Further prayer

I listened to a Dr Joel Beeke sermon on the way home today entitled 'John Calvin on intimate prayer' and of course my last blog came to mind. I had never intended my previous post to be anything like a definitive guide to prayer of course, but listening to Dr Beeke I did ponder the amazing depth that exists within prayer and realised that I have barely scratched the surface of the relationship I have with our Lord and Saviour.

One of the things that Dr Beeke mentioned was about how easy it is for our prayers to become dry and repetitive and different ways in which he goes about refreshing his prayer life, both of which I have done myself. One is to use a prayer book, the other is to use scripture. My brother sent me a copy of a prayer book entitled 'The Valley of Vision' following my baptism and it has been a great encouragement and a 'starter for 10 ' (as he described it). It really is a wonderful book and I would wholeheartedly recommend you get a copy if you don't have one. Valley of Vision by Banner of Truth

The other way in which Dr Beeke suggested one could revive our prayer is through reading/using scripture. He gave the following analogy (excuse the paraphrase). He commented on a book (it may have been notes or even prayers, I'm afraid I can't remember... it isn't that important to the story) that had been found by a friend of his father, that had been written by his father. Dr Beeke's father had passed into Glory some time before. He was handed the book and gazed at the words, recognizing his father's handwriting. The friend asked if he'd like to have it, to which he replied "of course!" Later reading his father's words he became conscious of how proud and happy his father would have been to see and hear him studying the words he had written himself. How much joy and pleasure his father would've got from having his own written word read back to him.

Well there in istself is the justification for using God's word in one's prayers. God would surely delight in hearing any one of his children reading to him, or better yet memorising and repeating His word in prayer.

Anyway, here's a link to the sermon - don't take my word for it, take Dr Beeke's or John Calvin's... or maybe more specifically, God's. Click the title below for a sermonaudio.com link
Calvin on Intimate prayer