July 1, 2025
Beloved of God,
John Bunyan once made this wise observation: “We can do more than pray after we have prayed; but we cannot do more than pray until we have prayed.”
As people who appreciate the truth of James 2:26 that “faith without works is…dead”, and the truth that to rightly make a request of God is to offer ourselves as (at least in part) the means by which God fulfills the request, we have down pat the first part of Bunyan’s wise observation.
But have we grasped the second part?
At the end of last month we began a mini-sermon-series that will continue through the first half of this new month. It is about prayer: and how its first and foremost purpose is, not to change either the mind or the heart of God, but to change us who pray at the deepest core of our soul. Prayer is mainly meant to make us present to the presence of the Lord – that is, to facilitate our growing more keenly aware and more deeply appreciative of God’s glory and goodness – that we might 1) gain God’s mind and get on our heart what is on God’s heart and 2) to a fuller extent “do more than pray”.
None of us prays like this all that well. But let us be encouraged by this consoling insight from Max Lucado: “Our prayers may be awkward; and our dedication and discipline, feeble. But since the power of prayer is in the One who hears it and not in the one who says it, our prayers make a difference.”
So let us “devote [ourselves] to prayer”, as Colossians 4:2 commands us, that we might become different by it — and become more potent difference-makers in the world we serve!
Please pray with us for a blessed July!
Warmly in Christ,
Pastors Adele & Rob Langworthy
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