This 40-day devotional will transform your prayer life. More than 125,000 people have used Love to Pray to deepen and enrich their prayer lives. As the basis for the "40 Days of Prayer," this simple book has also transformed hundreds of congregations and the prayer lives of tens of thousands of individuals!.
Alvin VanderGriend's little book LOVE TO PRAY is an excellent resource approaching prayer from a variety of perspectives. It has eight sections with five devotional readings in each. VanderGriend attempts to help us see prayer as more than a religious activity, but as accepting an invitation from God to come into His presence where we are warmly welcomed.
I loved his definition of prayer: Prayer is the conversational part of the most important love relationship in our lives, our love relationship with the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.
This is a rich devotional resource I'm sure I will return to again in the future. I want to grow in prayer. I want to love to pray ... and VanderGriend has given me excellent perspective to see prayer as an ongoing conversation with someone who loves me deeply, and with whom I can share my whole heart.
My men's accountability group just finished 40 days with this book. It has been a privilege to watch the men grow in their prayer lives. There are a few theological statements in this book that I took issue with. Most of these have to do with how Vandergriend words a few of the more difficult and important concepts behind prayer; I think perhaps a few things could have been worded better. For example, Vandergriend seems to say that God does not hear the prayers of unbelievers. If this were true, then no one would be saved! Even with the few statements like this Vandergriend makes that I might disagree with, I have a strong feeling that if we were to sit down and talk it out we would be on the same page. On the whole this is well written, Biblically sound, and does a good job drawing you into a stronger relationship with God. Four very well-deserved stars.
It was an alright book. It was good to focus on prayer but there were a few things I didn't agree with in the book. Also, it was an 8 week book which distracted me from reading what I'm supposed to be reading - my bible! I know it is supposed to be used together, but I wasn't quite sure how.