What is prayer? How should we pray? Why is it hard to pray? How often should we pray? What good is prayer? In this series we will tackle these questions and more. For the believer, who has been given new life by the sovereign, unconditional work of the Holy Spirit, who has freely declared righteous before God, by grace alone (sola gratia), through faith alone (sola fide), who has been united to Christ by the Spirit, who has been given the gift of adoption, prayer would seem like the most natural thing in the world and it is important. No act is more basic to the Christian life, to Christian worship, to piety, and to growth and yet prayer is also uniquely and strangely difficult. My experience and reading tells me that the struggle to pray is common to believers. I have not often heard or read people to say, “I just could not bring myself to eat for weeks at a time.” Yet I have heard and read Christians to say such things about prayer. Nevertheless, prayer is as basic to the Christian life as eating is to bodily life and just as we need to be taught what food is good for us (and what is not) so too we need to learn what prayer is and is not. Prayer is an essential element of our sanctification (the Spirit’s gradual, gracious work of conforming believers to the image of Christ). Just as we are learning daily what it means to die to sin and to live to Christ, so too we daily learn how imperfect and inconsistent our prayers are and what it means to pray as our Lord taught, in the Spirit, to the Father.
- Heidelcast 209—Our Father (1): What Prayer Is And Is Not
- Heidelcast 211: Our Father (2): Since God Is Sovereign, Why Pray?
- Heidelcast 212: Our Father (3)—For What Should We Pray?
- Heidelcast 213: Answering Brian’s Text Asking How Do We Know Whether To Stay In A Congregation And Continuing The Series, Our Father (4)
- Our Father (5): Sanctify Your Name
- Heidelcast 216: Our Father (6): “Your Kingdom Come”
- Heidelcast 217: Our Father (7): “Not My Will” (Plus Dr Clark Answers Lots Of Emails)
- Heidelcast 218: Our Father (8): “Give Us Our Daily Bread” (Plus Dr Clark Answers Heidelmail And Heideltexts)
- Heidelcast 219: Our Father (9): “Forgive Us Our Debts” (Plus Dr Clark Answers Heidelmail And Heideltexts)
- Heidelcast 220: Our Father (10): “Lead Us Not Into Temptation” (Plus Dr Clark Answers Heidelmail And Heideltexts)
- Heidelcast 221: Our Father (11): “Yours Is The Glory” (Plus Dr Clark Answers A Heideltext)
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Resources
- The Heidelcast
- Heidelblog Resources
- The HB Media Archive
- The Ecumenical Creeds
- The Reformed Confessions
- Heidelberg Catechism (1563)
- Recovering the Reformed Confession (Phillipsburg: P&R Publishing, 2008).
- What Must A Christian Believe?
- Why I Am A Christian
- Resources On Prayer (Updated October, 2021)
- Resources On Reformed Piety
- AGR: With Chris Gordon On “Still, Small Voices”
- On Still Small Voices And Allegories
- Recommended: URCNA Forms And Confessions