10 Times When Prayer is Not Enough

By Chuck Lawless on Jul 27, 2021 01:00 am

First, a caveat. If you read this blog regularly, you know my commitment to prayer. So, I am in no way arguing that prayer is somehow ineffective or unnecessary. I simply want us to think about times when we need to do more than pray:

1. When we’re praying for someone to get saved, but we’ve made no attempt to share the gospel with that person. God is surely sovereign over salvation, but He uses us to tell the story.
2. When we’re praying for God to bring a wayward believer to return to God, but we’re not willing to confront that believer. Again, God calls us to help restore fallen brothers and sisters (Gal 6:1).
3. When we pray for God to provide financially for our church, but we’ve offered no stewardship training for our members. Why should God provide when we haven’t discipled?
4. When we’re asking God to free us from a controlling sin, but we keep putting ourselves in the same wrong place . . . with the same wrong people . . . at the same wrong time. Praying for freedom without also choosing wisely is lacking something. 
5. When we’re pleading with God to give us clarity about an issue, but we haven’t opened His Word on a regular basis in a long time. We shouldn’t expect God to answer this request when we ignore His primary means of speaking to us. 
6. When we’re asking God to show us His will, but we already know what we’re going to do regardless. This prayer is a bit superfluous when we’ve already decided what “will” we will follow. 

Read the rest: http://chucklawless.com/2021/07/10-times-when-prayer-is-not-enough/