Why and How To Pray
I had the BEST time this morning during our weekly Facebook live prayer event! Chris’ message to the church this week was on growing your faith through very practical teaching. So, we got down and dirty - and practical this week! Check out the video if you have time.
Here are some highlights!
Why We Pray:
Intrinsically, we all know we need Someone bigger than ourselves. Not something. Someone. There’s too much at stake for life to be the sum total of our wins, losses, strengths and weaknesses. So we turn to the Son of Man who died on a stake for us for perspective, help and hope.
We do not pray because God needs to be reminded or our problems.
We pray because we need to be reminded that He is God! Faithful and true!
Romans 8 tells us His Spirit intercedes for us when we don’t know how to pray - so you don’t even have to be “good at it”.
We pray because we become like Whoever we spend our time with. We speak like the ones we speak with.
How To Pray:
Talk to God the way you talk to someone you love.
Try writing your thoughts down into a note directed at God. You’d be amazed at what you uncover as you write. It helps you stay focused too!
Pray the psalms. Choose a psalm - like Psalm 23 - and re-write it or read it aloud in first person as your own prayer. There’s a psalm for every season!
Borrow from someone else’s prayers! I often use Stormie Omartian’s prayers (author of The Power of the Praying Wife and many more) to teach me how to pray and what to pray for. It has really opened my eyes spiritually!
Create a habit or routine. Choose a time or an event that will be your prayer time, whether it’s a quiet time in the morning, traffic time on the way to work, or your bathroom break. We’ve started a 7am prayer in our house during breakfast so we can all pray together.
The Most Important Prayer
There is one prayer you only have to pray once and is the most important one you’ll ever say. It is the prayer of salvation.
Romans 10:9 says “If you confess with your mouth, “Jesus is Lord,” and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.”
That’s it!
Jesus, I believe that you are Lord, and I want you to be Lord over my life. On my own, I sin and fall short of the glory of God. I believe you died for me, and I give you authority in my life. Amen.
That’s it. You’ll still mess up and sin after you say this prayer. But you are always forgiven, always accepted, always welcome Home when you turn back to Him.
If you have prayed that prayer already, make sure you know how to help others pray it!
Now it is YOUR hands and feet that make faith and hope in heaven practical! Go tell someone!