Use the Word as Prayer!

A quiet crisis in prayer

There is a quiet crisis in many a believer's prayer life, and it is this: we talk to God about our problems far more than we pray God's Word back to Him. We come with our worries, our wish-lists, our running commentary on all that is wrong — and we call it prayer. But prayer was never meant to be the overflow of our natural thoughts. It was meant to be the overflow of His Word in us.

Think about it for a moment. How much of your praying is simply you describing your trouble to God, as though He had not noticed? There is a place for honesty — He is no stranger to our tears, and He bids us cast our care upon Him. But if all our praying is the recycling of our own anxiety, we will rise from our knees as troubled as we knelt down. Something is missing. That something is the Word.

The order the Lord Jesus gave

Listen to the Lord Jesus: If ye abide in me, and my words abide in you, ye shall ask what ye will, and it shall be done unto you [John 15:7 KJV]. Do you see the order? His words abide in you first; then your asking carries weight. Prayer that moves heaven is prayer soaked in Scripture.

This is not a trick or a technique to get what we want. It is abiding. The branch that stays joined to the Vine bears fruit; the prayer that stays joined to the Word bears answers. Our asking is only ever as strong as the Word that fills it. Empty our prayers of Scripture and we are left with little more than wishing.

Turn the Word into prayer

So take the Word and turn it into prayer. Read a promise — and pray it back to God. Read a command — and ask for the grace to keep it. Read a warning — and ask Him to keep your feet from that road. Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly [Colossians 3:16 KJV], and let it rise back to God as worship and supplication: Praying always with all prayer and supplication in the Spirit [Ephesians 6:18 KJV].

When you pray the Word, you are no longer guessing at God's will. You are agreeing with it. You are praying in line with what He has already said, and there is great confidence in that: if we ask any thing according to his will, he heareth us [1 John 5:14 KJV]. The Word tells you His will; prayer brings you into agreement with it. No more wondering whether your request pleases Him — pray His promises, and you pray His very heart.

Led by the Word, not by our thoughts

But here is the second half, and it is just as searching. Many of us are led not by the Word, nor even by prayer, but by our natural thoughts. We feel something, we think something, and we treat that feeling as fact. We build our whole day on a mood. Scripture is blunt about where that road ends: For to be carnally minded is death; but to be spiritually minded is life and peace [Romans 8:6 KJV].

Your natural thoughts will tell you to worry, to quit, to take offence, to nurse the grudge, to lean on your own understanding. They sound reasonable. They feel like you. But they are not your master. Trust in the LORD with all thine heart; and lean not unto thine own understanding [Proverbs 3:5 KJV]. The Christian life is not won in the head; it is won in the doing.

Bring every thought captive

What, then, do we do with the flood of thoughts that rises within us? We do not sit and negotiate with them. We take them prisoner. We are to be casting down imaginations... and bringing into captivity every thought to the obedience of Christ [2 Corinthians 10:5 KJV].

That is fighting talk, and it should be. A thought of fear, a thought of doubt, a thought of bitterness — these are not harmless visitors to be entertained over a cup of tea. They are imaginations to be cast down. And the weapon that casts them down is the Word: prayed, and then obeyed. You answer the lie with the truth, you pray that truth straight back to God, and then you act on it.

Hearer or doer?

That is the difference between a hearer and a doer. The hearer thinks about the Word, weighs it, admires it — and leaves it on the shelf. The doer acts on it. But be ye doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving your own selves [James 1:22 KJV]. Notice that last phrase — deceiving your own selves. The hearer who never does is not standing still; he is being deceived. He has mistaken hearing for obeying, and the two are not the same thing.

Your step this week

So here is your step this week. When a natural thought rises — fear, doubt, bitterness, despair — do not sit and argue with it on its own ground. Find the verse that answers it. Pray that verse straight back to God. Then act on it. If fear says you cannot, find the promise that says He is with you, pray it, and go forward. If bitterness says hold on, find the command to forgive, pray it, and let go.

Pray the Word. Walk the Word. Let obedience, not your own reasoning, have the final say. The mind that is fed on Scripture and surrendered in prayer is a mind kept in perfect peace, and the life that follows is a life that bears fruit.

That is what it means to come back to basics…

Key Takeaways:

• Prayer is meant to overflow from God's Word in us, not from our own worries — [John 15:7 KJV]
• Pray the Word and you stop guessing at God's will and start agreeing with it — [1 John 5:14 KJV]
• A mind led by natural thoughts ends in death; a mind led by the Spirit in life and peace — [Romans 8:6 KJV]
• Don't argue with fear, doubt or bitterness — bring every thought captive to Christ — [2 Corinthians 10:5 KJV]
• Hearing is not obeying; only the doer of the Word escapes self-deception — [James 1:22 KJV]

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