Prayer- How to Pray
Pastor Banks
4 minute read
As a Christian, one of the most important things we can engage in is prayer.
Despite the importance of prayer in Christian life, many of you may still have questions such as, “How often should we pray?”, “What do we pray about?’, or “Is He going to answer our prayer?” You may even be asking “What really is prayer?”
If we look at prayer from the standpoint of a religious activity or ritual, it can appear intimidating and complex enough that we don’t want to do it at all. But the truth is that prayer is not as complicated as we make it out to be.
Prayer is simply talking to God.
Prayer is communicating with God. It’s the channel through which we can have dialogue with our heavenly father. The enemy knows this. His goal is to stop you and me from praying.
All throughout the Bible, from Genesis to Revelation, all the people that we see who had great exploits were people of prayer. Abraham, Jacob, Moses, Joseph, David, Daniel, the prophets, Jesus and the disciples. Prayer is so important that, because the disciples observed Jesus praying so much, they went to meet Him and said “Teach us how to pray.”
Before we begin, let’s look at two common reasons why we chose not to pray:
1. Busyness
In itself, busyness is not a problem, but it can weaken our spirit. It makes us tired, and our spirit is not aware of when the Lord is speaking to us.
2. Sin
Sin makes us feel insecure and ashamed. The cost of sin will take too much of our focus. We need to deal with the sin, so we can be free to enjoy our relationship with God.
This is why we must pray:
1. Prayer is a relationship and not a transaction
Prayer is not a one-way communication with God. Prayer is dialogue. We talk, He listens, He talks, and we listen. This is what makes our prayer life rich and enjoyable. If our prayer life is only a monologue after a while it becomes boring, and we don’t want to do it anymore.
2. Prayer reveals God’s Plan
When we grow and mature as Christians, we find many of God’s promises for our lives are conditioned on following and obeying Him on daily basis. The mind of God is reserved for all His children, but the plan of God is reserved for those who have a deep intimate relationship with Him. It’s the glory of the Lord to conceal a matter and the honor of kings to search it out.
This is why we need to spend time with Him. The enemy is not going to stop coming.
When I lost my sister to cancer six years ago, I was so crushed. My grief led me into seasons when I did not pray, which greatly impacted my intimacy with the Lord. Today a new battle takes place. My mom is dealing with stage 4 cancer. It’s easy for me to cave in and not pray because of past disappointment,but God gives me the grace to lift up my eyes and see that my help comes from the maker of Heaven and Earth. I was able to come out of that season after my sister passed away with my faith intact, and I am believing in God to do the same once more!
The only chance that my mom has to beat this is through prayer, so I’ve got to pray. There are so many things in our life like that.
If you’re looking for some practical help on how to structure your prayers, I want to leave you with this easy-to-remember acronym:
P – Praise Him
R – Reverence Him
A – Ask for His Plan
Y – Yield to His Plan