Prayer is very important. We need to talk to God. We need to converse with him. We should converse with God on a regular basis. Today’s prayers are not enough for tomorrow’s needs.
Even though prayer is an important means of grace, like Bible reading and public worship, there is an important step in our daily practices that we can tend to often neglect. That step is self examination.
We must daily examine our hearts to see it’s state. We must look in every room and even under every rock of our thoughts to find what our affections are tied too. What matters to you this morning? Where do your thoughts quickly run?
We must examine our love for sin. Do we cling to sin in some fashion? We must examine our love, or lack thereof, for God. Is there any sin we have not confessed? Is there any sin we are cherishing today? Do we think often of our blessed Savior?
Proverbs 4:23 says “Keep your heart with all vigilance, for from it flow the springs of life.”
Do you keep your heart with all vigilance? Do you realize the impact of a heart unkept?
If we don’t do this, our prayer life will eventually escape us. We must examine our hearts each day before or during our time in prayer. If we fail to do this, our prayers will be lost.
A. W. Pink says it best:
“It was because the heart was neglected that you got so little from attending to the means of grace! What a difference there is between a deeply exercised and spiritually burdened heart pouring out itself before God in fervent supplication and the utterance of verbal petitions by rote! It is the difference between reality and formality. He who is diligent in heart work and perceives the state of his own soul is at no loss in knowing what to ask God for. The formalist has to rack his mind and, as it were, laboriously pump up something to say unto God; but he who makes conscience of heart work finds his soul like a bottle of new wine – ready to burst, giving vent to sorrow or joy as his case may be.”
