Smith Effective Prayer Life

Chuck Smith

This module is a seven chapter work on Effective Prayer Life by Chuck Smith from the Calvary Chapel Church movement. I cannot recommend it 100%.

I cannot say that the Calvary Chapel movement is 100% in agreement with the Bible. See my post about Calvary Chapel, The Problems with the Calvary Chapel Movement or here Chuck Smith and Calvary Chapel Movement.

This particular book may be a very good book on prayer, but you should be very wary of it in consideration of the warnings on Chuck Smith and that movement.

Table of Contents Effective Prayer Life

Introduction
1. What is Prayer?
2. The Purpose of Prayer
3. The Priviledge of Prayer
4. Effective Prayer
5.Strength in Prayer
6.Pray and I Will Answer
7.Sin of Prayerlessness

Exerpt

Solutions (for prayerlessness)

What can we do to overeóme our problem of prayerlessness? I have a few
practical suggestions. As far as time is concerned, we must discipline ourselves
and take time for prayer. You’ll never find time to pray. You must make time.
Life is made up of priorities. Since you can never do all that you want to do, you
must always sacrifice the less important things for the more important ones. A
wise man makes good use of his time and keeps his priorities in proper
perspective.

Prayer is the most important activity you could ever engage in. It should be at
the top of your priority list of things to do. You need to take the time for prayer
even if you have to skip your time to eat or read the evening newspaper!
Secondly, find a place that is undisturbed. It may take some doing, but make the
effort. Many times I go for a walk or take a drive to get alone with the Lord. I
also wake up much earlier than the rest of my family. Prayer is more important
to me than my sleep, and the phone rings very seldom in the early morning.
To keep my mind from wandering, I usually vocalize my prayers. It’s true that
God knows what’s in my heart, but when I try to pray out of my heart my mind
often wanders. For a moment I’m thinking, “Lord, take care of this and that.
Thank you for this” and pretty soon I’m surfing again! But when I vocalize my
prayer, I have to think about what I’m saying. That causes me to concéntrate on
my conversation with the Lord.