Why Your Prayer Life is So Bad – Michael Phillips Sermon

TEXT: I John 5:13-17

SUBJECT: I John #17: Why Your Prayer Life is So Bad

How’s your prayer life? In almost sixty years of going to church, I have met only one person who said her prayer life was good. Whether it was or not, I don’t know, but that’s what she said.

As for the rest of us? Our prayer lives are not what we want them to be-and they’re not what the Lord wants them to be. We don’t pray without ceasing; we don’t pray in faith; we don’t pray in hope; we don’t in charity. In a word, we hardly pray at all, and when we do, we pray more like the Pharisees and Sadducees than the disciples of Christ and the children of God.

This is not a new problem. The twelve disciples didn’t know how to pray, and, when Jesus needed them most, Peter, James, and John couldn’t pray at all. If you read the Devotional Literature from all ages, you’ll find everyone from the Church Fathers to the Medieval Doctors to the Reformers, Puritans, and Christian leaders today, decrying the fact that we don’t pray very often and we don’t pray very well! If this doesn’t apply to you, thank God! And I can only wonder why I’m up here instead of you.

What the disciples said to Jesus, needs to be said time and again- Lord, teach us to pray.