1. Sermon INTRODUCTION Living By Prayer

2. “Regrets are the natural properties of gray hairs” – Charles Dickens Christianity is the only religion where it is safe to admit our regrets; where it is safe to have a true self-assessment

3. O GOD OF THE OPEN EAR, Teach me to live by prayer as well as by providence, for myself, soul, body, children, family, church ; If we don’t pray then God might as well be deaf.

4. Give me a heart frameable to Thy will; so might I live in prayer, and honor Thee, being kept from evil, known and unknown

5. We pray to the extent that we seek to honor God in our lives If the Christian life I’m living doesn’t push me to prayer then I must not be seeking to live according to God’s ways

6. Help me to see the sin that accompanies all I do, and the good I can distil from everything. THIS IS THE MOVEMENT OF FAITH – to believe God and to trust that He IS working all things for good to those who love him.

7. Let me know that the work of prayer is to bring my will to Thine, and that without this it is folly to pray ;

8. “If my life is to be a crucible amid burning heat, so be it, but do sit at the furnace mouth to watch the ore that nothing be lost.” VoV – Purification Anybody can pray telling God what he ought to do, but only the Christian can rest in God’s will.

9. When I try to bring thy will to mine it is to command Christ, to be above him, and wiser than he: this is my sin and pride.

10. I can only succeed when I pray according to Thy precept and promise, and to be done with as it pleases Thee, according to Thy sovereign will.

11. When You command me to pray for pardon, peace, brokenness, it is because Thou wilt give me the thing promised, for Thy glory, as well as for my good.

12. Help me not only to desire small things but with holy boldness to desire great things for thy people, for myself, that they and I might live to show Thy glory

13. Teach me that it is wisdom for me to pray for all I have, out of love, willingly, not of necessity; that I may come to Thee at any time, to lay open my needs acceptably to Thee;

14. -that my great sin lies in my not keeping the savor of Thy ways; -that the remembrance of this truth is one way to the sense of Thy presence; - that there is no wrath like the wrath of being governed by my own lust for my own ends.

15. Prayer is not so much about getting God to fulfill our desires as it is about getting our hearts set on God as our great desire.