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BIBLICAL MOTIVATION
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Why do we need to be in prayer?
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Jesus set the example for us.
Mark 1:35 – Very early in the morning, while it was still dark, Jesus got up, left the house and went off to a solitary place, where he prayed.
Matthew 26:39-44 – Going a little farther, he fell with his face to the ground and prayed, "My Father, if it is possible, may this cup be taken from me. Yet not as I will, but as you will." [40] Then he returned to his disciples and found them sleeping. "Could you men not keep watch with me for one hour?" he asked Peter. [41] "Watch and pray so that you will not fall into temptation. The spirit is willing, but the body is weak." [42] He went away a second time and prayed, "My Father, if it is not possible for this cup to be taken away unless I drink it, may your will be done." [43] When he came back, he again found them sleeping, because their eyes were heavy. [44] So he left them and went away once more and prayed the third time, saying the same thing.
Jesus thought it important enough to teach us how to pray.
Matthew 6:5-13 – "And when you pray, do not be like the hypocrites, for they love to pray standing in the synagogues and on the street corners to be seen by men. I tell you the truth, they have received their reward in full. [6] But when you pray, go into your room, close the door and pray to your Father, who is unseen. Then your Father, who sees what is done in secret, will reward you. [7] And when you pray, do not keep on babbling like pagans, for they think they will be heard because of their many words. [8] Do not be like them, for your Father knows what you need before you ask him.
[9] "This, then, is how you should pray: " 'Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name, [10] your kingdom come, your will be done on earth as it is in heaven. [11] Give us today our daily bread. [12] Forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors. [13] And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from the evil one.'
We make our hearts' desires known to God, both our "wants" and "needs" (examples).
What we want— John 16:24 – Until now you have not asked for anything in my name. Ask and you will receive, and your joy will be complete.
Our need for forgiveness—1 John 1:9 – If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness.
We transfer our burdens to God through prayer.
1 Peter 5:7 – Cast all your anxiety on him because he cares for you.
Philip. 4:6-7 – Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. [7] And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.
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GETTING LAUNCHED
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Our biggest struggle in prayer is simply getting started. It's easy to be too ambitious or try to pray for the "world" and everything in it during our initial prayer session. Follow these simple steps to get going.
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Step 1 – The first thing to understand is that prayer is dialogue between us and God. It's simple conversation.
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Step 2 – Use this simple acrostic "ACTS" to help guide your prayer (this follows the outline of the Lord's Prayer):
A – Adoration. Start off by telling God how much you love Him and appreciate Him. If you've ever been in love, remember back to those early conversations of how you expressed your love to each other. Examples from the Bible: Exodus 15:1-21; 2 Sam 22; Psalm 63:1-8; Luke 1:46-55
C – Confession. Cleanse your heart. If you feel like you've been hiding things from God or just feel "dirty" or "impure" before God, get it off your chest. Tell Him you're sorry and ask Him for His generous forgiveness (1 John 1:9). Examples: Psalm 32 & 51; Prov 28:13; Luke 15:17-21; 1 John 1:8-10.
T – Thanksgiving. It's always polite to say "thank you," especially to God. Of the 10 lepers who were healed by Jesus, only one said "thanks" (see Luke 17:11-19). Have you forgotten to tell God "thanks" for what He has done for you? Examples: Dan 6:10; Psalm 105:1; Col 2:7; 1 Thes 5:18.
S – Supplication. After putting God first, cleansing our heart, and being thankful, we can now lay our requests before Him. A good way to group our supplication (or requests) is to pray for others first and then pray for ourselves. Examples: Gen 18:23-32; Psalm 143:8-10; Prov 30:7-9; Phil 1:9-11.
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Step 3 – Develop a prayer list or prayer card to record requests and answers. Take a simple piece of paper and draw a line down the middle of it. On the top left write "MY REQUEST," and on the top right write "GOD'S ANSWER." Keep track of what you request in prayer and how God answers you.
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SUGGESTION
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― Once you get going in prayer, your prayer list can grow quite long. Try this out:
― Divide your list into 7 categories such as: Christians in the Military, Non-believers in the Military, Christians who are Civilians (friends back home, etc), Non-believers who are Civilians, Family members, People in Authority, and Personal.
― Use seven 5x7 note cards, one for each category and keep track of your requests this way, one for each day of the week.
― Make a pocket in the back of your Bible and carry your prayer cards with you with your Bible.
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Step 4 – Challenge yourself to set aside 10 minutes every day for a week for prayer. After you have experienced success for a few weeks, increase your time to 20 or 30 minutes or even longer!
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CAUTION
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Don't be too ambitious. Consistency matters most, soooooo, keep it simple.
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CONTINUING FURTHER
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Now that we've taken off, we want to experience sustained flight in prayer.
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Take Prayer to the Next Level – Use Scripture!
When we want to "take prayer to the next level," the best place to go is to make our prayer Scripture-centered. This springs from 1 John 5:14-15 "This is the confidence we have in approaching God: that if we ask anything according to his will, he hears us. [15] And if we know that he hears us—whatever we ask--we know that we have what we asked of him."
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REMEMBER
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Prayer consists of us coming into agreement with the Father. It rarely consists of Him coming into agreement with us. We grow and mature by learning to desire what He desires. Praying through Scriptures helps us do this.
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Here are a couple of ways to incorporate Scripture into your prayer life.
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1
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Pray through passages that reflect what's on your heart. Here are examples:
Feeling like praising God – Psalm 63
Feeling a need for protection – Psalm 91
Feeling hungry for God – Psalm 42
Feeling like your character needs help – Psalm 15
Feeling a need for confession – Psalm 51
You get the idea. As you might guess, the book of Psalms is a great place to go for praying through Scripture.
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2
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Claim promises to make your prayer life explosive!!!
God tells us, when in doubt, "claim that promise!"
2 Cor. 1:20 "For no matter how many promises God has made, they are 'Yes' in Christ. And so through him the 'Amen' is spoken by us to the glory of God."
Examples:
Need guidance – Proverbs 3:5-6 "Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding; [6] in all your ways acknowledge him, and he will make your paths straight."
Blessing from giving – Malachi 3:10 "Bring the whole tithe into the storehouse, that there may be food in my house. Test me in this," says the Lord Almighty, "and see if I will not throw open the floodgates of heaven and pour out so much blessing that you will not have room enough for it."
OR
2 Cor. 9:6-7 "Remember this: Whoever sows sparingly will also reap sparingly, and whoever sows generously will also reap generously. [7] Each man should give what he has decided in his heart to give, not reluctantly or under compulsion, for God loves a cheerful giver."
Launching a ministry – Isaiah 43:4 "Since you are precious and honored in my sight, and because I love you, I will give men in exchange for you, and people in exchange for your life."
OR
Isaiah 60:22 "The least of you will become a thousand, the smallest a mighty nation. I am the Lord; in its time I will do this swiftly."
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Spend a Day or Half-Day Alone in Prayer
This a powerful activity to plan into your hectic schedule.
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How to go About It – Having set aside a day or portion of a day for prayer, pack a lunch and start out. Find a place where you can be alone, away from distractions. This may be a wooded area near home, or your backyard. An outdoor spot is excellent if you can find it; but don’t get sidetracked into nature studies and fritter away your time. Take along a Bible, a notebook and pencil, a hymnbook, and perhaps a devotional book.
Divide the day into three parts: waiting on the Lord, prayer for others, and prayer for yourself.
1. WAIT ON THE LORD – You can begin this period of waiting by prayerfully reading through and meditating on a shorter book from the Bible. Consider one of the minor prophets or one of Paul's short epistles.
a. To realize His presence.
b. To be cleansed.
c. To worship Him.
2. PRAY FOR OTHERS
a. Ask specific things for them.
b. Use Paul's prayers for others.
c. Ask for others what you are praying for yourself.
3. PRAY FOR YOURSELF
a. Guidance and wisdom.
b. Godliness.
c. Concerns and needs.
Two Questions
The result of your day of prayer should be answers to the two questions Paul asked the Lord on the Damascus road (Acts 22:6-10). Paul’s first question was, “Who are you, Lord?” The Lord replied, “I am Jesus.” You will be seeking to know Him, to find out who He is.
The second question Paul asked was, “What shall I do, Lord?” The Lord answered him specifically. This should be answered or reconfirmed for you in that part of the day when you unhurriedly seek His will for you.
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A great variation to "Spending a Day or Half-Day Alone in Prayer" is to stay up all night praying.
Get yourself loaded up on coffee and "go for it!" I believe strongly that God really gets a kick out of us doing this. It's a little reckless, but then again, God's a little reckless. Some of my most productive times of prayer have been when I stayed up all night praying.
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SUGGESTION
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Read one of E.M. Bounds' books on Prayer. All his books are short and very easy to read. Here's a list to consider:
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The Essentials Of Prayer
The Necessity Of Prayer
The Possibilities Of Prayer
Power Through Prayer
Prayer And Praying Men
Purpose In Prayer
The Reality Of Prayer
The Weapon Of Prayer
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FURTHER STUDY
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To go deeper, here are some suggestions. Below are 3 Bible studies on the topic of prayer. Follow the suggested study and then work to answer these 3 questions:
1. What do I see? (Observation) - This is always the most challenging portion of Bible study, which most people give only cursory attention to (unfortunately). The key to doing Bible study is "training the eye to see." Seeing correctly helps you Interpret correctly and so on. environment - what it is like to be in the author's shoes.
2. What does it mean? (Interpretation) - What are the implications of what I just observed?
3. How does it work? (Application) - Two things to look for in this process:
- How does it work for me?
- How does it work for others?
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Study 1 – If you have the Bible on computer, look up every place in the Bible the word pray (or variations of the word such as prayer, praying, etc) is used and then make observations, interpretations, and applications (see above).
Study 2 – Study every place in the Gospels where Jesus prays and then make observations, interpretations, and applications (see above).
Study 3 – Study all Paul's prayers in the New Testament and then make observations, interpretations, and applications (see above).
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TECHNICAL POINT
This is what Easton’s Bible Dictionary says about “Prayer.”
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PRAYER is converse with God; the intercourse of the soul with God, not in contemplation or meditation, but in direct address to him. Prayer may be oral or mental, occasional or constant, ejaculatory or formal. It is a “beseeching the Lord” (Exodus 32:11); “pouring out the soul before the Lord” (1 Samuel 1:15); “praying and crying to heaven” (2 Chron. 32:20); “seeking unto God and making supplication” (Job 8:5); “drawing near to God” (Psalm 73:28); “bowing the knees” (Ephes. 3:14).
Prayer presupposes a belief in the personality of God, his ability and willingness to hold intercourse with us, his personal control of all things and of all his creatures and all their actions.
Acceptable prayer must be sincere (Hebrews 10:22), offered with reverence and godly fear, with a humble sense of our own insignificance as creatures and of our own unworthiness as sinners, with earnest importunity, and with unhesitating submission to the divine will. Prayer must also be offered in the faith that God is, and is the hearer and answerer of prayer, and that he will fulfil his word, “Ask, and ye shall receive” (Matthew 7:7-8; Matthew 21:22; Mark 11:24; John 14:13-14), and in the name of Christ (John 16:23-24; John 15:16; Ephes. 2:18; Ephes. 5:20; Col. 3:17; 1 Peter 2:5).
Prayer is of different kinds, secret (Matthew 6:6); social, as family prayers, and in social worship; and public, in the service of the sanctuary.
Intercessory prayer is enjoined (Numbers 6:23; Job 42:8; Isaiah 62:6; Psalm 122:6; 1 Tim. 2:1; James 5:14), and there are many instances on record of answers having been given to such prayers, e.g., of Abraham (Genesis 17:18, 20; Genesis 18:23-32; Genesis 20:7, 17-18), of Moses for Pharaoh (Exodus 8:12-13, 30-31; Exodus 9:33), for the Israelites (Exodus 17:11, 13; Exodus 32:11-14, 31-34; Numbers 21:7-8; Deut. 9:18-19, 25), for Miriam (Numbers 12:13), for Aaron (Deut. 9:20), of Samuel (1 Samuel 7:5-12), of Solomon (1 Kings 8; 2 Chron. 6), Elijah (1 Kings 17:20-23), Elisha (2 Kings 4:33-36), Isaiah (2 Kings 19), Jeremiah (Jeremiah 42:2-10), Peter (Acts 9:40), the church (Acts 12:5-12), Paul (Acts 28:8).
No rules are anywhere in Scripture laid down for the manner of prayer or the attitude to be assumed by the suppliant. There is mention made of kneeling in prayer (1 Kings 8:54; 2 Chron. 6:13; Psalm 95:6; Isaiah 45:23; Luke 22:41; Acts 7:60; Acts 9:40; Ephes. 3:14, etc.); of bowing and falling prostrate (Genesis 24:26, 52; Exodus 4:31; Exodus 12:27; Matthew 26:39; Mark 14:35, etc.); of spreading out the hands (1 Kings 8:22, 38, 54; Psalm 28:2; Psalm 63:4; Psalm 88:9; 1 Tim. 2:8, etc.); and of standing (1 Samuel 1:26; 1 Kings 8:14, 55; 2 Chron. 20:9; Mark 11:25; Luke 18:11, 13).
If we except the “Lord's Prayer” (Matthew 6:9-13), which is, however, rather a model or pattern of prayer than a set prayer to be offered up, we have no special form of prayer for general use given us in Scripture.
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PRINTABLE VERSION
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