Prayer

Last week in the men’s class we talked about prayer. It got me thinking, we talk about prayer and why we should pray, but how often we do talk about how we pray and why we pray the way that we do. We are going to look at a few things about what the Bible says about prayer and some examples we are given.

1. Prayer is a conversation between us and God. I have known people in my life who pray to Jesus, the problem with this is that we have no biblical examples of anyone praying to Jesus. All prayer is directed to God and God alone.
2. We pray in Jesus’ name. In John 16:23 Jesus says, “Whatever you ask of the father in my name, he will give it to you.” Because Christ is our advocate (1 John 2:1) we can be assured that God will listen to our prayers because of the name of Jesus.
3. We should pray often. Paul writes that we should “pray without ceasing” (1 Thes. 5:17) but what does this mean? This means that we should have a constant dialogue going with God. God wants to hear from us constantly. Prayer does not always need to be spoken out loud. A prayer said in your mind is still a prayer.
4. Prayer does not always have to be elegant. There is a time and a place for well thought out, elegant prayers. But not all prayers need to be that way. God knows what we want and, more importantly. What we need before we even ask (Matthew 6:8).
5. We pray through the Spirit, and He intercedes for us. Sometimes, because of grief and sorrow, we can’t even formulate the words that we need. Romans 8:26-27 says that “the Spirit helps us in our weakness” and “intercedes with groanings too deep for words.” Sometimes the point of prayer is not the actual words that we say or think, but the fact that we are laying ourselves down at the feet of God the Father.

Prayer is important! Too often I think we neglect prayer because “God already knows” but the truth is this: God still wants us to talk to Him, even if we can’t completely formulate what we want to say perfectly, God wants us to turn to Him and lay our burdens at His feet