Is Praying a Chore?

If you want your prayer life to be a joy rather than a chore, all you have to do is get in touch with the love of God in your heart.

As we conclude our series about all the ways that we can pray in the Spirit, we turn our attention to a seldom highlighted form of praying in the Spirit—praying with God’s love. When we pray with love, we are connected with God because God is love. The Holy Spirit is in the heart of the believer loving others unquenchably. Prayer becomes powerful and Spirit-led when our hearts are connected with the love that God has for people.

Love-soaked prayer is infused with divine power.

When you love someone deeply, you don’t have to think about whether you want what is best for him or her. Love always produces an attitude of heart that wants the beloved to be blessed. The secret of all powerful prayer is wanting passionately the well-being of the other. Spiritual prayer taps into the kind of love (agape) that Paul famously described in First Corinthians:

“If I give away all I have, and if I deliver up my body to be burned, but have not love, I gain nothing. Love is patient and kind; love does not envy or boast; it is not arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth. Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things” (1 Corinthians 13:3–7, ESV).

Love fuels intercession because love makes you other-centered rather than self-centered.  Because love is patient, it perseveres. When you love, your intercession becomes passionate and persistent, unswerving. When you love, you are not embittered; there is no obstacle to your prayer. Love endures. Love persists. Love holds no record of wrongs. This is how love works in prayer.

The God who loves others perfectly lives in you! Yield your heart more and more to the promptings of God’s vast love for others and your spirit will be connected with God’s own heart in prayer.

When you pray in love, you pray in the Spirit. And that’s the Gospel.