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“The Prayer Life God Gives Us!”
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Many Christians discover that the life of prayer can feel both deeply alive and deeply difficult, marked by vitality and struggle, at times unfolding with natural freedom and at other times feeling burdensome or unanswered.
What is God inviting us into when prayer feels this way?
What is God forming in us through both the ease and the struggle of prayer?
What does Scripture teach us about the kind of prayer life God desires?
There is a deep and living relationship at the heart of Christian prayer. One rooted in the life of the Triune God and revealed in the person and work of Jesus Christ. Prayer is not a spiritual vending machine where we drop pious words in order to get what we want. It is not a strategy for managing God or securing outcomes. Prayer is participation in the life of the Trinity. A communion with the Father, through the Son, in the Holy Spirit.
Grace Communion International captures this truth with pastoral clarity:
“Prayer is our cry for help. In prayer, we admit that we are not self-sufficient, that we cannot handle everything on our own. In prayer, we acknowledge a relationship between God and us, a relationship in which God has promised to provide our needs and to bless us in ways he knows are best.”— Grace Communion International— Responding to Jesus With Prayer
Because prayer is relational, Scripture teaches that it can also be hindered. Not because God becomes distant, but because our lives can become misaligned with His will. The apostle James speaks directly to this reality:
“You ask and don’t receive because you ask with wrong motives, so that you may spend it on your pleasures.”— James 4:3 (CSB)
James does not suggest that God is unwilling to listen. Rather, he reveals that prayer becomes distorted when it is shaped by self-centered desire instead of trust in the Father’s goodness. Prayer is not about coercing God or twisting His arm. It is about being reshaped by the God who delights in giving good gifts to His children. John Calvin expressed this truth clearly:
“Believers do not pray, with the view of informing God about things unknown to him, or of exciting him to do his duty, or of urging him as though he were reluctant; but they pray in order that they may arouse themselves to seek him.”— John Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion, Book III, Chapter 20, Section 3
Prayer, then, is not designed to change God’s disposition toward us. It draws us more deeply into dependence upon Him. Jesus Himself teaches that our relationships with others profoundly shape our prayer life. He offers a sober warning:
“And whenever you stand praying, if you have anything against anyone, forgive him, so that your Father in heaven will also forgive your wrongdoing.”— Mark 11:25 (CSB)
Unforgiveness does not merely strain human relationships; it disrupts our lived communion with God. When bitterness takes root, prayer becomes clouded, not because God withdraws, but because our hearts resist the reconciling life He offers. The apostle Peter brings this truth into the ordinary spaces of life, reminding us that prayer cannot be separated from how we live:
“Husbands, in the same way, live with your wives in an understanding way, as with a weaker partner, showing them honor as coheirs of the grace of life, so that your prayers will not be hindered.”— 1 Peter 3:7 (CSB)
Here, prayer is inseparable from embodied love. The way we honor others reflects the way we stand before God. When our lives mirror Christ’s self-giving love, prayer rises not as complaint or demand, but as communion.
Yet even when prayer feels unanswered, Scripture invites us to resist the assumption that God is absent or indifferent. Silence, in the life of faith, often becomes a place of deep growth. Jesus Himself gives thanks for the Father’s hidden and gracious work:
“I thank you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because you have hidden these things from the wise and intelligent and revealed them to infants.”— Matthew 11:25 (CSB)
This means that God’s silence is not emptiness. It is often a gracious space where trust is learned, humility is formed, and Christlikeness is shaped. At the heart of all Christian prayer stands the Trinity. Prayer is never a solo performance. Even when words fail, we are not left alone:
“The Spirit also helps us in our weakness, because we do not know what to pray for as we should, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with inexpressible groanings.”— Romans 8:26 (CSB)
This is why prayer is possible at all. As theologian Dr. Gary W. Deddo reminds us:
“The Christian life is first and foremost about our participation, as the body of Christ, by the Spirit, in the Son of God’s relationship with his Father.”— Gary W. Deddo, Grace Communion International
Prayer flows from this shared life. We do not pray to reach a distant deity. We pray because, in Jesus Christ, we have already been welcomed into the Father’s fellowship by the Spirit. C. S. Lewis reinforces the deeply personal reality of prayer:
“I pray because I can’t help myself. I pray because I’m helpless. I pray because the need flows out of me all the time, waking and sleeping. It doesn’t change God—it changes me.”— C. S. Lewis, Letters to Malcolm: Chiefly on Prayer
Prayer shapes us because the gospel itself reshapes our standing before God. The good news of Jesus Christ does not announce something we must achieve, but something God has already given. Scripture proclaims:
“For in it the righteousness of God is revealed from faith to faith, just as it is written: The righteous will live by faith.”— Romans 1:17 (CSB)
This righteousness is revealed not through religious performance, but through the person and work of Jesus Christ:
“For I decided to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ and him crucified.”— 1 Corinthians 2:2 (CSB)
Because righteousness is given rather than earned, prayer becomes a response rather than a performance, participation in grace rather than pressure to prove ourselves. Prayer is not about twisting God’s arm, but about being shaped by His love. It is the daily fellowship of a people invited to dwell with the God who, in Christ, has made His home with us.
Conclusion:
God desires our prayer life to be rooted in relationship with Him and with one another. Prayer is not a wish list presented to a reluctant God; it is the heartbeat of a life united with the Triune God. When we pray, we come as children to the Father. We come through the Son who mediates our access. We are guided by the Spirit whose intercession aligns our hearts with heaven.
And we are not left to invent prayer on our own! Ultimately, prayer is a participation with Jesus IN HIS CURRENT LIFE OF PRAYER as a glorified human being! Jesus prays with us in our humanity (Heb. 5:7) and prays for us eternally as our High Priest (Heb. 7:25).
Jesus Christ Himself teaches us how to pray as those who belong to the Father, placing words of trust, forgiveness, daily dependence, and hope on our lips.
The Lord’s Prayer:
“Therefore, you should pray like this:
Our Father in heaven,
your name be honored as holy.
Your kingdom come.
Your will be done
on earth as it is in heaven.
Give us today our daily bread.
And forgive us our debts,
as we also have forgiven our debtors.
And do not bring us into temptation,
but deliver us from the evil one.”
— Matthew 6:9–13 (CSB)
Once Faithless, Now Faith-Filled!
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Part A:
Part B:
Full Message:
Bible Verse: Hebrews 11: 1-12
Sermon Summary:
Are we living by faith? How do we live our lives as righteous people by faith? Romans 1: 17 –
- When it comes to faith we have to know WHO we really are. – 1 Cor 6: 9-11(CSB). We have to understand who we’re NOT – 2 Cor 5: 17 – 19(CSB)
“If we’re living our lives faith-filled, then we’re living out who we really are and understanding what we’ve been given in the newness of the life we’ve been given (in Christ) – We’ve been given reconciliation!”
“Our circumstances don’t dictate God’s love towards us and that’s what we’ve been clothed with – HIS LOVE! THAT is who we really are. So despite our circumstances we can really walk in this faith-filled life because of Jesus and who HE is. So we have to understand who he is and know who we are in him.”
“By faith, believers can live a life of sacrifice and consider mistreatment, torture and abuse from the world as worth suffering for Christ’s sake. Faith in Christ does not guarantee a carefree life but a life that is full of trouble and includes many demands to leave behind worldly pleasures and walk with God according to his will.” –Tesfaye Kassa
- We have to know WHAT faith is. – “Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen”- Hebrews 11: 1-3(CSB)
“Faith is the connecting power into the spiritual realm, which links us with God and makes Him become a tangible reality to the sense perceptions of a person. Faith is the basic ingredient to begin a relationship with God.
Faith is the assurance that the things revealed and promised in the Word are true, even though unseen, and gives the believer a conviction that what he expects in faith, will come to pass. Faith is the tangible essence of what is hoped for – so tangible that the faith itself, is the evidence/reality of those things that are not yet visible. In other words, it becomes so tangible that you now possess it. It becomes a reality in the spiritual realm.” – Wikibooks
- When it comes to faith, we have to know HOW to find it. – Romans 10: 17(CSB)
”Are you hearing about Christ? Faith comes by hearing the message about Christ!”
When we understand the WHO, WHAT and HOW of faith, then we can begin to LIVE by the faith of Jesus Christ! – Hebrews 11: 4-12
Theological Theme:
“By defining faith…as ‘assurance’ and ‘conviction,’ the author indicates that biblical faith is not a vague hope grounded in imaginary, wishful thinking. Instead, faith is a settled confidence that something in the future—something that is not yet seen but has been promised by God—will actually come to pass because God will bring it about. Thus biblical faith is not blind trust in the face of contrary evidence, not an unknowable ‘leap in the dark’; rather, biblical faith is a confident trust in the eternal God who is all-powerful, infinitely wise, eternally trustworthy—the God who has revealed himself in his word and in the person of Jesus Christ, whose promises have proven true from generation to generation, and who will ‘never leave nor forsake’ his own”–David W. Chapman
Jesus is the source and perfecter of our faith. “We can’t be anchored in anything or anyone else. God [Father-Son-Holy Spirit] IS THE SOLD ROCK – an immovable foundation!”
Christ Connection:
To the author of Hebrews, faith is the “reality” and “proof” of the existence of something that at the moment cannot be seen. This is why in Romans 4, Paul said that the Old Testament patriarchs were justified by their faith in the promise—a promise that was yet to be seen. These Old Testament saints hadn’t seen the object of their salvation (yet), but they trusted in God’s promise to one day provide it, which He did in Jesus Christ.
All the examples of faith in Scripture pale in comparison to the life of Jesus Christ, who for the joy that lay before Him endured a cross and despised the shame. Because of His work, the faith and hope of all who have gone before us will be fulfilled when He returns. We have assurance of the reliability of God’s promises.
While we find encouragement from this cloud of witnesses, we ultimately find that the pinnacle of enduring faith belongs to Christ Jesus, and we should emulate Him.
Missional Application:
Once we are in Christ, we are not finished with faith. Faith is not just the key to unlock the door of salvation; it is how we continue to work out our salvation so God [Father-Son-Holy Spirit] can produce in us and through us the good works He has planned for us. Living by faith is difficult, but God has called us to look at the examples of faith in Scripture—most notably that of Jesus— and draw courage from them as we focus on Christ and fulfill His will for our lives.
Just as it is grace through faith that saves us from top to bottom, it is grace through faith that sustains us beginning to end. We do not start anew in Christ by faith and then embark on a great “good works” selfimprovement project. No, we “walk by faith”
God, through his Holy Spirit, calls us to draw courage from the example of the faithful through the centuries as we fulfill God’s will and focus on Christ.
Conclusion:
Do we see God as the author and finisher of our lives?
Do we see him as the one who directs our steps and says “go left and go right”?
Do we see him as the captain of our ships – the navigator?
Do we see faith, active in our lives despite the obstacles that seem insurmountable in our own lives?
Do we hear God’s “Yes” and God saying “Do” as something that is tangible in our lives to really mandate how we live in our lives?
We must keep our eyes on Jesus. Every good work must be submitted to the glory of Jesus. Every spiritual discipline must be conducted as a means of deepening our friendship with Jesus. Every religious book read, every theological idea explored, every biblical doctrine studied must have as its aim a stirring of our affections for Jesus. It is only by focusing on Jesus that we will be able to endure in the Christian life and have a faith that lasts to the finish line….Jesus gave us the greatest example of enduring faith when He trusted in the Father during His journey to the cross. Jesus trusted in the Father throughout the greatest evil, the greatest hardship, ever. And He did so with the joy that lay before Him—the joy of obeying the Father and glorifying Him. Ultimately, it is Jesus who is able to present us blameless before God’s glory without stumbling. Let us fix our eyes on Him to the very end.
“The foundation of the Christian life is repentance and faith. You never move on from that, but you do want to build on it.” –Matt Fuller
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