Prayer is basically talking with God. It is simply expressing your heart and spending time with Him. It is not a one way activity, God speaks, we listen, we speak and God listens to our hearts. Prayer can be exciting, powerful and fulfilling.
may this blog column inspire you to pursue your own personal study on this subject.
Types of Prayer
A. Thanksgiving
B. Petition
C. Prevailing
D. Praying For Others
A. Thanksgiving- Giving thanks to God for all things in your life. We are commanded to give thanks in all circumstances. Being thankful is being grateful for his protection , provision, blessing, and most of all for his Son.
B. Petition- We ask God for the specific things we need in our life. Give us our daily bread. Give us the things we need to survive, a roof over our heads, employment etc. Petitions are usually self orientated, presenting our personal needs to our Heavenly Father, in trust that He will provide. Be specific in your petitions, pray in details and not in generalities.
C. Prevailing Prayer- fervent consistent insistent prayer until a breakthrough takes place, whether in your personal life, or for someone else ( intercession). Example Believing for emotional or physical healing.
Biblical Example: Luke 18:1-8.(NIV) Then Jesus told his disciples a parable to show them that they should always pray and not give up. He said: "In a certain town there was a judge who neither feared God nor cared about men. And there was a widow in that town who kept coming to him with the plea, `Grant me justice against my adversary.' "For some time he refused. But finally he said to himself, `Even though I don't fear God or care about men, yet because this widow keeps bothering me, I will see that she gets justice, so that she won't eventually wear me out with her coming!'" And the Lord said, "Listen to what the unjust judge says. And will not God bring about justice for his chosen ones, who cry out to him day and night? Will he keep putting them off? I tell you, he will see that they get justice, and quickly. However, when the Son of Man comes, will he find faith on the earth?"
D Praying For Others- Love on its knees in prayer, for others. Pleading on behalf of the needs of someone else. Standing in the gap, that is, praying prayers of repentance, etc., identifying yourself with the sins of those for which you are in prayer.
Biblical Example: Nehemiah, a godly man, identified with the sins of his people, praying prayers of repentance, asking the Lord to forgive and to have mercy and to raise up once again the nation of Israel. Read Nehemiah 1 for this story. Be a prayer warrior for the Lord!
Wednesday, August 12, 2009
Tuesday, August 11, 2009
Be Still and Know that He is God! Be Quiet and Listen for His Guidance and Compassion
The Lord has strongly impressed upon me that we need to be qyiet before Him, and listen for His still, gentle voice. "Be still and Know that I am God!" Psalm 46:10
Listening to God - Preparing Your Heart to Hear Him
Listening to God is like listening to anyone-before you can hear Him, you must be ready to listen. Just as in a conversation, you cannot hear the other person if you are talking or if your mind is distracted. So it is with God. If you want to hear Him speak, you must be quiet and you must be focused on what He is saying. Regular conversation with God can transform your life! Consider identifying a place and time to meet with God everyday.
Prayer is how you begin a conversation with God. Think of it as saying "hello."
Listening to God - How Can I Hear Him?
Listening to God requires a deliberate choice to shut out the chaos around you and focus your thoughts. Is God someone you can hear? The Bible says He is, and the Bible is one of the main tools through which He speaks.
We live in a world of noise. Almost everywhere we go, we find sounds competing with our minds, keeping us from letting our thoughts get below the surface level. Hearing God's voice means not listening to the noise of the world around us. It's not easy, but it can be done.
King David, author of most of the book of Psalms, gave us a model for meeting with God, "Let the morning bring me word of your unfailing love, for I have put my trust in you. Show me the way I should go, for to you I lift up my soul" (Psalm 143:8).
He sought God's direction in the morning, at the beginning of the day. Like a general in God's army, he wanted to hear from his Commanding Officer before he entered into battle. Beginning each day fresh with God is a great reminder that, as the Scripture says, His mercies are new every morning (Lamentations 3:22, 23). You must find the time of day that works for you, but morning is the best time if that is possible.
Listening to God requires a heart committed to understand His message. God often speaks to us in visual images. Consider the example of the prophet Habakkuk, in Habakkuk chapter 2. The prophet longed to hear from God! He was so determined that he was willing to stand and wait as long as it took. "I will stand at my watch and station myself on the ramparts; I will look to see what he will say to me…" (Habakkuk 2:1).
In order to listen to God and receive His instruction, we must want to do His will, much as Habakkuk did. God honors the heart that is fully surrendered to Him. If we are stubbornly clinging to our own desires, we are likely to get a garbled message that will not be God's voice at all. As a result, we are likely to continue pursuing a path that is contrary to the one God has designed for our lives.
Psalm 40:8 says, "I desire to do your will, O my God; your law is within my heart."
When you listen to God and obey Him, you will discover a life that is full and rich with purpose, confident you are following the Master's plan.
Listening to God - Preparing Your Heart to Hear Him
Listening to God is like listening to anyone-before you can hear Him, you must be ready to listen. Just as in a conversation, you cannot hear the other person if you are talking or if your mind is distracted. So it is with God. If you want to hear Him speak, you must be quiet and you must be focused on what He is saying. Regular conversation with God can transform your life! Consider identifying a place and time to meet with God everyday.
Prayer is how you begin a conversation with God. Think of it as saying "hello."
Listening to God - How Can I Hear Him?
Listening to God requires a deliberate choice to shut out the chaos around you and focus your thoughts. Is God someone you can hear? The Bible says He is, and the Bible is one of the main tools through which He speaks.
We live in a world of noise. Almost everywhere we go, we find sounds competing with our minds, keeping us from letting our thoughts get below the surface level. Hearing God's voice means not listening to the noise of the world around us. It's not easy, but it can be done.
King David, author of most of the book of Psalms, gave us a model for meeting with God, "Let the morning bring me word of your unfailing love, for I have put my trust in you. Show me the way I should go, for to you I lift up my soul" (Psalm 143:8).
He sought God's direction in the morning, at the beginning of the day. Like a general in God's army, he wanted to hear from his Commanding Officer before he entered into battle. Beginning each day fresh with God is a great reminder that, as the Scripture says, His mercies are new every morning (Lamentations 3:22, 23). You must find the time of day that works for you, but morning is the best time if that is possible.
Listening to God requires a heart committed to understand His message. God often speaks to us in visual images. Consider the example of the prophet Habakkuk, in Habakkuk chapter 2. The prophet longed to hear from God! He was so determined that he was willing to stand and wait as long as it took. "I will stand at my watch and station myself on the ramparts; I will look to see what he will say to me…" (Habakkuk 2:1).
In order to listen to God and receive His instruction, we must want to do His will, much as Habakkuk did. God honors the heart that is fully surrendered to Him. If we are stubbornly clinging to our own desires, we are likely to get a garbled message that will not be God's voice at all. As a result, we are likely to continue pursuing a path that is contrary to the one God has designed for our lives.
Psalm 40:8 says, "I desire to do your will, O my God; your law is within my heart."
When you listen to God and obey Him, you will discover a life that is full and rich with purpose, confident you are following the Master's plan.
Monday, August 03, 2009
Pray for the Lost and Those Who Seem Blinded by the Darkness -- May They Find Christ's Love!
"Brothers and sisters, my heart's desire and prayer to God for Israel is that they may be saved" Romans 10:1
Do you ever get sad about the state of those who do not know God, or who knowingly disobey him. You want to help them, jsut as you would want to stop a child from doing something that might harm him or her. But sometimes people are bent toward their own destruction. Still, we must pray for the lost and the ones who are so confused that they put themseles in peril. It is our Christian duty to pray for them in love. Jesus warns of eternal torment for those who reject Him.
We already see the first reason why we should pray for the lost: People are sinners by nature. Salvation requires an overthrow of what we naturally are. Ephesians 2:3 recalls how that,"We all once conducted ourselves in the lusts of our flesh, fulfilling the desires of the flesh and of the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, just as the others"
Satan is at work in the world. This sounds terribly old-fashioned to the modern mind, but Scripture teaches this repeatedly. For example, Ephesians 2:2: "You once walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, the spirit who now works in the sons of disobedience." The sinister influence of the evil one is internal and dynamic. It has an influential and powerful effect upon the person. Other passages teach the same basic premise and add other nuances of insight:
The Bible teaches that the devil has ensnared the lost. Paul tells us what kind of attitude we should demonstrate in dealing with opponents of the Christian message: "In humility correcting those who are in opposition, if God perhaps will grant them repentance, so that they may know the truth, and that they may come to their senses and escape the snare of the devil, having been taken captive by him to do his will" (1st Timothy 2:25-26). Notice the entrapment: God has to grant repentance because they are so spiritually disabled that they cannot do it on their own. And notice why this is: they are ensnared and taken captive. We know about substance abuse addictions and sexual addictions and gambling addictions; this is an addiction of self enthronement, a God-rejection addiction.
The devil has deceived the lost. "The whole world lies under the sway of the wicked one" (1st John 5:19). Yhe unbeliever, in the arms of Satan, islulled to sleep, and unaware of their dangerous plight.
The lost have been blinded. "But even if our gospel is veiled, it is veiled to those who are perishing, whose minds the god of this age has blinded" (2nd Corinthians 4:3-4). One of the problems of being lost is that one cannot see the obvious, they simply do not get it. It is not that it is too deep to fathom; it is not a matter of intelligence. It is a spiritual seeing problem. Ever notice how sometimes you can talk to a person and while otherwise they are very friendly and intelligent, when the conversation turns to Christ suddenly they sound like they don't have any common sense?
So we are burdened for someone. What are some things we can pray for them?
We can pray for God to send conviction, that is that they will sense the urgency of their need. At Pentecost, Peter's sermon was interrupted by his listeners, "Now when they heard this, they were cut to the heart, and said to Peter and the rest of the apostles, "Men and brethren, what shall we do?" (Acts 2:37) Conviction is when God call us to call to account and show us our fault.
We can ask God to send enlightenment. Paul was commissioned by God to go to the gentiles, "To open their eyes, in order to turn them from darkness to light, and from the power of Satan to God, that they may receive forgiveness of sins and an inheritance among those who are sanctified by faith in Me" (Acts 26:18). We can pray that God would call and draw, attracting them to Christ. We can pray that mental strongholds against goodness and God might be pulled down. May their eyes be opened and may they be surrounded by His Love! IN JESUS NAME!
Do you ever get sad about the state of those who do not know God, or who knowingly disobey him. You want to help them, jsut as you would want to stop a child from doing something that might harm him or her. But sometimes people are bent toward their own destruction. Still, we must pray for the lost and the ones who are so confused that they put themseles in peril. It is our Christian duty to pray for them in love. Jesus warns of eternal torment for those who reject Him.
We already see the first reason why we should pray for the lost: People are sinners by nature. Salvation requires an overthrow of what we naturally are. Ephesians 2:3 recalls how that,"We all once conducted ourselves in the lusts of our flesh, fulfilling the desires of the flesh and of the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, just as the others"
Satan is at work in the world. This sounds terribly old-fashioned to the modern mind, but Scripture teaches this repeatedly. For example, Ephesians 2:2: "You once walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, the spirit who now works in the sons of disobedience." The sinister influence of the evil one is internal and dynamic. It has an influential and powerful effect upon the person. Other passages teach the same basic premise and add other nuances of insight:
The Bible teaches that the devil has ensnared the lost. Paul tells us what kind of attitude we should demonstrate in dealing with opponents of the Christian message: "In humility correcting those who are in opposition, if God perhaps will grant them repentance, so that they may know the truth, and that they may come to their senses and escape the snare of the devil, having been taken captive by him to do his will" (1st Timothy 2:25-26). Notice the entrapment: God has to grant repentance because they are so spiritually disabled that they cannot do it on their own. And notice why this is: they are ensnared and taken captive. We know about substance abuse addictions and sexual addictions and gambling addictions; this is an addiction of self enthronement, a God-rejection addiction.
The devil has deceived the lost. "The whole world lies under the sway of the wicked one" (1st John 5:19). Yhe unbeliever, in the arms of Satan, islulled to sleep, and unaware of their dangerous plight.
The lost have been blinded. "But even if our gospel is veiled, it is veiled to those who are perishing, whose minds the god of this age has blinded" (2nd Corinthians 4:3-4). One of the problems of being lost is that one cannot see the obvious, they simply do not get it. It is not that it is too deep to fathom; it is not a matter of intelligence. It is a spiritual seeing problem. Ever notice how sometimes you can talk to a person and while otherwise they are very friendly and intelligent, when the conversation turns to Christ suddenly they sound like they don't have any common sense?
So we are burdened for someone. What are some things we can pray for them?
We can pray for God to send conviction, that is that they will sense the urgency of their need. At Pentecost, Peter's sermon was interrupted by his listeners, "Now when they heard this, they were cut to the heart, and said to Peter and the rest of the apostles, "Men and brethren, what shall we do?" (Acts 2:37) Conviction is when God call us to call to account and show us our fault.
We can ask God to send enlightenment. Paul was commissioned by God to go to the gentiles, "To open their eyes, in order to turn them from darkness to light, and from the power of Satan to God, that they may receive forgiveness of sins and an inheritance among those who are sanctified by faith in Me" (Acts 26:18). We can pray that God would call and draw, attracting them to Christ. We can pray that mental strongholds against goodness and God might be pulled down. May their eyes be opened and may they be surrounded by His Love! IN JESUS NAME!
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)