God’s Phone Number

God’s Phone Number

“Call to Me, and I will answer you, and show you great
and mighty things, which you do not know.”

Jeremiah 33:3

In Jeremiah 33:3, we find one of the most amazing promises in the entire Bible. An old friend calls this God’s phone number. The line is never busy. Your call never goes to voice mail. He always answers—and He answers in a way that far exceeds our most optimistic expectations (Ephesians 3:20).

Prayer is one of the awesome privileges of the Christian life. Jesus said, “My house shall be called a house of prayer” (Mark 11:17). Before it is to be called a house of Bible teaching, a house of evangelism, a house of discipleship, or a house of social action, His house is to be called a “house of prayer.” It is also of interest to note that the disciples asked of Him, “Lord, teach us to pray” (Luke 11:1). They never asked Him to teach them to preach or to evangelize or to organize or to mobilize. The only thing recorded that these faithful followers requested was that they be taught to pray. They observed Him for three years. They saw the intensity and frequency of His own personal prayer life. They knew that if they could capture the essence of prayer, they would be well on their way to preaching or doing any of the other ministries needed to be performed.

As we dial up God’s phone number today, let’s join the disciples in this request: “Lord, teach us to pray.”

WHAT IS PRAYER?

Does the art of prayer mean praying ancient prayers by rote or ritual? God said, “Call to Me.” Prayer is two-way communication. It is not just one-sided. On the Emmaus Road the two disciples exclaimed, “Did not our heart burn within us while [Jesus] talked with us on the road, and while He opened the Scriptures to us?” (Luke 24:32). Burning hearts come when we hear from the Lord, and we hear from Him, as they did, when He opens the Scripture to us.

Prayer is the talking part of a relationship. To have a positive and productive relationship with our wives, husbands, children, parents, or whomever else, there must be verbal communication. An early sign that a relationship is going sour is a lack of communication. And yet some Christians think they can go for days, or even weeks, without communicating with God. Prayer is the talking part of our relationship with the Lord, and it is vital for our own spiritual growth.

WHY WE PRAY

We should pray because the Lord knows better than we do about what we really need. It is prayer that makes God real to us. Just as the Bible gives our prayer direction, prayer brings a new dynamic to our Bible reading: God speaks to us through His Word, and we speak to Him through prayer. Prayer is like a symphony: the Bible is the score, the Holy Spirit is the conductor, and we are the instruments. As we read God’s Word, the Holy Spirit leads us in our prayer life, and we actually begin to pray the Scriptures for ourselves and for others.

Another reason we should pray is because Jesus prayed. Think about it. If He who never sinned saw the need to pray so often, how much more do we, sinful as we are, need to call upon Him? Prayer has a way of setting us free. “The LORD restored Job’s losses when he prayed for his friends” (Job 42:10). We should also pray because of the multitude of prayer promises we find in the Scriptures, not the least of which is Jeremiah 33:3.

WHEN TO PRAY

The Bible encourages us to “pray without ceasing” (1 Thessalonians 5:17). That is, we should live our lives in a constant state of communion with God as we go about our work and witness. Our Lord prayed “a long while before daylight” (Mark 1:35). On occasion, He spent whole nights in prayer (Luke 6:12). He prayed before each great crisis of life as evidenced in His prayer at the tomb of Lazarus. He prayed after the great accomplishments of life, as seen after He fed the multitudes on the Galilean hillside. Gethsemane reminds us of how Jesus prayed before the great temptations of life. The busier our Lord’s life became, the more He gave priority to His own prayer life.

HOW TO PRAY

The place to begin in prayer is with the prayer of confession (Isaiah 59:1–2; Psalm 66:18). There is a sense in which it is not so much what we pray as it is what we are when we pray. Confess means “to agree with God.” Our sin is not something to be minimized because it may not be as bad as someone else’s. Nor is it to be excused because everyone else is doing it. Nor is sin some little vice to be laughed off. Sin is so serious it necessitated the cross. In this initial part of our prayer experience, therefore, we should confess sins of the tongue, or things we have said. We should confess sins of action, or things we have done. We should confess sins of thought, or those ideas we have allowed to reside in our minds. We should also confess sins of omission, for to know to do right and not to do it is also sin, according to the Bible. We have the promise that “if we confess our sins, [God] is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness” (1 John 1:9).

Next, we progress to the prayer of thanksgiving. We are to “enter into His gates with thanksgiving, and into His courts with praise” (Psalm 100:4). Thanksgiving is the gate through which we enter the throne room of prayer. Here we thank God for material blessings, physical blessings, spiritual blessings, and certain people who are important to us. Thanksgiving has a liberating effect. In fact, it was when Jonah prayed “with the voice of thanksgiving” (Jonah 2:9) that the Lord delivered him from the belly of the fish.

The prayer of confession and the prayer of thanksgiving lead us to the prayer of praise. Now that we have entered the gates with thanksgiving, we step into “His courts with praise” (Psalm 100:4). We thank God for what He has done; we praise Him for who He is! In the prayer of praise, we remember the question of our Lord to Peter, “Do you love Me more than these?” (John 21:15). Here we tell God that we love Him. We praise Him for His great attributes— His goodness, patience, holiness, and mercy. It is helpful to repeat stanzas of praise hymns to Him at this level of prayer.

This brings us next to the prayer of intercession. Here we approach God’s throne on behalf of others. This is the prayer for our individual family members, friends, political leaders both national and local, those who need Christ, and even those who may have spoken against us.

After the prayer of intercession, we move to the prayer of petition. Here we ask God for anything and everything He may have put on our heart. Finally, we arrive at the prayer of communion. This is the prayer that goes beyond mere words; this is when, with an open Bible, we are still and listen to God. When I first dated my wife, we talked incessantly, both afraid one of us might think the other was boring if the conversation lulled. However, after a few months, we would sit on her parents’ sofa for long periods without saying a word . . . but we were still communicating! And so it is with the prayer of communion. This is the prayer that goes beyond mere words.

As you memorize God’s phone number, meditate on the reality that prayer is a vital part of Scripture memorization and meditation. The Bible and prayer are inseparable. Call to Him . . . He will answer you . . . and He will show you— He will let you see—not just some things, but “great and mighty things, which you do not know.”