, that God would restore the spirit of love and of a sound mind to the poor deluded rebels in America.” Even a side glance at the current cultural moment demonstrates that prayer and fasting are just as urgently needed for the “poor deluded rebels in America” today as they were when the nation … [Read more...]

EDITOR'S NOTE: This article was first published on Baptist Press here. Are you motivated to pray? The word “motivation” doesn’t appear in older dictionaries since it wasn’t coined until the mid-19th century and didn’t come into common use until the 20th century. The question of why we act as we do gave rise to a field of psychology determined to analyze the “motivation” of personal choices. Interest in the psychology of motivation continues to the present. What does any of this have to … [Read more...]