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	VanLove 06-4-46 LOVE TO PRAY A 40-Day Devotional for Deepening Your Prayer Life Alvin VanderGriend Published by: Alvin J. VanderGriend, 2003, 87 pp. Purchase from Harvest Prayer Ministries, www.harvestprayer.com
VanderGriend is the Prayer-Evangelism Associate for Harvest Prayer Ministries and co-founder of the Denominational Prayer Leaders’ Network. He is author of the Praying Church Sourcebook and several other books. I particularly appreciated working through this very practical, down-to-earth prayer guide. Each day consists of a two-page spread beginning with a Scripture passage and commentary, questions for reflection, and suggestions for prayer and action. This would make a great gift book. “Prayer is the talking part of a relationship with God.” (8) “Prayer starts with God.” “God is the initiator. He moves us to pray. He gives us prayer ideas. He holds out the promises we claim in prayer. When we pray, we are God’s instruments.” (10) “If prayer starts with God, then the first order of business as we learn to pray is to learn to listen to God’s whispers, to tune our hearts to him, to respond to his promptings.” (11) “Sin hinders prayer.” “We are shut out from God when we cherish sin because God is holy and cannot tolerate sin in his presence.” “Forgiven sinners are welcome in God’s presence.” The first requirement of prayer, then, is to confess anything in your heart that is not of God.” (18) “We can’t have the privilege of prayer without purity of heart.” (19) “Not only does sin hinder prayer; prayer hinders sin.” “Is there any area of your life about which you are uneasy before God? Risk taking a closer look at it. You may find a ‘cherished’ sin.” (19) “Faith is a second requirement of true prayer. Prayers without faith are incomplete.” “Faith is not simply a possession. It’s an aspect of relationship.” “Praying in faith is not an inner conviction that God will act according to our desires if only we believe hard enough. It involves believing that God will always respond to our prayer in accord with his nature, his purposes, and his promises.” (20) “When you ask a person for something in good faith, you don’t ask for something the person would not be willing to give.” “Similarly, if you truly know God, you will only ask for what is in accord with his will and not for anything that is purely selfish.” (21) “By offering to let us pray in his name…Jesus is demonstrating great trust in us. He is trusting that his honor and his interests are safe in our hands.” (24) “By prayer we direct God’s grace and power to strategic locations where it is needed.” (24) “Ask for anything you need in order to accomplish God’s will in your life and in your world.” (25) “His Father-heart leaps for joy when we come asking.” “…t is okay to request God’s blessings for ourselves.” “Petitionary prayer connects our needs to God’s generosity. The Bible is full of it.” (28) “Jesus stands ready to meet us, no matter what our need may be.” (29) “The ‘good gifts’ Jesus has in mind [Mt 7:9-11] are the spiritual blessings of grace, wisdom, joy, peace, power, holiness, and so on.” (30) “God doesn’t promise to give us anything and everything we ask for. (I Jn 5:14-15) But he does make an astonishing promise to prayer-ers that is even better. He promises to give us whatever we ask that is ‘according to his will.’” (32) “Someone has suggested that God answers prayer in the following five ways: · ‘Yes! I thought you would never ask.’ · ‘Yes! But not yet.’ · ‘No! I love you too much.’ · ‘Yes! But different from your thoughts.’ · ‘Yes! But more than you ever hoed or dreamed.’” (36) “One more possible answer..: ‘No! Not until you deal with that sin you are holding on to.’” (37) “Our confidence is not in prayer; it is in god.” (37) “Intercession is not optional. It is a necessary and important part of God’s way of working. Things will happen when we pray that wouldn’t have happened if we hadn’t prayed.” (40) “Prayer is essentially a relationship that begins with God.” “When you pray, are you aware of meeting a real person—a thinking, feeling, willing, acting, talking, listening God?” (48-9) “Praying continually…means that we live all of our hours and days so conscious of God that we are actually, at one level or another, keeping company with him always.” “Praying continually means sharing our thoughts with God.” (50) “When we pray, it’s probably more important to listen than to speak. After all, God has far more to say than you or I do. Before rushing into God’s presence with your thoughts and needs, be attentive to what God is trying to tell you. Hearing God also means a readiness to obey.” (52) “A disciplined daily devotional life is not optional for a growing Christian.” “You don’t build a love relationship by staying way from the other person. Love relationships are built by spending time together.” (56) Regarding The Lord’s Prayer, “What may be most surprising about the first three petitions is that God wants us to pray about concerns that focus on him. God is perfectly capable of hallowing his name, advancing his kingdom, and enforcing his will without our asking him to do so. But God chooses to operate in response to our prayers. So much is this so that he asks us to pray for these, his greatest concerns,…” “That makes our prayers tremendously important.” (58) “‘Your Kingdom come’ is a prayer for God to establish his reign in people’s hearts and mind. ‘Your will be done on earth as it is in heaven’ asks God to help people submit to his will as willingly and completely as the angels in heaven do.” (59) “The best way to use a model prayer is to take the core idea in each petition and to expand upon it.” (59) Paul’s intercessory requests in Col 1:9-12 are all spiritual in nature. In Paul’s praying the spiritual blessings overshadow the physical. (62) “The greatest need of the Ephesian Christians was to know God better.” (Eph 1:17-19) (64) “If someone wrote a brief history of your life, would prayer be a prominent theme in it? (69) “The power of prayer is not in the person or in the words of the prayer. All the power in prayer is God’s power released through prayer.” (72) “Is there something that God wants to accomplish through your prayer? Why not ask him—earnestly and persistently—and watch for the results.” (73) “I used to think that confession was the most grievous and unpleasant of all the elements of prayer. From David, who found forgiveness through prayer, I have come [to] see that it is the most satisfying, the most hopeful, and the most freeing of all prayers. Don’t let confession get you down. The truth is, real confession will lift you up like nothing else will.” (77) “What a surprising arrangement—God partnering with human beings to accomplish his purposes!” (78) * * * * *