A Way To Pray by Matthew Henry edited by O. Palmer Robertson (This book teaches "A" Way to pray & "THE" Way to Pray!)

“A Biblical Method for Enriching Your Prayer Life and Language by Shaping Your Words With Scripture”

Author and well known and respected conference speaker Dr. O. Palmer Robertson has taken a historically classic book on prayer written by the legendary commentary author Matthew Henry and made it better. In the opening pages of his book he shares some helpful background information concerning Matthew Henry, the historical background about the book itself as well as some thoughts on how to read and use the book and use it in our prayer lives…he writes that the book should be read once all the way through to get the grand scheme of things concerning the book and then it should be read meditatively and prayerfully…on our knees while we are praying. And I could not agree with him more.

I am by no means an expert on the spiritual discipline of prayer and need to excel yet more and more in the discipline and practice in my life personally but what I have learned about prayer is that it is work, (but a work well worth doing and a work worth doing well), because it is always blessed of and by God. No time ever spent praying is to be considered wasted but rather time wisely invested in getting to know God and his son, our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ better, to love him more and to serve him more effectively. So, this book on prayer is not a book to be read like a novel or a non-fiction book. This is a book to be read and reread and to be prayed through that God might bless you and your life more than he already has.

The book is broken down into 9 sections concerning prayer and the types of prayer: the first being the right and appropriate place to begin and that is with praise. Then the other 8 sections are about Confession, Petition, Thanksgiving, Intercession, Prayers for Particular Occasions (such as a morning and evening prayer as well as a prayer of thanksgiving for after you have eaten and other prayers as well), Concluding Our Prayers, The Lord’s Prayer Expanded, Shorter Forms of Prayer, and then ending with a Short Summary of Prayer Topics, An Expanded Summary of Prayer Topics and finally a Subject Index.

In each section of the book such as in the section on Praise author Henry offers various types of prayers of praise and when and why we should pray them. He does the same for each particular type of prayer giving us as his student in prayer a how to guide that will direct and assist us to proper and effective prayer in any one of the areas that we are praying through. This is no light book nor is it to be taken lightly but quite the contrary is true, this is a most serious book concerning a most solemn and necessary practice for every lover of God and follower of Christ to engage in and that is in the discipline of intelligent, persistent and effectual fervent prayer for the Scriptures saith that, “the effectual fervent prayer of a righteous man availeth much. (James 5:16 KJV).

What makes this book of precious value to those of us who long to grow closer to our Lord in regards to our discipline of prayer is that the book is immensely and pleasurably rich in Scriptures to help us pray more effectively. When you pray the Scriptures – that is the Word of God then you are always on safe and steady ground in regards to praying for and about the Will of God, not only for your life but for the lives of the people you love and care about. This book is like a pearl of great price because it instructs us and aids us in doing that which enables us to experience the most delightfully full and abundant presence and pleasure of God in our lives and that is his personal presence and power as and when we pray.

To learn more about A Way To Pray and The Banner of Truth Trust visit their website at http://www.banneroftruth.org/pages/home.php

To order a copy of A Way To Pray click on the link A Way to Pray

I received a complementary copy of the book from Banner of Truth Trust for reviewing it.

My email address is haroldcameron56@gmail.com.