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Disciplined prayer from joy not duty...

I have just listened to a great sermon on prayer by John piper, all about discipline, freedom and spontaneity in prayer.  There is a need for both discipline and spontaneity in prayer and there can be freedom in either.  The link is:  http://www.desiringgod.org/ResourceLibrary/MediaPlayer/4451/Audio/

I want to become more disciplined in prayer.  When I want to get time with Rachelle and life is hurtling past at breakneck speed, with all that is going on with kids, work, church etc, we book time in, we plan it.  It’s simple… we need to have time together, we want to relate together, we want to grow in relationship with each other.  It’s all to easy to let too long go by without that time and we start to feel disconnected unsure of how the other one is doing, or what they are doing, we can feel distanced. 

That is the same in our relationship with God… it doesn’t all just suddenly happen, there are wonderful times of spontaneity, but also if we want to make sure we are hearing the heart of God, knowing what he is thinking, taking time to enjoy being with him, growing in relationship with him there is a need to plan time with him.  If we treasure that relationship we will set time apart. 

This doesn’t come out of duty and drudgery, but out of relationship and joy.  If we have lost that sense of joy in prayer then we need to go back to the cross, to the finished work of Jesus, to the freedom that he purchased there, the right relationship that was won there.  We are right with God, counted righteous, acceptable, made new, our sin cast away and paid for… when we look again at the cross, O, then how again we will love him, again the joy will start rising up, the thankfulness of the price that he paid in our place, the love that he showed that when it is looked upon by us, it can not help but start to stir again a passion and a love for Jesus.

He is our life, he is our all and we can know him…  he calls us in, he longs for us to know him in prayer.  I want to go there again and again and again… not out of duty and legalism but out of the completed work of Jesus that causes me to stand free. Not out of drudgery, but out of great joy and peace at all he has done for me, and his heart of love for me.  Not out of striving, but out of resting in him alone.  Not for what I can get, but because he has already purchased it all, and all the fullness of life is found in him. Not because I should, but because I desire him, to enjoy him fully, to be with Him.

Lord let everything I do flow out of what you have already done.