- Why you should pray out loud.
"When you pray, rather let your heart be without words
than your words be without heart," John Bunyan said.
But can Christians pray just in their hearts, in their minds?
Do we have to pray out loud?
And why should we pray out loud?
What if people just prefer to pray in their hearts?
Or to just meditate, I mean God reads our thoughts, right?
I'm going to present a case of why I believe that we should
practice praying out loud.
Now prayer is more than a thought.
It's the communication of that thought.
So it's verbalizing these thoughts.
It's not just having thoughts.
That's not really what prayer is.
Prayer is thoughts communicated, thoughts expressed.
Now in the Bible there are two instances of silent prayers.
The first one is Abraham's servant, in Genesis 24:45.
It says he was speaking in his heart.
And then Hannah, in 1 Samuel 1:10-15.
The Scripture says that she spoke in her heart.
And so they prayed like that.
But if you look throughout the Scripture
you will see that the model of prayer is praying out loud.
For example, it says I will call upon the Lord.
"But know that the Lord has set apart for Himself
him who is godly; the Lord will hear when I call to Him."
Psalm 4:3.
So, this tells us that we can call upon God.
God actually wants us to call upon Him.
Another reference is, I will cry out to the Lord.
"O Lord, God of my salvation, I have cried out day and night
"before You. Let my prayer come before You;
Incline Your ear to my cry." Psalm 88:1-2.
So not only we can call, we can cry out.
We can also cry out loud to the Lord.
"Evening and morning and at noon I will pray, and cry aloud,
and He shall hear my voice." Psalm 55:17.
Call on the Lord. Not only can we cry out,
we can also cry out loud to the Lord.
There's also one more reference of us
lifting our voice to the Lord.
"They shall lift up their voice, they shall sing;
For the majesty of the Lord they shall cry aloud from the sea."
Isaiah 24:14.
And so the Lord, we see in the Scriptures
shows us that He wants us to cry out.
Now this does not mean that silent prayers
don't get heard by God.
But it does mean that God wants us to cry out.
Sometimes He wants us to lift our voice.
Let's look at few examples.
Let's look at 10 examples in the Bible where people called
and cried out to the Lord.
Number one is the fathers of Israel called on the Lord
in 1 Samuel 12:8.
Secondly, the children of Israel in bondage
cried out to the Lord, Exodus 2:23-24.
It says they cried out.
We also see Moses cried out to the Lord
for miraculous assistance, Exodus 15:25.
Samuel cried out to the Lord in 1 Samuel 7:8-9.
And he says, "I will not stop crying out for you, guys."
We see the children of God cried out to the Lord in battle
in 1 Chronicles 5:19-20.
David called on the Lord.
We see so many references of that in Psalms.
One of them is Psalms 138:3.
We see Jonah cried out to the Lord in Jonah 1:1-2.
We see Bartimaeus cried out to Jesus for healing
of his blindness in Gospel of Mark 10:46-62.
In fact, people tried to silence Bartimeaus and tell him,
"Stop! Be quiet!" And he cried out even more unto the Lord.
We see Jesus also used His voice in His prayers to the Father.
In John 17:1 it says, "He lifted His eyes and He said,"
that means He spoke His prayers.
In Luke 23:46 it says that Jesus cried out with a loud voice
when He was on the cross.
We see that Apostles and the early church
also lifted their voice in prayer.
In Acts 4:24 it says they raised their voice in one accord;
and in Acts 7:59-60 it says they knelt down
and cried out with a loud voice.
So we see all these references where it seems like
God is not intimidated by loud prayers, okay.
Now I grew up in a pentecostal circle, okay,
where loud prayer was the sign that you were praying.
And if you were not praying out loud, you were not praying.
That's not what I'm trying to present in this video.
What I'm trying to present is to encourage you
to make your prayer verbal,
and to begin to practice praying out loud.
It's one of the best practices you can develop in your prayer.
Praying in your heart is good
but praying out loud is more biblical
because there is so much reference to biblical prayer
where it's expressed; thoughts expressed,
communicated to God.
So why do we have to pray out loud?
What is the benefits, or why pray verbally?
Well first one is, the Bible says, "Out of the abundance
of the heart our mouth speaks."
And therefore God wants your heart to speak.
That's one of the reasons why we are praying out loud.
Because our heart once it's filled,
our mouth has to communicate that.
So our mouth speaks what our heart is filled with.
And so if your heart is not filled with something
then your mouth will not communicate it.
So if your mouth is not communicating anything
then you really have also biblically a legitimate reason
to question whether your heart is filled with that need
and petition and desire.
The second reason is because Jesus instructed us
to say out prayers.
In Luke 11:2 it says, "When you pray, say"
That means the Lord expects us to say our prayers.
He doesn't expects us to think our prayers,
He doesn't expect us to just meditate on our prayers,
He expects us to say them.
There's a reference about King David where he says,
"Lord, I found boldness to pray this prayer to You."
Like we see so many recorded prayers in the Bible
because people actually pray them.
They didn't just think them.
They didn't just get stored in the heart.
They actually got recorded because people
were praying those prayers.
The third reason why you need to pray out loud
is because the Lord promises to reward the prayers
that are prayed. For example it says,
"The eyes of the Lord are on the righteous
and His ears are open to their cry." Psalm 34:15.
It says in Jeremiah, my favorite verse, Jeremiah 33:3 says
"Call to Me, and I will answer You, and show you
great and mighty things which you do not know."
See, God is not saying, "Hey, I want you to think about Me
and I will answer You."
See, if you want an answer you got to call.
You have got to ask.
And so when you are in your secret place,
when you are in your favorite quiet place;
don't just meditate, which is good,
I want you to have a conversation.
I want you to open up your mouth and begin to talk to God.
Sometimes the pain, the suffering is going to be so great.
You're going to cry out to God.
You're going to lift up your voice, and that's normal.
We're not talking about yelling and screaming hysterically,
but we're talking about expressing your heart's desire to God.
God is not nervous, God is not threatened,
and God is not intimidated by the loudness of your prayer.
Sometimes your heart is filled with so much joy
you're going to sing out loud, you're going to lift your voice.
I love to worship out loud.
And so part of my daily prayer when I pray is,
expressing my thoughts in words.
They don't have to be perfect.
I don't have to sound theological.
I also don't have to sound like King James:
Thou, and thus sayeth, and I beseech thee Almighty God,
none of that. That's not the language I use.
I use simple language in reverence to God.
I approach Him as my Father
and I speak to Him in a plain language that I understand.
God does not want to see some kind of a spiritual theologian
pretending to be something I'm not in prayer.
Jesus says don't pray like hypocrites
and don't pray like heathens" meaning pray like a child.
Approach the Father.
Approach the Throne in the simplicity of your heart
but verbalize, express your thoughts in words.
Let me ask you a question: Do you pray out loud?
Are you comfortable praying out loud?
Now I'm not talking about on the stage.
I'm talking about on your own, by yourself with the Lord.
If you do, or if you don't, hey drop your response
in the comments below.
I will be interested to see your response
to this concept of prayer.
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