Prayer

 Prayer

A lot of kneeling will keep us in good standing with God. 

Why worry when you can pray? 

Take time to be holy; speak oft with thy Lord. 

Spend much time in secret with Jesus alone. 

We have to pray with our eyes on God, not our difficulty. 

The "good warfare" is waged on ones knees. 

Prayer will make a man cease from sin, or sin will make a man cease from prayer. 

Your job is to pray for that person, not change him|her. 

Time alone with God is like a cool, refreshing breeze on a hot summers day. 

Prayer is a powerful connection between our needs and God.-and he is ALWAYS more than enough. 

Do not pray that it would be easy. Rather that he would give you strength. 

God always answers prayers. But often the answers are different than what we expect. 

When life gets too hard to stand, kneel and pray! 

  Who prayed in the Bible? 

(These are just a few of the people mentioned in the bible that prayed.)

Genesis 20:17  -  Abraham prayed 

Job 42:8,  -   Job prayed 

Psalm 55:17  -  David prayed

Daniel 6:11 - Daniel prayed

Habakkuk 3:1  - Habakkuk prayed 

Matthew 14:23, John 14:6, John 17:9, - Jesus prayed 

(Jesus offers prayer on our behalf. 14:6) 

James 5:17,18 - Elijah prayed. 

I read somewhere once that prayer is how we talk to God, and reading the bible is how God talks to us. Therefore, prayer is how we communicate with God. Our thinking of prayer gets so mixed up now tho. We think of prayer as a means of getting what we want. In fact we don't even pray anymore unless we want something, or we are in a crisis and want deliverance. And then when God doesn't answer the way we wanted, we think he's dead and didn't hear us, or he has decided that he doesn't want to listen to us anymore and therefore doesn't answer prayer. But God always answers prayer. He's always there listening to us. And he always has an answer for us. In fact, it says so in Isaiah 65:42. "It shall come to pass That before they call, I will answer; And while they are speaking, I will hear."

Again in Jeremiah 33:3 "Call to me and I will answer you, and show you great and mighty things, which you did not know."

His answers are "yes, no, and wait." Therefore, the way he answers may not always be what we want him to answer. 

But prayer is also how we build our relationship with God. Prayer shouldn't just be asking what we want. Prayer should be our way of getting to know God fully. While bringing our needs before God is not wrong, in fact, he asks us to as he is our Father, we should not put our focus just on our needs and wants when we are praying. 

Prayer, also, shouldn't be a once a day thing. It should be an all day thing. God is with us all the time, so it doesn't make sense to only to talk to him at night before we go to bed. No!! Rather, we should talk to him wherever we are, all the time. Remind yourself over and over, that he is there all the time, so you can talk to him even in the car driving to work. 

Prayer should also be a time where we can thank God for everything he has done for us. He suffered on the cross so we could be clean before God. He bore the shame that we should of carried. He suffered on our behalf. 

We can thank him for his love for us. He suffered and died because he loved us. And yet, so selfishly, we refuse to love him back. Or else we only give half our love to him, and keep the other half for ourself. 

In fact, we have become so cold in our love towards him, that we barely think of him during the day, and at night we stagger through a prayer that sounds something like this: Help me God to do everything right. Help me look good to the people I meet. Help me not make a fool of myself. 

Well, how selfish is that? God sent his son to 

this earth to suffer the most unbearable pain you couldn't even imagine so you could be forgiven and free, and you just stagger through a sloppy little prayer praying that you will be benefitted. 

Remember, I am speaking to myself here. Its so easy to think of what is happening around me, that I forget to talk to the one who is watching over me 24|7. 

Now I want to list a few reference on what the Bible has to say about prayer. 

2 Chronicles 7:14-16. We need to be humble when we pray. 

Psalm 122:6. Pray for the peace of Jerusalem. 

Matthew 5:44. Pray for our enemies. 

Matthew 9:38. Pray for more labourers in the harvest.

Matthew 26:41. Never cease from praying. 

Romans 8:26. Jesus helps us pray by interceding for us with groanings too deep for words. 

Romans 12:12. Be faithful in praying. 

Ephesians 6:18. Pray all the time.

Philippians 4:6. Pray about everything instead of worrying about it. 

1 Thessalonians 5:17. Pray without stopping. 

Now of course these are just a few of the many verses on prayer. These are more tellling us how to pray. Like when it tells us to be faithful in praying, and never stopping. They tell us about some of the things we should be praying for also. 

I challenge you to look at your prayer life and see what shape it is in. 

Is it empty and sorry looking? Or are you constantly tuning in to your blessed saviour?