Prayer is a mystery that delivers maximally to anyone that understands and uses it effectively. Prayer is intimacy, fellowship and communion with God. Prayer is not just for us to make requests to God but also for us to become more intimate with Him. A prayer-less believer is a powerless believer.
Prayer has been and will always be one of the mysteries that makes Christians spiritual giants. You can't say you love God when you have not made prayer your lifestyle.
How can you claim to love someone you don't communicate with? As communication makes lovers more intimate, so also does prayer make believers more intimate with God. The effect of prayer cannot be overemphasised.
Prayer changes things and it also changes people. On the altar of prayer, you get answers and solutions to any issue of your life and you also begin to radiate God's glory—as a result of you fellowshipping with Him in the place of prayer.
In as much as prayer is important to every believer, we must know that there is a way we can go about praying effectively.
If you don't know how to pray, you might end up with nothing. From the holy scriptures, God has revealed to us how we can pray, in order to get answers from Him. Let's learn about this below.
How To Pray As A Christian
As Christians, we can glean from the following points to make our prayers better and more effective.
1. Start With Thanksgiving
The first thing we must know on how to pray is that you must start with thanksgiving. Praise and thanks pleases God. If you want to get something from God through prayer, thanksgiving is a must. Giving thanks to God even when we've not started making our requests known to Him, shows Him that we trust Him to answer our prayers.
Psalms 100:4 (ESV)Enter his gates with thanksgiving, and his courts with praise! Give thanks to him; bless his name!
Thanking God for the previous qualifies you for the next. Appreciation to God is application for more from God. Thanking God makes Him interested in you and what you have to say. This secret is one that if you put to use, you'll enjoy your walk with God as a Christian. If you don't know how to thank God, you don't know How to pray.
2. Sanctify Yourself
Remember that prayer is intimate communion between man and God. But it is important to know that, only the pure in heart can stand before God.
It is important to sanctify/purify yourself with the blood of Jesus before praying. This is where confession of known and unknown sins come into play.
Psalms 24:3-4 (AMP)Who shall go up into the mountain of the Lord? Or who shall stand in His Holy Place? He who has clean hands and a pure heart, who has not lifted himself up to falsehood or to what is false, nor sworn deceitfully.
If you are impure and you're praying to God, He may not answer you—as the Bible says that He doesn't hear the voice of an impure man (Psalms 66:18). It is only the prayer of forgiveness that God hears from an impure man.
3. Pray With Expectation
This is another thing to note from what the Bible teaches us on how to pray. A man that prays without faith in his heart is only wasting his time. Faith qualifies you for answers on the prayer altar.
If you have acknowledged in your heart that God is able and willing to answer you, then you have made yourself recognisable by God. Because, only men who believe in God are visible to Him.
4. Pray With The Word Of God
If you don't know the will of God concerning your desires, you won't know what to pray for and how to go about praying for it. God has given us His promises. We must understand that there is something God has said concerning what we are experiencing or expecting.
You won't know how to pray if you don't even know what God has said concerning your desires. As you pray the will of God (in accordance with the word of God), you qualify for answers. Because He has promised that none of His word will go unfulfilled (Isaiah 55:11). Praying with God's Word will commit Him to answering you.
5. Pray With Boldness
As children of God, we must understand that boldness is required in the prayer altar. This is different from pride or self-sufficiency.
Hebrews 4:16 (AMP)Let us then fearlessly and confidently and boldly draw near to the throne of grace (the throne of God’s unmerited favor to us sinners), that we may receive mercy [for our failures] and find grace to help in good time for every need [appropriate help and well-timed help, coming just when we need it].
Boldness is based on our knowledge of God's will for us. A timid believer is limited.
6. Pray In The Spirit
From what the Bible teaches us on how to pray, we discovered the effect of praying in the Spirit. The mystery of praying in the Spirit is a mystery that delivers maximally.
1 Corinthians 14: 13-15 (AMP)Therefore, the person who speaks in an [unknown] tongue should pray [for the power] to interpret and explain what he says. For if I pray in an [unknown] tongue, my spirit [by the Holy Spirit within me] prays, but my mind is unproductive [it bears no fruit and helps nobody]. Then what am I to do? I will pray with my spirit [by the Holy Spirit that is within me], but I will also pray [intelligently] with my mind and understanding; I will sing with my spirit [by the Holy Spirit that is within me], but I will sing [intelligently] with my mind and understanding also.
Praying in the Spirit helps us to pray aright (i.e the will of God), and it confounds the enemy because it is mysterious and he does not understand it.
Praying in the Spirit connects your spirit-man immediately to Heaven. It helps us to also stay focused in the place of prayer. Also, when you pray in the Spirit, your spiritual eyes are opened to see and understand the scriptures, thereby enabling you to pray effectively.
7. Make Specific Demands
Another thing to note on how to pray is specificity in your place of prayer. Ambiguity doesn't count with God. If you ask specifically, you'll receive answers directly.
Being ambiguous in the place of prayer limits the effect of your prayers. Be sure to communicate directly what you want from God. That is why it is important to know what you want, check what God's Word has to say about your desire, and then pray it into fruition.
8. Pray In The Name Of Jesus
Your prayer isn't complete if it wasn't prayed in the name of Jesus Christ. The name of Jesus in our prayer attracts the attention of God, because anything about Jesus interests God.
The name of Jesus is a seal on our prayer. It is a weapon of warfare that even the devil dreads. Believe in the efficacy of the name and see it work wonders for you.
9. Pray Fervently And Consistently
The below scripture teaches us something important on how we are supposed to pray as Christians.
Luke 18:1-7 (AMP)Also [Jesus] told them a parable to the effect that they ought always to pray and not to turn coward (faint, lose heart, and give up). He said, In a certain city there was a judge who neither reverenced and feared God nor respected or considered man. And there was a widow in that city who kept coming to him and saying, Protect and defend and give me justice against my adversary. And for a time he would not; but later he said to himself, Though I have neither reverence or fear for God nor respect or consideration for man, Yet because this widow continues to bother me, I will defend and protect and avenge her, lest she give me intolerable annoyance and wear me out by her continual coming or at the last she come and rail on me or assault me or strangle me. Then the Lord said, Listen to what the unjust judge says! And will not [our just] God defend and protect and avenge His elect (His chosen ones), who cry to Him day and night? Will He defer them and delay help on their behalf?
Apparently, consistency in prayer is very crucial in getting God's intervention on our desires. A prayer from your heart is felt by God. Being consistent grants you access to the best of God.
Praying fervently and consistently is a very vital proof of our strong belief in the ability of God. And that commits God to answering us in the place of prayer.
Bible Verses On How To Pray
- Matthew 6:5-14 (KJV) And when thou prayest, thou shalt not be as the hypocrites are: for they love to pray standing in the synagogues and in the corners of the streets, that they may be seen of men. Verily I say unto you, They have their reward. But thou, when thou prayest, enter into thy closet, and when thou hast shut thy door, pray to thy Father which is in secret; and thy Father which seeth in secret shall reward thee openly. But when ye pray, use not vain repetitions, as the heathen do: for they think that they shall be heard for their much speaking. Be not ye therefore like unto them: for your Father knoweth what things ye have need of, before ye ask him. After this manner therefore pray ye: Our Father which art in heaven, Hallowed be thy name. Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done in earth, as it is in Heaven. Give us this day our daily bread. And forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors. And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil: For thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory, for ever. Amen. For if ye forgive men their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you: But if ye forgive not men their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses.
- 1 Thessalonians 5:17 (AMP) Be unceasing in prayer [praying perseveringly];
- 1 John 5:14-15 (NIV) This is the confidence we have in approaching God: that if we ask anything according to his will, he hears us. And if we know that he hears us—whatever we ask—we know that we have what we asked of him.
- Ephesians 6:17-18 (NIV) Take the helmet of salvation and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God. And pray in the Spirit on all occasions with all kinds of prayers and requests. With this in mind, be alert and always keep on praying for all the Lord’s people.
- Romans 8: 26-27 (ESV) Likewise the Spirit helps us in our weakness. For we do not know what to pray for as we ought, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with groanings too deep for words. And he who searches hearts knows what is the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for the saints according to the will of God.
Final Thoughts On How To Pray
The moment you make prayer your lifestyle, you'll discover that it is actually to your advantage. Prayer doesn't change God, it only changes you and your situation.
The more you relate with God in the place of prayer, the more He rubs off on you and the more you radiate His glory. Follow the above steps on how to pray and see your prayer life take a new turn.
Shalom!
