Pure Eyes: A Men’s Guide to Sexual Integrity
Chapter 7 – Grab Your Shovel
“Daily Prayer”
As you understand the true nature of Scripture, your prayers will have much deeper meaning to both you and God. In following God’s scriptural expectations for you, you will have the confidence and certainty of heart to ask God openly for the blessings he promises his followers. Conversely, when you have failed to meet God’s expectations as revealed through Scripture (and you will!), you can boldly come before God in prayer to accept the forgiveness he so generously provides.
So how does all of this play out in practice? Many men feel as if they have lost so much ground with God that they have no right to pray to him. Sometimes they feel they don’t know how to pray “correctly” or “fervently enough,” and it inhibits their connection with God.
Please don’t put so much pressure on yourself! God wants to meet you right where you are. He wants to talk with you, he wants to show you his love, and he wants to listen to you. Like the lover in Song of Songs 2:14, God wants to “hear your voice; for your voice is sweet, and your face is lovely.” Isaiah 30:18–19 reads: “Yet the Lord longs to be gracious to you; he rises to show you compassion. For the Lord is a God of justice. Blessed are all who wait for him! O people of Zion, who live in Jerusalem, you will weep no more. How gracious he will be when you cry for help! As soon as he hears, he will answer you.”
If you don’t know how to approach God in prayer, simply come to him as your loving and caring Father and thank him for all he has done and ask him for what you need. You can pray something like this: “Lord, thank you for being my Father. Thank you for being a good God who cares for me and loves me. Thank you for sending your Son Jesus Christ to die on the cross so that I could be made free. Thank you, Jesus, for dying for my sins. Lord, I give you everything I am—my talents and my sins. I freely submit to you and ask that you give me strength today to make the most of what you have given me and resist and overcome temptation. In Jesus’s name I pray, Amen.”
Your goal in prayer is not to pray perfectly or correctly (because there’s no right way), it is just to acknowledge that God is your Father and that you are after his will. Open yourself to his leading by the Holy Spirit and remind yourself that God is in control of your life, not you. And most of all, ask God for his direction and deliverance—he wants so much more for you than you want for yourself. “Let us then approach the throne of grace with confidence, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time
of need” (Heb. 4:16).
Be sure to pray daily, and you may want to pray many times a day to keep you aware of the fact that God is near and is
ready to help you
To Order your copy of Pure Eyes: A Men’s Guide to Sexual Integraty, please visit Amazon.com and get your copy today.
You can also download a copy of the book for $10 at www.eyesofintegrity.com