In 1535, Martin Luther dedicated a small book to his friend and barber, Peter Beskendorf. Apparently the Master Barber had asked Luther for a simple guide to prayer for everyday folk, so Luther wrote his A Simple Way to Pray.
Before he begins praying through the Lord's Prayer, Luther gives the following advice:
It is good to let prayer be the first business of the morning and the last at night. Guard yourself carefully against those false, deluding ideas that tell you, Wait a little while. I will pray in an hour; first I must attend to this or that. Such thoughts get you away from prayer into other affairs, which so hold your attention and involve you that nothing comes of prayer for that day...[W]e must be careful not to break the habit of true prayer and imagine other works to be necessary which, after all, are nothing of the kind. Thus at the end we become lax and lazy, cool and listless toward prayer. The devil who besets us is not lazy or careless, and our flesh is too ready and eager to sin and is disinclined to the spirit of prayer.
Let us at Mission OPC be cultivating the "habit of true prayer" for the glory of God.
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