Tag: bible

The key to a satisfying prayer life is to have a personal relationship with God. Only then can we honestly say “Our Father in Heaven” as Jesus did.

This is how you should pray: Our Father in heaven let Your name be kept holy. Let Your kingdom come. Let Your will be done on earth as it is done in heaven. Give us our daily bread today. Forgive us as we forgive others. Don’t allow us to be tempted. Instead, rescue us from the evil one (Matthew 6:9-13).

One bible commentator puts forward this concept of basic prayer: Jesus’ model prayer includes three key elements. (1) It is based on a personal relationship. (2) It centers around God’s glory and kingdom and an overwhelming desire for His will to be done. (3) It includes petitions and requests, especially for daily needs, forgiveness, and protection from temptation and evil. Note Jesus specifically comments on the aspect of forgiveness at the conclusion of the prayer.

If you forgive the failures of others, your Heavenly Father will also forgive you. But if you don’t forgive others, your Father will not forgive your failures. (Matthew 6:14-15)

If we can learn biblical ideas and practices of prayer, we can take better advantage of the powerful privilege we have of going to God anytime about anything. May our study boost our prayer lives and increase our intimacy with Him.

When you pray, mean it. Fervent prayer thwarts satan’s activities like nothing else!

Now this is the confidence we have before Him: Whenever we ask anything according to His will, He hears us. And if we know that He hears whatever we ask, we know that we have what we have asked Him for (1 John 5:14-15).

Kay Arthur poses very good questions for those who are still starting out in a prayer life: How confident are you in your prayer life? Have you ever believed God would answer your prayer in a certain way, only to be disappointed? Are your prayers general, like “bless everyone” because you are afraid to pray specifically, to ask God for definite answers?

O Beloved, I do understand. I’ve been there. And since I’ve been there let me ask a few more questions: Do you ever stand in awe at the testimony of others and their answers to prayer? Does it make you feel like a reject because you have never received those kind of answers? Do you ever wonder if you even know how to pray? Or have you even wondered if God really meant what He said when He gave us those prayer promises?

According to those verses in 1 John, if we ask anything that is God’s will, you can be sure God will hear and answer. So – is it God’s will for you to know how to pray? Of course it is. Go to God and tell Him what you want regarding prayer. Show Him His promise, and claim that promise for yourself.

It is not always necessary to be on your knees, or even in a quiet room to pray. God wants us to be in touch with Him wherever we are – in the car, at the mall, while washing the dishes, or while walking down the street. All day without ceasing.

Always be joyful. Never stop praying. Whatever happens, give thanks, because it is God’s will in Christ Jesus that you do this (1 Thessalonians 5:16-18).

“Pray without ceasing .” This does not mean you are to go to an all-day or all-night prayer meeting. Prayer is more an attitude of life… It is the entire life behind the words spoken that makes prayer effective. A famous preacher expressed it: “When a man prays for a corn crop, God expects him to say ‘Amen’ with a hoe in his hand.” You can’t just stay on your knees all the time and pray for corn, but pray for the corn and then go to work. (J. Vernon McGee)

There is a danger of confusing God with vitamins. We dishonor prayer if we reduce it to a tool.

We never know completely the effects of our prayers, but we do know God includes prayer as part of His strategy for establishing His kingdom and ensuring our spiritual victories.

A man should always pray and not lose heart. Men in difficult days will either lose heart or pray – either they will be days of fear or days of faith. (J. Vernon McGee)

Prayer is a means by which God guides and protects His children.

Henry M. Stanley on prayer:  Prayer made me stronger, morally and mentally, than any of my non-praying companions.  It did not blind my eyes, or dull my mind, or close my ears; but on the contrary, it gave me confidence.  And it did more; it gave me joy and pride in my work, and lifted me over the one thousand five hundred miles of forest tracks [in Africa], eager to face the day’s perils and fatigues.”  Prayer, like food, is most vitally approached when one is in hungry need of it.

When Jesus prayed, “the fashion of his countenance was altered” (Luke 9:29).  Faith for fear, strength for anxiety, confidence for hesitation, inward power adequate for whatever peril – that change showed in Jesus’ face.  A shift of attitude from the aggressiveness of daily life to spiritual quietness, openness, hospitality is almost always present in prayer.  There are two aspects to every strong life – rooting and fruiting, receptivity and activity, relaxation and tension, resting and working hard.  A man who cannot do the former can never do the latter well.  Prayer needs positive affirmation of faith and confidence in God that puts divine strength in the center of the picture and crowds apprehensions, anxieties and fears off the edge. (Real prayer is always more than begging, it is affirmation!)

There are missuses of prayer, and many souls have been estranged from praying and deprived of its consolations and reinforcements because they have seen so much superstition and self-seeking mingled with it.  Prayer is not a process by which mortal man turns eternal God into a bell-boy to run man’s errands.  God, to those who knew the deep meanings of prayer, has been an unseen Friend an invisible Companion. 

This leads to a climactic fact: Christian prayer releases superhuman power.  Christian prayer is not the endeavor to get God to do what we want, but to put ourselves into such relationships with God that He can do in and for and through us, what He wants.  Without prayer there are some things God cannot say to us, for prayer is the listening ear.  Without prayer, there are some things God cannot give to us, for prayer is the hospitable heart.  Without prayer, there are some things God cannot do through us, for prayer is the cooperative will.  Prayer is not merely a subjective psychological experience without objective consequence.  Prayer does not alter God’s purpose, but releases it.

As soon as we begin to divide our thoughts into thoughts of God and thoughts of other things, we remove God from our daily walk and put Him in a pious little niche where we go to think pious thoughts and experience pious feelings.  Although it is important, and even indispensable for the spiritual life, to set apart time for God alone, prayer can only become unceasing when all thoughts – beautiful and ugly, high and low, proud and shameful, joyful and sorrowful – can be thought in God’s presence.

Then the Lord said, “Should I hide from Abraham what I am about to do?” (Genesis 18:17)

Why should God bother to take Abraham into His confidence?  God seems to feel a sense of obligation toward Abraham.  Why?  If you think about it for a moment you will realize the stupendous implications!  The Lord of far-flung galaxies, the Creator of all that exists, the All-Powerful, All-Knowing, inscrutable Judge of angels and demons and people, the King over the cosmos – is taking the trouble to explain His actions to an individual and is talking without condescension but in terms the man can understand.  It may seem inconceivable that the same God wants such a relationship with you.  If you are His friend, He will share His thoughts and plans with you.  You can see at once how this raises the whole level of prayer!

Don’t you think Christ Jesus knows what your soul needs?  Jesus knows.  This fact is helping to relieve a load off my mind because I don’t have to do it all or know it all.  I don’t have to be the strong one.  I don’t have to struggle in prayer trying to give Jesus my burdens.  He knows me and what I have need of – and how much more He gives!

Four qualities can be gained by using prayer in response to life situations: (1) a deepened awareness; (2) an increased ability to listen; (3) a will to find solitude; (4) a will to learn to wait – to accept the present as an opportunity to grow, to wait for His timing to change things.

Prayer is more an attitude of life than an action of the lips.

A study of God’s Word, followed by prayer is the formula for determining God’s Will. Real Prayer: (1) has a purpose; (2) is spoken with confidence in ourselves and our God; (3) is followed by action out of our attitude; (4) is straight from the heart; (5) is between you and God. It is accomplished with the Holy Spirit speaking in the believer through the Son to the Father.

Prayer is communication with God by which we express our dependence on Him. God knows what we need in our battle with the powers of darkness, and He is more ready to meet our needs than we are to ask. But until we express our dependence on Him, God may not act. In prayer we say, “You are Lord. You know what’s best. I’m not telling You what to do; I’m asking.”

Prayer that helps us connect with wisdom, with something greater than ourselves, is prayer at its most majestic. (Dr. Larry Dossey)

Not to pray is to be guilty of the incredible folly of ignoring the possibility of adding God (His strength, His wisdom, His love…) to our resources. In prayer we give the perfect mind of God an opportunity to feed our mental powers.

When we work, we work; but when we pray, God works. Though prayer will never do our work for us, it will strengthen us for the work to be done. Prayer may be defined as the appeal of the soul to God.

We fail when we try to obey God in our own power. We were never called to live this supernatural life by natural means! We can do much after we pray, but we can do nothing right until we pray.

I yield, Lord, to Your Spirit. I pray He will fill me today and minister to me and through me. May He enlighten and nourish me through Your Word, strengthen my inner person, and fill my heart to overflowing with Your love. May He produce in me the very temperament of Jesus – His ways of thinking and believing and trusting and reacting. Father, may this be especially true in my relationships in which I am most prone to act and react in unloving ways.

The child of God is to pray to the Father, in the name of the Son, by the power of the Holy Spirit. Recognizing God’s sovereignty in His universe and believing in what God has promised in His Word, are all essential to understanding God’s Will.

God works in mysterious ways, and prayer just might be the most mysterious of them all. It’s so simple, a child can do it. But it’s a concept so vast, the wisest scholars can’t fully comprehend it. Can that child really kneel down, close her eyes, and influence the plans of our Almighty God? Or does prayer simply open our eyes to the ever-present grace of our sovereign Father?

It is interesting that God has never sent a blessing to His people without first having them pray for that blessing! To pray means for you and me to get in tune with heaven. It does not mean God must rearrange His program for us, but He will work mightily upon us if we get our little instrument in tune so whatever we ask, He will do.

It is not only union with Christ, but it is communion with Him that gives a basis for God hearing and answering prayer. Prayer is not a matter of attempting to get a reluctant Deity to come over to our side. Prayer is not a method resorted to as if to persuade God to do something He is loath to do. Think carefully! God is trying to persuade us! He wants to do something for us, and He is trying to get us into a position to receive it.

What we can all understand is that prayer is a lifestyle of depending on God, giving Him His due respect, and aligning our hearts with His. That is a lifestyle of wisdom. We are blessed by God because, in addition to prayer we have God’s Word to us. Ours is not a one-way conversation. God expects us to hear His voice, so use the Scriptures to enrich your prayer and direct your life. (J. Vernon McGee)

Prayer is an attitude: knowing God will hear because He has invited you to ask, and knowing God will answer because He delights in being Father.

God, infinitely perfect and blessed in Himself, in a plan of sheer goodness, freely created me to draw and empowered me to share in His own blessed life. For this reason, at every time and in every place, God draws close to me. He calls me to seek Him, to know Him, to love Him with all my soul. He calls me together with all men, scattered and divided by sin, into the unity of His family, the Church.

The wonder of prayer is reveled beside the well where we come seeking water. There Jesus comes to meet every human being. It is He who first seeks us and asks for a drink. His asking arises from the depths of God’s desire for us. Whether we realize it or not, prayer is the encounter of God’s thirst with ours – God thirsts that we may thirst for Him.

“My people have done two things wrong. They have abandoned me, the fountain of life-giving water. They have also dug their own cisterns, broken cisterns that can’t hold water.” (Jeremiah 2:13)

Paradoxically our prayer of petition is a response to the plea of the living God: “They have forsaken Me, the fount of living water…” Prayer is the response of faith to the free promise of salvation and also a response of love to the thirst of the only true God. (St. Bonaventure)