Praying through the Psalms
At Grace Place we have begun a new season at our Tuesday prayer hour of praying through the Psalms together. Our prayer goal is summarized well by the prayer in Psalm 85:6: “Will you [God] not revive us again, that our people may rejoice in you?”
Reasons for praying through the Psalms include:
(1) To get us to look at prayer in a new way, not as a list of petitions, but as a conversation – a communication with God in which we listen to Him, through His Word, and answer Him; and
(2) To become students in the school of prayer, learning the inspired language of prayer; and
(3) To know Jesus more clearly, love him more dearly, and follow him more nearly
Every emotion (high or low) known to humans is is processed in the Psalms. For 2000 years Christians have prayed the Psalms to enrich their prayer life and intimacy with God. Some monks prayed through all 150 Psalms every week!
In order to pray effectively, we need to be taught how to pray. Our natural tendency is just to bring wish lists to the Lord. “One day Jesus was praying in a certain place. When he finished, one of his disciples said to him, ‘Lord, teach us to pray, just as John taught his disciples’” (Luke 11:1).
David was inspired by God to teach us how to worship and pray. In fact, it could be said that Jesus prayed through him!
“These are the last words of David:
The oracle of David son of Jesse,
the oracle of the man exalted by the Most High,
the man anointed by the God of Jacob,
Israel’s singer of songs:
‘The Spirit of the LORD spoke through me; his word was on my tongue’” (2 Samuel 23:1-2).
The Psalms, written by David and others, point to Jesus. Jesus told his disciples after his resurrection that: “Everything must be fulfilled that is written about me in the Law of Moses, the Prophets and the Psalms” (Luke 24:44).
Spirit-filled worship & prayer includes the Psalms: “Do not get drunk on wine, which leads to debauchery. Instead, be filled with the Spirit. Speak to one another with psalms, hymns and spiritual songs. Sing and make music in your heart to the Lord, always giving thanks to God the Father for everything, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ” (Ephesians 5:18-20).
Christ’s Word dwells in us through the Psalms: “Let the Word of Christ dwell in you richly in all wisdom, teaching and admonishing one another in Psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing with gratitude in your hearts to God” (Colossians 3:16).
Here are a few thought-provoking quotations by men of prayer who used the Psalms to learn to pray more effectively:
“For every man, on every occasion, can find in the Psalms that which fits his needs, which he feels to be appropriate as if they had been set there just for his sake…” ~ Martin Luther
“Therefore the most blessed Spirit of God the Father of orphans, the teacher of infants, seeing that we know not what or how we ought to pray, as the Apostle saith, and desiring to help our infirmities, after the manner of schoolmasters who compose for children letters and short prayers, that they may send them to their parents, so prepares for us (in) the book (of the Psalter) both the words and feelings with which we should address our heavenly
Father.” ~ Martin Luther
“…the Psalms have a unique place in the Bible because most of the Scripture speaks to us, while the Psalms speak for us.” ~ Athanasius of Alexandria
“The marvel with the Psalter is that… the reader takes all its words upon his lips as though they were his own, and each one sings the Psalms as though they had been written for his special benefit, and takes them and recites them, not as though someone else were speaking or another person’s feelings being described, but as himself speaking of himself, offering the words to God as his own heart’s utterance, just as though he himself had made them up;…everyone is bound to find his very self in them and, be he faithful soul or be he sinner, each reads in them descriptions of himself.” ~ St. Athanasius
“The Man Jesus Christ, to whom no affliction, no ill, no suffering is alien and who yet was the wholly innocent and righteous one, is praying in the Psalter through the mouth of his Church. The Psalter is the prayer book of Jesus Christ… He prayed the Psalter and now it has become his prayer book for all time… Those who pray the psalms are joining in with the prayer of Jesus Christ, their prayer reaches the ears of God. Christ has become their intercessor.” ~ Dietrich Bonhoeffer
”The richness of the Word of God ought to determine our prayer, not the poverty of our heart.” ~ D. Bonhoeffer