Next Step #2 – Learn to Pray
Prayer is a vital aspect of the Christian life.
When we read our Bibles, God is speaking to us. In prayer, we are speaking to God. Have you ever seen a train fire up and try to move forward when it was not on tracks? It is impossible. Prayer is like setting the train on its tracks. Without it, we can go nowhere. With it, we can go everywhere.
One of the great things about prayer is that prayer can do anything God can do. Prayer is the most powerful force we have because it touches the most powerful person in the world. In 1 John 5:15 it says, “And if we know that He hears us – whatever we ask – we know we have what we asked of Him.”
Learn how to pray effectively.
A few pointers for prayer are:
1. Pray in the name of Jesus – The name of Jesus gives you the authority to come before God and bring your requests.
2. Pray in faith – Believe that you are going to receive what you have been praying for. Mark 11:24 says, “Therefore I tell you, whatever things you ask for in prayer, believe that you have received it, and it will be yours.”
3. Pray continuously – Do not give up. The only way you will know how to pray effectively is by spending time in prayer. It’s kind of like working out at the gym. When you first start off, some of the dumb bells are nearly impossible to lift. The more you work out, the more you are able to lift. Prayer works the same way. When you first start out, it will be challenging and you will not think you are saying the right things. Do not worry about it. Prayer is simply you talking to God about anything you want to talk with Him about. The more you pray, the easier it will seem to speak the right words.
Learning how to pray will change the context of your life. So many times people start their prayer journey and think that after a couple of weeks their prayers should be moving mountains. The truth of it is, that this is just not normal. Does it happen? Yes, there are exceptions to every prayer lifestyle. For the most part, it takes time. It takes commitment.
I was reading a book called “The 15 Invaluable Laws of Leadership” by John C. Maxwell, and one of his well-established and thought-out laws was, the “Law of Consistency,” which is staying with it, little by little, every day. Maxwell has written over twenty books and many on the New York Times’ best-sellers’ list. When asked how he’d written so many books, his answer was simple. “I write a little bit every day. I write at least twenty-five minutes per day. I stay consistent. That doesn’t mean I only write a couple days a week. That means I write twenty-five minutes a day, every day!”
If you want to see God move in your family and in your life, it is going to take consistency in prayer.
John Wesley wisely quoted that “God does nothing but by prayer, and everything with it.” When you want to see God move in your life, a lifestyle of prayer is a must.
Think of hinges on a door. I was once traveling and saw doors that were literally over twenty feet high. These doors weighed hundreds of pounds. They were extremely heavy, but with one hand I could push them open. In order for those doors to function this way, there was a secret. There was something that was operating even though I was not looking at it or thinking about it. They were the small hinges on the inside of the door. These ten hinges that held this door secure, made it so I could push it open with one hand. They allowed the door to operate the way it was created to operate.
This is exactly what prayer is in your life. Your everyday life and the decisions you make are an illustration of the heavy door. Prayer is the illustration of the hinges. If you were to take away the hinges on the door, it would be sealed shut and too heavy to move. If you take prayer out of your life, every decision that you make and everything that comes your way will be nearly impossible to function the way that God created it to function.
“God does nothing but by prayer, and everything with it.” -John Wesley
There have been times in my own prayer journey that I throughly enjoyed praying. I would pray and run out of time before I ran out of a desire to pray. Then there have been times that I would pray and think I had been praying for hours. I’d look at the clock and see that it had only been a matter of minutes. The difference between my prayer life now and they way it was many years ago when I did not see the need for prayer, is that during those tough times, I would persevere through. I forced myself to stay in my room and pray.
No matter where you are at today, let me encourage you to set aside time every day to pray and seek God for direction in your life.
If you want to know more about prayer you can go to Amazon or iBookstore and purchase a book called, Prayer: Developing A Lifestyle of Prayer. I wrote this book to teach the importance of establishing a daily prayer life.
Bible Passages About Prayer
Acts 6:4, “But we will devote ourselves to prayer and to the ministry of the word.”
Luke 5:16, “Very early in the morning Jesus got up, and went out to pray.”
Acts 1:14, “They all devoted themselves to prayer.”
Philippians 4:6, “Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God.”
Matthew 6:6, “But when you pray, go into your room and shut the door and pray to your Father who is in secret and your Father who sees you in secret will reward you.”
Matthew 6:9-13, “Our Father in heaven, hallowed by your name.10 Your kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven. 11 Give us this day our daily bread, 12 and forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors. 13 and lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil.”
Luke 11:1, “Lord teach us to pray.”
1 Thessalonians 5:16-18, “Rejoice always, 17 pray without ceasing, 18 giving things in all circumstances; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you.”
Luke 11:40, “Pray that you may not enter temptation.”
