Audio Transcript
You kneel down to pray in the morning, and before you know it, you’re just kind of looping your requests, running through the same checklist in your mind that you’ve been praying through for weeks or months. You have a list of personal worries, concerns about the budget and bank accounts, stresses at work. It’s not bad to pray over these things, but it can often feel like that’s where your prayers default. It becomes mechanical. Today on Ask Pastor John: breaking out of prayer ruts.
It’s a good time to talk prayer because we are reading a lot of prayers in the Navigators Bible Reading Plan in these first few days of July. This includes the collective prayers of Israel in Psalms 123–126, and Paul tells us what he’s praying for the Colossian church in Colossians 1:3–14. We get his prayer list, which is instructive. So, how do we take what we read in the Bible and pray it up to God?
This new question is from a young woman: “Pastor John, I have been trying to grow my prayer life, but honestly, it feels completely foreign to me to ‘pray the Scriptures.’ Whenever I try to use the Bible while I pray, it feels like I’m just reading a textbook out loud to God. It feels fake and mechanical. My regular prayers usually just end up being vain repetitions where I loop over my own private concerns, my work stress, my budget woes, and the various anxieties of my life in my late twenties. I want to care about God’s larger purposes, but I don’t know how to turn the Bible into my prayers. Can you teach me?” Here’s how Pastor John answered a man named Dalibor with this very question in 2017.
I love this question because praying the Scriptures is so important in the Christian life. If we don’t form the habit of praying the Scriptures, our prayers will almost certainly degenerate into vain repetitions that eventually revolve entirely around our immediate private concerns rather than God’s larger purposes. So, let me try to help Dalibor see this as less foreign. He said it felt foreign to him. Let me see if I can help make it feel less foreign.
Pray When the Bible Does
First, we should notice that the early church prayed the Scriptures in Acts 4:24–30. In fact, they explicitly quote Scripture. Threats have been made against them, and it says this:
They lifted their voices together to God and said, “Sovereign Lord, who made the heaven and the earth and the sea and everything in them [they’re exulting in what they know from God in Scripture], who through the mouth of our father David, your servant, said by the Holy Spirit,
“‘Why did the Gentiles rage,
and the peoples plot in vain?
The kings of the earth set themselves,
and the rulers were gathered together,
against the Lord and against his Anointed.’” (Acts 4:24–26)
That’s a quotation from Psalm 2:1–2. So, we know that the early church prayed back to God the very words that God had given them — for example, in the Psalms.
“We know that the early church prayed back to God the very words that God had given them.”
Here’s the second thing. Don’t forget the obvious — namely, that many parts of Scripture are prayers. So, simply to read them is to pray, if we’re awake — if you’re thinking about what you’re doing. Paul’s got numerous prayers that he prays for the people that he’s writing his letters to, and every time we read those, we should be praying with Paul. And a great portion of the Psalms are prayers, and Jesus gave us some prayers. I’ve used the acronym I.O.U.S. from the Psalms to guide how I pray the Scriptures.
- I: Incline my heart to your testimonies (Psalm 119:36).
- O: Open my eyes to see wonderful things (Psalm 119:18).
- U: Unite my heart to fear your name (Psalm 86:11).
- S: Satisfy me in the morning with your steadfast love (Psalm 90:14).
So, Scripture models for us how to pray about reading the Scriptures and turning them into prayers.
Let the Meaning Lead
And then think about this, which is so obvious: The Scriptures either tell us something about God and Christ when we’re reading (so that we can praise him), or they tell us something about what God and Christ and the Holy Spirit have done (so that we can thank him and express faith in it), or they tell us what God expects from us (so that we can cry out for his help), or they tell us about something we failed to do (so that we can confess our sins). It seems to me that virtually all of the Bible is telling us one or more of those four things: something about God, something about what he’s done, something about what he expects, or something about how we’ve failed — so that they naturally lead into praise to God, thanks to God, crying for help to God, and confession of sin to God.
One caution here — let’s be realistic: What we are praying is the meaning of texts, not just words. This is important. For example, when reading part of the Old Testament history book that takes a whole chapter to tell a story — say, about Ahab’s wickedness (I just read this morning about Ahab’s wickedness in 1 Kings 21, and I also read this morning a whole chapter about Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego’s faith and courage in front of that fiery furnace in Daniel 3). Now, how do you pray Scripture like that? You probably don’t turn every verse into a prayer, because it takes more than one verse to make a point. That’s my point: We’re praying meaning. We’re not just praying words.
So, you have to read enough of the Bible to catch the meaning. What’s the author trying to say here about boldness and courage and faith in Daniel 3? You might wait three or four minutes of reading, and then pause and say, “O God, make me like Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, and forgive me for my pansy-like relation to feeling embarrassed,” or whatever. And the same thing with Ahab. I just got so mad at him this morning when he took Naboth’s vineyard and killed him. Oh, and the prophet came and really laid into him, and told him he was going to be in big trouble. I mean, there’s so much there to pray about, but you have to read the whole chapter before you can get it right in your head.
Praying Colossians
So, Dalibor asked me to do this. I’m going to close by doing it. And I wanted to do a big section, but I realized it doesn’t work that way for me. So, I’m just going to start with Colossians 2:6–7, because I’ve been in Colossians in my devotions, and I’m going to show you how I turn Colossians 2:6 and following into prayer. I’ll break it up in two pieces. It just turned out that way. So, here we go. This is Colossians 2:6–7: “As you received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk in him, rooted and built up in him and established in the faith, just as you were taught, abounding in thanksgiving.”
Yes, Lord Jesus, I have received you, and I do receive you afresh right now this morning. I welcome you to take full control of my life. If I am estranging you in any way, pushing you away at all, show me, and help me to kill that sin. I want to walk in you, in your power, in your way, in your fellowship. I dedicate myself to this right now, again, just like I have so many times in the past, and I turn from all others — anything else that would compete with you as my closest friend and helper. You have given rootedness and foundation to my life. Thank you.
I didn’t create these roots in you or these great foundation stones of faith. You did that. Thank you. Thank you for sending teachers into my life. Thank you for my father and Daniel Fuller and Jonathan Edwards and John Owen and J.I. Packer and R.C. Sproul and dozens of partners in ministry over the years who have exhorted me and kept me on the narrow way. Oh, how I thank you, Lord. It has all been owing to you — my reaching you and my walking in you and my rootedness and foundation in you — it’s all owing to you. All my teachers were from you. You are kind and merciful, a mighty God. I love you this morning.
And then I keep reading:
See to it that no one takes you captive by philosophy and empty deceit, according to human tradition, according to the elemental spirits of the world, and not according to Christ. For in him the whole fullness of deity dwells bodily. (Colossians 2:8–9)
Lord Jesus, I’m not even sure I know what the elemental spirits of the world are, but until I find out, I pray that you would protect me from them. Your work in me is way more important than my perfect understanding. Guard me, for I know something of the dangers of human tradition and philosophy. I have felt the pull of forces away from you. Oh, thank you that I am still here right now praying and not over the cliff of unbelief. Oh, give me discernment so I can see what is “according to Christ” like you said, in the books that I read, in the TV shows that I watch, in the movies and the news.
O Lord, these forces are so strong, and I am so prone to be entertained by ideas and actions that are not according to Christ. Have mercy upon me and give me the courage to say no to anything that tends to undermine my fellowship with you and my boldness and witness. How could I ever be lured away, Lord? For in you is “the whole fullness of deity,” Paul says — “the whole fullness of deity [dwelling] bodily.” Amazing, amazing, absolutely amazing. O Christ, help me all day, every day, this very day, to be more amazed at you and your fullness of deity, so that I will never turn away — more amazed than I am at anything else. Let my amazement at your fullness of deity spill over at work today. Make me a means of others being amazed, I pray, in Jesus’s name. Amen.
