As I go further along on my Christian walk, it becomes more apparent to me that many followers of Christ really need to enhance and improve their “prayer” life. The Lord has guided me to post this message in hope that it can lead you to discover a more meaningful prayer life with Him.
To begin with we must keep in mind that our life should be in obedience to His word. Meaning we are walking uprightly according to His Holy Commandments. Each day we should pray to be guided according to His Laws. For His word is downright to the point in (Proverb 28:9) “If ANYONE (that mean’s even a professed Christian) turns His ear from hearing of the Law ( Holy Commandments) even HIS PRAYERS are an abomination”. “Abomination?” Wow, talk about serious prayer requirement! So once we are sincerely doing our best to obey His Commandments, we can feel confident to approach Him in prayer.
Jesus was our example on prayer and often withdrew Himself to a secret place to talk with God the Father. (Luke 5:16) ” He withdrew Himself into the wilderness and prayed”. Infact Jesus told us to “go into a closet” to pray(Matt 6:6). It is clear Jesus wants very little or no “showiness” about our prayer. Better to withdraw privately one to One.
Another important thing Jesus said about prayer, was to not make long repetitious prayers. (Matt6:7) ” But when you pray use not vain repetitions, as the heathen do, for they think that they will be heard for MUCH SPEAKING”. That is why I cringe at churches that have set times for the same old prayer, it is vain repetitions! Our God is worthy of much more than this!
Now we get to the heart of this message and it is about BELIEF. This to me is the NUMBER ONE reason we don’t draw close to Him through prayer. WE DON’T REALLY BELIEVE HE’LL ANSWER. Sad but very true today. We ignore what our Lord said (Luke 11:19) “And I say to you, ask and it shall be delivered to you, seek and you will find, knock and it shall be opened unto you” Do we really want answers to our prayers? Then we better start believing. Ofcourse prayer can be just letting our Lord know you love Him and want to thank Him. I am specifically talking about “prayer requests”.
How is our Lord answering our prayers? There are many ways. There are dreams ( I have had this many times) , there may be a friend sent by the Lord to you, or a stranger. There may be some written page (scripture,newspaper, bilboard, book, etc.) The point is that we MUST BE ON THE LOOK OUT! What good is it to pray then forget all about it a day or two later?? Is our Lord pleased with our non-belief in Him responding? Do we make Him out to be so weak and non-caring?
You see the Lord wants to be our Google! You want to know anything? Have you ever thought of asking our Lord? I can tell you from first hand experience, once you get answers from Him, it really does lift your closeness to Him to a new level. We must be careful to be specific in our requests and pointed. We want to clearly understand. But once we ask, then we must not forget about it.
Prayer is the lifeblood of our walk and it will bring a closeness and bonding to our Lord that will truly inspire you to GO TELL people about this ALIVE and ready to help Lord of ours! Amen my brothers and sisters.
Godsloveandlaw's Blog 
December 5, 2010 at 3:32 am |
I LOVE THAT U EQUATE TALKING TO ABBA W A BURNING NEED TO SHARE. WHEN TRULY IN LOVE W GOD WE WILL RAVENOUSLY DESIRE TO SHARE THIS WONDERFUL GIFT WHICH HAS GRACED OUR MEASILY EXISTENCE W OTHERS.
December 5, 2010 at 4:40 am |
Amen my sister! I like how you called him “Abba” that was what Jesus indeed called His (our) Father . Infact that term is an affectionate name for “Papa” or “Daddy” in greek. Jesus taught us to be close to Him and our Father God. And through learning to pray and trust in prayer with Him we can become VERY close.
January 23, 2011 at 1:14 pm |
I HATE TO CORRFBT U BUT ABBA IS HEBREW NOT GREEK THE GREEK IS ACTUALLY CLOSER TO THE ENGLISH MY MOM HAD A GREEK BOYFRIEND HE LIKE ME TO CALL HIM THAT. CAN’T RECALL THO.
January 23, 2011 at 4:32 pm |
From my studies, particularly scholar Dr. Ralph Wilson I learned the following from His article called “Father, Abba” “Intimacy is one of the hallmarks of the use of Father by Jesus and the early church. Jesus and His disciples read in Hebrew in the Synagogues bur spoke everyday in a language closely related to aramaic. In Biblical Hebrew “Ab” is father. But in aramaic “Abba” is a word derived from youthful or baby language. Later the word was broadened so that Abba was a form to address one’s father , no longer restricted to children. It was a warm familiar word used by Jesus in His teachings and practice”
Hope this helps.