Free Christian Counseling eBook How to Pray

 Online Pastor Announces a New Series about How to Pray

Dateline: Berkeley, CA  For: Immediate release.

   Dr. Roland Trujillo, host of Talk to a Pastor Online, announced a new series of articles on How to Pray. These articles will be posted as blog posts at Talk to a Pastor Online. "This is an important topic," says Pastor Roland. "People ask: how do I pray.  As the Internet pastor, I believe it is important for me to address this issue and give people some guidance. I really want people to know that you don't have to belong to a certain religion and you don't have to say a particular set of words. God knows our heart. But it is important to ask."

"I plan to give some very specific help, and it will be completely free. All my posts are free and so are my sermon podcasts. I am excited about this new series of posts about what is prayer and how to pray.

The first post will be a post I wrote a few months ago in response to questions people asked me. The title is: Does Prayer Work?   In other words, is prayer effective. I think this will be a nice introduction to my new series."


Dr. Trujillo who has a Doctorate in Pastoral Psychology is the author of 14 books on coping with stress and finding the spiritual side of life. Dr. Trujillo is well know as Pastor Roland or Pastor Rolly. His popular web site offers free chat to ask questions, and he also answers people who ask him to "pray for me." He is host of the Talk to a pastor Radio Program in Southern California.

Read Does Prayer Work? Pastor Roland's first post in the series

How to Pray Past 2 - Will God Answer My Prayers 

The Need of a General Revival  

   If we are to pray aright in such a time as this, much of our prayer
   should be for a general revival. If there was ever a time in which
   there was need to cry unto God in the words of the Psalmist, "Wilt Thou
   not revive us again, that Thy people may rejoice in Thee?" (Ps. 85:6)
   it is this day in which we live. It is surely time for the Lord to
   work, for men have made void His law (Ps. 119:126). The voice of the
   Lord given in the written Word is set at naught both by the world and
   the church. Such a time is not a time for discouragement--the man who
   believes in God and believes in the Bible can never be discouraged; but
   it is a time for Jehovah Himself to step in and work. The intelligent
   Christian, the wide-awake watchman on the walls of Zion, may well cry
   with the Psalmist of old, "It is time for Jehovah to work, for they
   have made void Thy law." (Ps. 119:126, Am.R.V.)

   The great need of the day is a general revival.

   Let us consider first of all what a general revival is.

   A revival is a time of quickening or impartation of life. As God alone
   can give life, a revival is a time when God visits His people and by
   the power of His Spirit imparts new life to them, and through them
   imparts life to sinners dead in trespasses and sins. We have religious
   excitements gotten up by the cunning methods and hypnotic influence of
   the mere professional evangelist; but these are not revivals and are
   not needed. They are the devil's imitations of a revival. NEW LIFE FROM
   GOD--that is a revival. A general revival is a time when this new life
   from God is not confined to scattered localities, but is general
   throughout Christendom and the earth.

   The reason why a general revival is needed is that spiritual dearth and
   desolation and death is general. It is not confined to any one country,
   though it may be more manifest in some countries than in others. It is
   found in foreign mission fields as well as in home fields. We have had
   local revivals. The life-giving Spirit of God has breathed upon this
   minister and that, this church and that, this community and that; but
   we need, we sorely need, a revival that shall be widespread and
   general.

   Let us look for a few moments at the results of a revival. These
   results are apparent in ministers, in the church and in the unsaved.

   1. The results of a revival in a minister are:

   (1) The minister has a new love for souls. We ministers as a rule have
   no such love for souls as we ought to have, no such love for souls as
   Jesus had, no such love for souls as Paul had. But when God visits His
   people the hearts of ministers are greatly burdened for the unsaved.
   They go out in great longing for the salvation of their fellow men.
   They forget their ambition to preach great sermons and for fame, and
   simply long to see men brought to Christ.

   (2) When true revivals come ministers get a new love for God's Word and
   a new faith in God's Word. They fling to the winds their doubts and
   criticisms of the Bible and of the creeds, and go to preaching the
   Bible and especially Christ crucified. Revivals make ministers who are
   loose in their doctrines orthodox. A genuine wide-sweeping revival
   would do more to turn things upside down and thus get them right side
   up than all the heresy trials ever instituted.

   (3) Revivals bring to ministers new liberty and power in preaching. It
   is no week-long grind to prepare a sermon, and no nerve-consuming
   effort to preach it after it has been prepared. Preaching is a joy and
   a refreshment, and there is power in it in times of revival.

   2. The results of a revival on Christians generally are as marked as
   its results upon the ministry.

   (1) In times of revival Christians come out from the world and live
   separated lives. Christians who have been dallying with the world, who
   have been playing cards and dancing and going to the theater and
   indulging in similar follies, give them up. These things are found to
   be incompatible with increasing life and light.

   (2) In times of revival Christians get a new spirit of prayer.
   Prayer-meetings are no longer a duty, but become the necessity of a
   hungry, importunate heart. Private prayer is followed with new zest.
   The voice of earnest prayer to God is heard day and night. People no
   longer ask, "Does God answer prayer?" They know He does, and besiege
   the throne of grace day and night.

   (3) In times of revival Christians go to work for lost souls.

   They do not go to meeting simply to enjoy themselves and get blessed.
   They go to meeting to watch for souls and to bring them to Christ. They
   talk to men on the street and in the stores and in their homes. The
   cross of Christ, salvation, heaven and hell become the subjects of
   constant conversation. Politics and the weather and new bonnets and the
   latest novels are forgotten.

   (4) In times of revival Christians have new joy in Christ. Life is joy,
   and new life is new joy. Revival days are glad days, days of heaven on
   earth.

   (5) In times of revival Christians get a new love for the Word of God.
   They want to study it day and night. Revivals are bad for saloons and
   theaters, but they are good for bookstores and Bible agencies.

   3. But revivals also have a decided influence on the unsaved world.

   (1) First of all, they bring deep conviction of sin. Jesus said that
   when the Spirit was come He would convince the world of sin (Jn.
   16:7,8). Now we have seen that a revival is a coming of the Holy
   Spirit, and therefore there must be a new conviction of sin, and there
   always is. If you see something men call a revival, and there is no
   conviction of sin, you may know at once that it is bogus. It is a sure
   mark.

   (2) Revivals bring also conversion and regeneration. When God refreshes
   His people, He always converts sinners also. The first result of
   Pentecost was new life and power to the one hundred and twenty
   disciples in the upper room; the second result was three thousand
   conversions in a single day. It is always so. I am constantly reading
   of revivals here and there, where Christians were greatly helped but
   there were no conversions. I have my doubts about that kind. If
   Christians are truly refreshed, they will get after the unsaved by
   prayer and testimony and persuasion, and there will be conversions.

   
   2. Look now at the church:

   (1) Look at the doctrinal state of the church. It is bad enough. Many
   do not believe in the whole Bible. The book of Genesis is a myth, Jonah
   is an allegory, and even the miracles of the Son of God are questioned.
   The doctrine of prayer is old-fashioned, and the work of the Holy
   Spirit is sneered at. Conversion is unnecessary, and hell is no longer
   believed in. Then look at the fads and errors that have sprung up out
   of this loss of faith, Christian Science, Unitarianism, Spiritualism,
   Universalism, Babism, Metaphysical Healing, etc., etc., a perfect
   pandemonium of doctrines of devils.

   (2) Look at the spiritual state of the church. Worldliness is rampant
   among church members. Many church members are just as eager as any in
   the rush to get rich. They use the methods of the world in the
   accumulation of wealth, and they hold just as fast to it as any when
   they have gotten it.

   Prayerlessness abounds among church members on every hand. Some one has
   said that Christians on the average do not spend more than five minutes
   a day in prayer.

   Neglect of the Word of God goes hand in hand with neglect of prayer to
   God. Very many Christians spend twice as much time every day wallowing
   through the mire of the daily papers as they do bathing in the
   cleansing laver of God's Holy Word. How many Christians average an hour
   a day spent in Bible study?

   Along with neglect of prayer and neglect of the Word of God goes a lack
   of generosity. The churches are rapidly increasing in wealth, but the
   treasuries of the missionary societies are empty. Christians do not
   average a dollar a year for foreign missions. It is simply appalling.

   Then there is the increasing disregard for the Lord's Day. It is fast
   becoming a day of worldly pleasure, instead of a day of holy service.
   The Sunday newspaper with its inane twaddle and filthy scandal takes
   the place of the Bible; and visiting and golf and bicycle, the place of
   the Sunday-school and church service.

   Christians mingle with the world in all forms of questionable
   amusements. The young man and young woman who does not believe in
   dancing with its rank immodesties, the card table with its drift toward
   gambling, and the theater with its ever-increasing appeal to lewdness,
   is counted an old fogy.

   Then how small a proportion of our membership has really entered into
   fellowship with Jesus Christ in His burden for souls! Enough has been
   said of the spiritual state of the church.

3. Now look at the state of the world. 

(1) Note how few conversions there are. The Methodist church, which has led the way in aggressive work has actually lost more members than it has gained the last year. Here and there a church has a large number of accessions upon confession of faith, but these churches are rare exceptions; and where there are such accessions, in how few cases are the conversions deep, thorough and satisfactory. 

 (2) There is lack of conviction of sin. Seldom are men overwhelmed with a sense of their awful guilt in trampling under foot the Son of God. Sin is regarded as a "misfortune" or as "infirmity"   

I hope you enjoyed these excerpts from How to Pray by Reuben A. Torry, written in 1900  but just as applicable today as then.  Click here if you would like to read more of this book.