Sometimes God tells us to do things that we find surprising.   In Genesis 12 He told Abraham to leave everyone and everything he knew, everything that defined him, so that God could redefine him and start the long march to Messiah, “the Seed…to Whom the promise had been made.” I imagine that God’s command to leave family and homeland came as a shock, given Abraham’s limited, human perspective. Yet through God’s eternal vision, this command and Abraham’s response made him the “father of many nations” and more importantly the ancestor of the humanity of our Lord.

I think our limited perspective makes some of God’s commands seem surprising. Maybe this is because we don’t see where our obedience will take us, like with Abraham.  These kinds of commands really call out our faith in the God Who issues them.  Sometimes, though, the surprise is in the nature of the command itself. One feature of the Bible that might be surprising to you is the frequency of commands God issues regarding prayer. The Bible commands prayer quite a bit. It’s like God is saying, “Talk to me” all through the Scriptures.

Over the next few weeks I want to explore some of the Bible’s commands to pray. Doing so breaks me out of the “cultural Christianity” notion that prayer is merely a desirable option taken up in earnest by the most spiritually-minded among us. Taking my cues from the crowd might leave me with that impression, but then I would be misguided. We have to stop looking around at what everyone is doing and look at what God calls us to do in His Word regarding communication back to Him.

As I make that transition from cultural assimilation to real obedience I find spiritual wealth I never imagined was there. When I invest myself in obedience to the Scripture’s commands to pray, I find that I have a real, vibrant relationship with the God of all peace. I grow with respect to what God has taught me in His Word as I reflect on it and take it back to Him. Prayer is the labor of our first love, the effort we invest in a growing relationship with our God Who has spoken so clearly in the Bible.

But how do we do it?  Some believers are old hands at prayer, while others are daunted by the prospect of addressing Someone they cannot see or hear directly from.  Do we repeat the prayers of others? Do we wait around for that “prayer feeling” to take us into an emotional flood of entreaty so poignant the very earnestness of our tone seems, in our imaginations, to shake the shutters barring our view through the windows of Heaven? Should we seek to emulate the super spiritual pray-ers around us and “sound the part” until we learn how to do it? Pagans notoriously cast about in the seemingly infinite dither of superstition to find the right spell, the right sacrifice, the right rite that will get the attention of sleeping Baal. Should we borrow from their playbook, or is there a better way?

I think the Bible tells us how to do what God wants us to do. Once we have exhausted the biblical record on prayer we will be trained to respond to God’s call to fellowship with Him intelligently, knowing what He wants from us.

God commands prayer through the Apostle Paul in 2 Thessalonians 3:1-2, where Paul demonstrates the priority of Christian mission.  Jesus commands prayer from His disciples on His last night of ministry before the Crucifixion in Matthew 26:41 and Mark 14:38, giving us needed insight into one purpose of prayer.  Paul teaches a priceless formula for peace beyond our understanding in Philippians 4:6-7, where he commands believers to make their requests known to the Lord.  He also repeats the requirement that believers express their gratitude to God all the time in 1 Thessalonians 5:18 and Ephesians 5:20.

I invite you to join me as I explore these wonderful blocks of instruction from our Savior.