← How to Love God
Contents · 22 / 57
  1. Opening Scripture
  2. Preface
  3. How to Use This Book
  4. Study Features and Diagrams
  5. The Greatest Commandment
  6. What Does It Mean to Love God?
  7. With All Your Heart, Soul, Mind, and Strength
  8. Why God Is Worthy of Our Love
  9. We Love Because He First Loved Us
  10. The Gospel and the Transformation of Love
  11. Why We Do Not Naturally Love God
  12. A New Heart That Loves God
  13. Seeing the Glory of God in Christ
  14. Justification, Assurance, and Love
  15. Love, Emotion, and Obedience
  16. Is Love for God an Emotion?
  17. If You Love Me, Keep My Commandments
  18. Loving God When You Do Not Feel Love
  19. Duty, Delight, and the Formation of Holy Affections
  20. The Practices Through Which Love Grows
  21. Knowing God Through Scripture
  22. Loving God Through Prayer
  23. Worship, Praise, and the Lord's Day
  24. Repentance and the Restoration of Fellowship
  25. Obedience in Ordinary Life
  26. Loving God by Loving People
  27. Evangelism, Mission, and Love for God
  28. Loving God Through Suffering
  29. Obstacles, Counterfeits, and Spiritual Warfare
  30. Idolatry and Rival Loves
  31. Legalism, Moralism, and Religious Performance
  32. Emotionalism and the Search for Spiritual Experiences
  33. Distraction, Busyness, and Digital Formation
  34. Temptation, Spiritual Warfare, and Perseverance
  35. Growing in Mature Love
  36. Love and the Fear of God
  37. Loving God With the Mind
  38. Loving God in Community
  39. A Lifetime of Loving God
  40. The Eternal Enjoyment of God
  41. Study and Practice Resources
  42. Key Bible Passages About Loving God
  43. Frequently Asked Questions
  44. Thirty Days: Growing in Love for God
  45. Seven Days for Spiritual Coldness
  46. Why Does God Feel Distant? A Diagnostic Guide
  47. A Flexible Rule of Life
  48. Prayers for Growing in Love
  49. Small-Group Study Guide
  50. Personal Spiritual Assessment
  51. Pastoral Case Studies
  52. Glossary
  53. Recommended Resources
  54. Endnotes, Source Notes, and Bibliography
  55. Scripture Index
  56. Subject Index
  57. Final Exhortation

The Practices Through Which Love Grows

Loving God Through Prayer

~3 min read

How does prayer express and deepen love when God already knows what we need?

Key passages

Psalms 13, 51, and 103; Matthew 6:5–15; Luke 11:1–13; John 15:7–16; Romans 8:26–27; Ephesians 3:14–21.

Chapter thesis

Prayer is dependent communion with the Father, through the Son, by the Spirit. It receives, adores, confesses, thanks, asks, laments, and submits.

Relationship before technique

Jesus teaches disciples to pray “Our Father.” Prayer rests on adoption, not eloquence. The Father knows needs before they are spoken, yet invites asking because relationship includes dependence, trust, and participation in his purposes.

The Lord’s Prayer orders desire. God’s name, kingdom, and will come before daily bread, forgiveness, and protection. This is not because bodily needs are unspiritual, but because love places every need within God’s glory and reign.

The full range of prayer

Healthy prayer includes:

  • Adoration: naming God’s worth and works.

  • Confession: agreeing with God about specific sin and receiving mercy.

  • Thanksgiving: recognizing gifts as gifts rather than entitlements.

  • Supplication: asking for daily, spiritual, relational, and global needs.

  • Intercession: carrying other people before God.

  • Lament: bringing grief and protest into covenant hope.

  • Submission: asking boldly while yielding to the Father’s wisdom.

A prayer life limited to requests can become consumption. A prayer life that never asks can hide self-sufficiency. A prayer life without lament can become dishonest.

Praying Scripture

When words fail, use the Bible’s language. Read a verse, identify its truth and response, and answer God. Psalm 103 can become praise; Psalm 51 confession; Ephesians 3 intercession; Psalm 13 lament; Revelation 5 worship.

Praying Scripture does not mean claiming every promise without context. Ask what the passage meant and how it applies in Christ. Then use its categories to shape desire.

Silence and listening

Christian prayer is not a method for receiving new revelation equal to Scripture. Silence can be useful for attention, confession, waiting, and freedom from noise. “Listening to God” is safest when it means attending to Scripture, the Spirit’s biblically governed conviction, wise counsel, and providence rather than treating every impression as divine speech.

Impressions should be tested. They may reflect conscience, memory, desire, fear, or wisdom. God never contradicts his written word.

Voice from the church: Timothy Keller

Keller described prayer as both conversation and encounter, and as a place where the loves of the heart are reordered. His strength is gospel-centered integration: prayer rests in grace while bringing the whole self before God. The safeguard is to retain Scripture’s authority and not make felt experience the proof that prayer succeeded.

Prayer in dryness

When prayer feels empty, reduce complexity. Address God truthfully, use a Psalm, confess one concrete sin, thank him for one objective gospel truth, and ask for one need. The Spirit helps believers who do not know how to pray. Weak prayer offered through Christ is not rejected for lack of emotional force.

Persistence does not manipulate God. It expresses continued dependence and keeps desire in his presence. Answers may be yes, no, delayed, or given in a form we did not foresee. Love continues to ask and submit.

Chapter summary

Prayer is Trinitarian communion shaped by adoption and Scripture. It includes praise, confession, gratitude, asking, intercession, lament, and submission. Its value lies not in verbal performance but in coming to the Father through Christ.

Reflect and discuss

  1. Which form of prayer is missing from your present life?

  2. What does the order of the Lord’s Prayer reveal about your priorities?

  3. Do you treat impressions cautiously enough under Scripture?

Practice for this week

Pray the Lord’s Prayer slowly each day, expanding one petition in your own words. On one day, pray entirely from a Psalm.

Prayer

Our Father in heaven, hallow your name in me. Reorder my desires around your kingdom. Teach me to ask, confess, thank, lament, and submit through Jesus Christ, with the help of the Holy Spirit. Amen.