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Have you considered prayerlessness as sin?
Message
#18 (of 20) from the PrayerPower radio series
That’s not a comfortable thought, is it? Yet our prayers are an essential part of God’s plan for the world we live in. God wants us to pray; He has commanded us to pray, and Scripture is full of examples of His waiting for someone to pray before He moves. [Nehemiah 1:5-11; Exodus 32:32; Job 42:8-10; Acts 4:31, 12:5]It is sin when we fail to pray. In 1 Samuel we read, "...far be it from me that I should sin against the Lord by failing to pray for you." [1 Samuel 12:23] Prayerlessness is one of those sins we tend to excuse, to gloss over, to ignore in our lives. Jack Taylor in his classic, Prayer: Life’s Limitless Reach, says: "Prayerlessness...could be defined as that state in which one prays less than he ought, less than the Father desires, and less than that one himself knows he should." [Prayer: Life’s Limitless Reach., Broadman Press, 1977] That about covers it, doesn’t it?Taylor goes on to state, "Prayerlessness is a sin! Not just a weakness! ...a sin against the person of God [and] ...against the purpose and plan of God. All that God does, he does through prayer. Everything that has come to man has come through the agency of prayer."Or, as James put it, "You have not, because you ask not, or because you ask amiss." Either way, it’s sin, and we mustn’t let ourselves off the hook.
Pray with me now -- Lord, we acknowledge that prayerlessness is sin. Help us to recognize it, and to confess and repent in Jesus’ name, amen.
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