Prayer vs Bible Study

What comes first, the chicken or the egg?

The Lord's prayer was learned from study--learned or hearing.

There have been times when I scrapped by with a wing and a prayer so I know where you're coming from. Bible reading / study / devotion can often provide clarity for what it is that you are really praying for. At least that's been my experience.

In my case, I read it off the page...paying attention to what I was reading.

Yes, it does give us focus on Who we are praying to and adjusts our motive for praying in the first place.

Many psalms are prayers so you can read and pray at the same time. !

David said in the pslams don't approach God with deceit on you lips. After several teachings on this and a bit of study this is what I found.
Express the truth about yourself, be as transparent as possible. If you don't feel the love say so. If you can't forgive say so. So many approach God with false pretenses. Remember he knows your heart.
Prayer is a expression of true feelings. The scriptures say if you lack ask....God wants to give you a new heart. The one we have is deceitful in so many ways. Make that closet of yours a holy place...undefiled....a place of safety. Never be afraid to express the truth to God.

There's definitely no hiding secrets or pretending to be something you're not before God.

Sometimes when all else seems dry and fails, I simply praise and worship Him.

I always pray for understanding when I study and have concluded that the more selfless the prayer (the higher up it goes) if you get my drift migo

Some people think of prayer as a means to ask God for what they want Him to do for them, and Jesus did say we do not have because we do not ask, and yet I tend to think of prayer more as a means of aligning myself with God's will as opposed to asking Him to heed my own, and I know my will is being aligned with His when I make progress and grow in maturity as a person, even though I still often feel very much like a kid. I was brought up in a fairly strict Roman Catholic home that did teach prayer and Biblical principles, yet was seemingly very short on telling us Who Jesus really was, and what He did for us. This seems to be a common complaint of those who have exited the RCC. Of course I did not realize that so much when I rebelled against the church and her traditions as a teenager, for how could I know what I was not taught? I found out later.

I was also taught to pray many years later in the process of my recovery, and even while not Christian I did pray quite a bit, and very fervently. Now at meetings I sometimes good naturedly say I am a recovered Catholic. The 12 step program teaches people to pray, regardless of Whom they regard God to be, and this is a good thing. When I first cried out to God for help, I did not believe in the God Who answered my plea (which saw me getting clean and sober for the first time after twenty four years of drug and alcohol addiction), even though He had revealed Himself to me through unconditional love, absolute understanding, and forgiveness, when I sought knowledge of Who Jesus was at one of the lowest, most broken points of my life six years earlier. Praise God for His goodness and mercy!


I found this online. I know it is long, but thought you might like it

In 2 Chronicles 6, Solomon has finished his 21-year church building campaign for the very first temple of the Lord. It wasn’t something his father, King David, was allowed to do, though he wanted to.

· Solomon completed this architectural masterpiece and it was a thing of beauty that lasted for centuries.

· It was a place that God could dwell among the people.

· It was supposed to be a place they could always come to and find the presence of God for what they needed from him.

· It was designed to be a foreshadowing of what you and I can expect today in our lives; that we are perfectly designed to house the presence of God inside of us.

· And like we’re going to see in this passage, Solomon praises the Lord, connects it together in prayer and then enjoys worship.

· It’s a pattern we can all follow.



1. Praise Paves The Way

· In 2 Chronicles 6:3 Solomon tells the whole company to praise the Lord who has kept His promise.

· God is a God who keeps his promises. He’s not a man that He can lie.

· Even when I don’t want to or I don’t feel like it or my situation says He’s not done it yet; I WILL praise the Lord because He will keep His promises.

o It may take 21 years to realize it…but He will keep His promises.

o It may take a monumental experience for me to be able to see it, but He will keep His promises.

o 2 Peter 3:9 God is not slow in keeping his promises as some understand slowness to be.

· Praise is the set up.

o It paves the way for us to see things from his perspective.

o It sets us up to see it from his vantage point.

o It changes our attention from us to him, his ability, his promise, his presence, his treasure, his face and not his hand; because it reminds us of all He has done.



2. Prayer Makes The Connection

· As Solomon goes on through this passage, he praises the Lord, prays for the people and asks God to do certain things.

o It’s really a brilliant dedication prayer.

o It has lots of “if, then” requests of the Lord in it. 10 different ones to be exact.

o He’s praying a prayer, for the prayers of the pray-ers who will be offering up prayers in that place.

o Remember, praise paves the way…it turns our attention to God. It sets us up to connect to God and prayer is that conversation that we enter in to.

· Prayer Connects us to

· Forgiveness

2 Chronicles 6:19–21 (NLT)

19 Nevertheless, listen to my prayer and my plea, O Lord my God. Hear the cry and the prayer that your servant is making to you.
20 May you watch over this Temple day and night, this place where you have said you would put your name. May you always hear the prayers I make toward this place.

21 May you hear the humble and earnest requests from me and your people Israel when we pray toward this place. Yes, hear us from heaven where you live, and when you hear, forgive.

o Yes, Let this be a place of forgiveness.

o When we have entered into your temple, and prayed, let us find forgiveness.

o When we have been soiled and stained and washed over on the roadway of life; when we pray – forgive.

o That’s the prayer I pray over us and this church – that when anyone comes in to this house and life has taken its best shot at them and sin has found its way into any and every area of their life that when they pray they would find forgiveness.

o That this would be a church that’s not filled with judgmental looks, attitude or people but with those who celebrate and fill the atmosphere with the sound of heaven, a joyous and raucus celebration when one lost person finds the scandal of grace more than enough to cover their sins because we’ve not lost sight of what it was like to be once be lost but now be found!

· Restoration

2 Chronicles 6:22–23 (NLT)
22 “If someone wrongs another person and is required to take an oath of innocence in front of your altar at this Temple,

23 then hear from heaven and judge between your servants—the accuser and the accused. Pay back the guilty as they deserve. Acquit the innocent because of their innocence.

o A place where those who have been taken advantage of or had their innocence stolen can find restoration.

o He wasn’t asking God to let the sinner go, but for God to get even with them on His terms.

o And for the one who has been damaged to find that there is hope and healing in the hosue for all that they have lost.

· Revival

2 Chronicles 6:26–27 (NLT)
26 “If the skies are shut up and there is no rain because your people have sinned against you, and if they pray toward this Temple and acknowledge your name and turn from their sins because you have punished them,

27 then hear from heaven and forgive the sins of your servants, your people Israel. Teach them to follow the right path, and send rain on your land that you have given to your people as their special possession.

o Prayer connects us to the life-giving power of God. His divine ability to revive back to life, what was once dead.

o Not just awake, but ALIVE, abounding, overflowing with life.

o He can take what once was a desert place, empty and devoid of life and make it thrive.

o He can make it rain where he wants it to rain.

o RAIN…IT’S A FUNNY THING. IT CAN RAIN ON ONE SIDE OF THE STREET AND NOT THE OTHER.

o You can be playing in the rain and the person sitting right next to you is playing in the dust!

o He can make you thrive, while they’re desolate.



3. Worship Is Enjoyed

· After Solomon prayed all 10 “if, then” prayers God embraces that moment and their worship experience is moved into an overwhelming moment with God’s glory.
2 Chronicles 7:1–3 (NLT)
1 When Solomon finished praying, fire flashed down from heaven and burned up the burnt offerings and sacrifices, and the glorious presence of the Lord filled the Temple.
2 The priests could not enter the Temple of the Lord because the glorious presence of the Lord filled it.
3 When all the people of Israel saw the fire coming down and the glorious presence of the Lord filling the Temple, they fell face down on the ground and worshiped and praised the Lord, saying, “He is good! His faithful love endures forever!”

· This is the fulfillment of all that we hope for. God’s glory filling the temple.

o Guess what…it still happens today! Why? How? Because we are the temple and his glory can fill us to overflowing!

o It was played out again in Acts 2 – they were filled with His spirit.

o Paul says in Ephesians 3:18 to be filled with the spirit and not be drunk with wine.

§ Don’t be full of things the world has to offer, instead be filled with God’s spirit to full!

o Acts 3:19: Now repent of your sins and turn to God so that your sins may be wiped out 20 that times of refreshing may come from the presence of the Lord, that he may again send you Jesus, your appointed messiah.

§ Sounds like the same thing…repent, receive forgiveness, experience refreshing.

From myharvestfamily.net/blog/2016/11/27/prayer-the-connection-between-praise-and-worship

Just so you know where I'm coming from, I have led Bible studies and have been a university Theology professor whose doctoral specialization was New Testament, Judaism, and Greco-Roman backgrounds. I think the more interesting question is this: If you had to choose, would you participate in a group Bible study or a small prayer group? For me, the answer is a no brainer: the small prayer group. I am now a retired UMC pastor, but I continue to participate in our little interdenominational prayer group with 5 or 6 regulars. We meet for 2 hours every Monday and we have seen many healing miracles and other marvelous answers to prayer. So the choice in question is no contest. Small prayer groups have triggered the greatest historic revivals: the Great Awakening, the Second Great Awakening, the Welsh Revival, the Azusa Street Revival, and, lastly, the great Hebrides Revival. In those revivals, the Holy Spirit fell not primarily on believers, but on unchurched sinners and thousands were saved in a short period. Whole countries were "soaked" in God's presence and the great masses sensed this and were overwhelmed by its convicting power.

Private prayer, pastor-led prayer in church, and prayer chains are not even remotely as effective as a weekly small group that meets primarily for prayer. In the corporate body of Christ, the collective is far more spiritually effective as a group acting in harmony than its individual members. People attend church for many reasons besides prayer and prayer chains are conducive to mechanical laundry list type prayers. But the very act of driving to a special location for group prayer once a week is already an act of faith!

As for the most powerful form of individual prayer, Paul singles out "praying in the Spirit" as the key to waging spiritual warfare (Ephesians 6:11-18, especially vs. 18). Praying in the Spirit is the hardest, most demanding, and yet, the most rewarding form of individual prayer. It is far, far harder than Bible devotions.

Your thread has inspired me to start 2 new threads to demonstrate what I'm saying here: one thread on how prayer triggered the Great Historic Revivals and another on how to "pray in the Spirit" (and no. I'm not primarily talking about speaking in tongues here..
Watch the documentary posted at the beginning of my Speaking in Tongues thread and you'll see how a small prayer group of poor Blacks started a movement that has led to 600 million converts, i. e. a quarter of the world's Christians!

I'm convinced that the main reason we haven't had a great revival since the Hebrides Revival of 1949-1954 is neither because of sinfulness in society and the church or because of divine sovereignty, but because believers are too spiritually slothful to study and emulate the prayerful quests of spiritual giants of the past whose prayer life brought some of the mightiest awakenings the world has ever seen! The spiritual condition of America was just as grim prior to the Great Awakening as it is today!

In short prayer is a life line to God. Not only to change situations and bring healing but to also develop a Christ like mind and heart.
We are asked to seek the kingdom of God and his righteousness then all will be added on. What other way except through prayer will this be accomplished?
Knowing our hearts and fears, our short comings, weaknesses, and anxieties, God is able to equip us as he leads.
If we don't ask , if we say we don't lack, then we stunt our spiritual growth.
The question is do we seek God to be perfect or do we seek him to be forgiven??
We are all broken. And in need of a savior, our best efforts are as filthy rag before the holy one.
Our works, our prayers, our very lives are to bring glory to his holy name. To build no reputation of ourselves.
Jesus asked who do you say I am, your prayers will reflect that statement. Do you believe I can do this is another question he ask.
Our hope and trust should be in God and him alone for it's not by power nor by strength but by my spirit says the Lord.

"It seems as though, when God wants to express to men what He is like, He makes a very beautiful character.
Think of a personality as God's expression of character attributes. Be as fit an expression of Godlike character as you can.
When the beauty of a person's character is impressed upon us, it leaves an image which in turn reflects through
our own actions. So look for beauty of character in those around you."
***********************************************************************
"Let us pray that we may look at great souls until their beauty of character becomes a part of our soul.
Let us pray that we may reflect this character in our own life."
'Praise God'

There's a good point... Our perception of our neediness.
Revelation 3:17 NASBS
[17] Because you say, "I am rich, and have become wealthy, and have need of nothing," and you do not know that you are wretched and miserable and poor and blind and naked,...

When Hebrews were exiled to Babylon they lost much understanding of God. When they returned to rebuild the temple there was a lot of searching for the true God. An assembly of the most learned Hebrews was formed and those men wrote a proper prayer for the people to use in their prayer life. When Jesus taught us to prayer he shortened this prayer for us. Only this shortened prayer is given to us in our scripture, but the Jews still use the longer form, they call it the standing prayer or the Amidah.

Reading and praying with such as the psalms or the Amidah guides our prayer life to its finest.

Prayer can be a silent waiting on the Lord, a way of filling our whole self with the presence of God.

The Lord's prayer is more a model than a prayer intended for mechanical recitation; Jesus introduces it with the phrase, "Pray then like this (Matthew 6:9)." More important are the many principles for effective petitionary prayer taught in the NT. The Bible teaches that there is right and a wrong way to pray, What if we pray incorrectly or not at all? The result is often this: people are dead who should be alive, sick who should be healed, in inner turmoil who should be victorious. Yes, I know that God sometimes says yes, sometimes says no, and sometimes says wait. But too many Christians have a "gimme" approach to prayer that treats God like a cosmic slot machine.

In his wise book "Prayer," Richard Foster identifies 22 types of prayer. How many do you incorporate into your prayer time? Do you routinely, but not mechanically, supplement your petitionary prayer with meditation, praise, and thanksgiving? Do you pray in the Spirit as Paul commands you to do? We must face the truth that there is an art of prayer, which we must practice and master.

I find the more I pray, the more the Scriptures opens up to my spiritual understanding, so I pray as much as I can, especially when I am doing a specific study...

If you don't pray (and I mean not just saying a few words to the Lord to bless your Bible study, but earnest prolonged seeking of God), one will get very little from their study of the Scriptures. Psalm 24v1-6, John 7v17, 16v13-15, 1Cor 2v1-16, Eph 1v15-23, 3v14-21, 1Peter 1v10-12, James 1v5-6.

I was brought up in fairly strict Roman Catholic too and remember having to give up candy for Lent. Easter morning was like Halloween for me for all of the candy that I was now allowed to eat. We're going to shop for candy the day after Easter because all candy will be at least 50% off. I want some jelly beans, the large hard shell cream filled eggs, and marshmallow Peeps Darlene wants some chocolate bunnies so that she can bite the ears off. Might score some Reese's peanut butter chocolate eggs too.

I remember that Good Friday was the night that we dyed the hard-boiled eggs in various colors and designs. Saturday afternoon was the plastic Easter egg hunt. Mom always prepared a good spread for the afternoon Easter dinner too. At night we would watch the Ten Commandments on TV. Of course, this movie really had nothing to do with the death and resurrection of Jesus but it was entertaining. I liked the part where Charlton Heston parted the Red Sea. I also love the ending when Yul Brynner said of Moses, "His God is God."