Connecting With God — Prayer Includes Asking

CONNECTING WITH GOD

Mid-Week Bible Study

Prayer Includes Asking

Why is Asking So Hard?

-The secret to learning to ask is in becoming a again as we realize that this is our Father’s world.

Take Ownership of (Psalm 23:1; Isaiah 57:15)

-Power in prayer comes from being in touch with your weakness.

-A praying life opens itself up to an infinite searching God as it continually control and constantly surrenders like Jesus did when He prayed, Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven. (Matt. 6:10)

Acknowledge the God of Your Details (Luke 22:42)

-We pray because we are against the onslaught of life.

-Don’t try to understand the causal connection between God and your details—just it!!

Apply Jesus’ Promises Concerning Prayer (John 14-16)

-Six different times Jesus says, “Ask and I will give it to you.”

-Understand the 2 dangers.

-Apply Jesus’ authorization.

-Learn to .

Get Back to (Matthew 6:10-11)

1. Our Daily Bread

-In the church, most prayer requests are limited to sickness, joblessness, kids in crisis, and maybe the occasional missionary. Yet Jesus’ prayer for daily bread was an invitation to bring our needs to Him.

2. Thy Kingdom Come

–Change in others: Seldom do we pray seriously and thoughtfully for those we love as they deal with their besetting sins.

–Change in me: Almost every Christian is confident God will answer a prayer for change in us, and it us to death!

–Change in our culture: It seldom occurs to us to pray that culture itself will change—we would rather whine and about it.

3. Thy Will Be Done

-Until we understand how our own will is, we can’t/won’t understand the necessity to ask for God’s will to be done.

–At the center of self-will is me, carving a world in my image. At the center of prayer is God, carving me in His Son’s image.

-When I accept the place that God has given me—in traffic, a checkout line, or with a whining child—I open a small door from my soul to God.

-The great in our life is not trying to discern God’s will; it is trying to discern and then disown my own. Once we see that, prayer flows.

-Either you will see all of life as a gift, or you demand that life have a certain look to it.

-Case Study exercise: Sue, Joe and their trash

-We can’t pray effectively until we get in touch with our inner !

*Based on A Praying Life by Paul E. Miller