What really keeps us from praying as we should

I recorded an audio sermon that goes in many reasons people give why they just don’t get around to praying “as much as I should”. I hope you benefit from the full-length sermon on it. But in pondering it some more, I think one of the biggest reasons takes a 2^nd look. 

In my new audio sermon, I mentioned many things that keep us from praying -- like putting other things first (we call it being “busy”). Or sometimes we feel unworthy to come before God due to some recent sins. Those can certainly keep our prayers to a minimum. Much more is mentioned also in the sermon. But one way or another, since there’s hardly anything more important than prayer, we have to find a way to pray more.

So I’m going to focus on one of the key reasons I mention in the sermon but will draw out a bit further in this blog.

Think back when you fell in love with your sweetheart. Did you find it hard to find time to be together? Of course not. You two were inseparable. You probably – if you were like most – spent a lot of time in person AND on the phone when you couldn’t be in person. You enjoyed the time together. You looked forward to the next one and it couldn’t come soon enough.

I believe this is a huge key in helping us pray more often than we do. We are supposed to be getting married soon – once more – but this time it’s with Yeshua/Jesus Christ. We love Yeshua. And we adore our father – God Most High, God the Father. So when you love and adore someone, you’re there, often, and it’s enjoyable.

I believe this is the bottom line of rapturous prayer: you’re in love with your fiancé Yeshua and adore our Father. Like when you were dating the one you would marry, you will find it easier to pray when you deeply love the one you’re praying to!

But all too often, being in love gets to be old hack. We take our “loved one” for granted. Do you remember the song “You’ve lost that loving feeling”? Some of the words say, “You don’t close your eyes anymore, when I kiss your lips…”… “you’ve lost that loving feeling, and it’s gone, gone, gone….”

We can lose that first excitement and that “first love”. I know, I know – to love Christ is also to obey him (John 14:15). To love Him is also to love his brethren, the poor of his flock – “I was naked, and you clothed me, hungry and you fed me” and so on in Matthew 25:34-40. So it’s much more than a “loving feeling”. I get that. But I still also feel that I want a wife who not only does the work of being a housewife, but also loves to be with me, loves to go for walks with me, loves to hug and hold me – and me to hold her – even while we both do the works for each other that prove our love. I still like having “that loving feeling”.

So we can lose that first love. That’s what happened to Ephesus church. They still did all the works – but they weren’t excited about the relationship anymore, or so it seems. That’s what happens to US when we don’t pray “as much as I know I should”.   We’ve lost that excitement. If we had it in the beginning, we have to find a way to re-ignite it, to rekindle that fire of that first amorous desire to be together always. Here’s what’s said to the church:

Revelation 2:3-6 --- “…and you have persevered and have patience and have labored for My name's sake and have not become weary. 4 Nevertheless I have this against you, that you have left your first love. 5 Remember therefore from where you have fallen; repent and do the first works, or else I will come to you quickly and remove your lampstand from its place — unless you repent.”

Pray to Yeshua and God our Father about this very situation. TELL God that you want to love Him deeply and always. Pray for that first love. We should ask for what we know God wants us to seek – and that certainly includes having a deep love for Yeshua and God. “Ask and you shall receive; seek and you shall find, knock and it shall be opened unto you” – Yeshua teaches in Matthew 7:7. We can ask and pray for restoration of the kind of love for God that He enjoys.

The Ephesians’ zeal was noted, but their love was waning. All gifts of God’s spirit without love ends up being nothing (1 Cor. 13:1-4). First love. “First” refers to the earliest, chief, best. So they continued working hard but lost their sense of PRIORITY. Other things were starting to crowd God out. That can happen to us as well.

We are to seek FIRST the kingdom of God and his righteousness as Matthew 6:33 says.

Let’s make prayer a faithful habit. We wake up and can’t wait to talk to our hero and Savior Yeshua and his/our Father.

God’s given us a special hotline (called “Prayer”) to his presence – 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, from anywhere in the world, for as long as we wish to talk – and listen. Let’s take advantage of this great and awesome gift from God.

So let’s pray! Let’s pray a lot, lot more than many of us have been. And check out my new AUDIO sermon on it too about what to do when we’re not feeling motivated to pray, to talk with the greatest, most loving Being in the universe!