How to Pray

Prayer is actually a conversation with God

Prayer is also the most important tool to utilize when going to war with satan.  By the way that is what we are talking about here… going to battle, toe to toe with the devil himself.  The devil wants nothing more than to have us be quiet, well behaved Christians, minding our own business, leaving all of his lost souls alone.

Putting on the armor of God is extremely important and we will talk about that in another chapter but prayer is the big one.  Prayer is the nuclear warhead of weapons to take to the battlefield so praying the Holy Spirit into your evangelism efforts is crucial.  How many times have you heard someone say something like, “all we can do now is pray for them”? You might have said something like that yourself.  It is very important to realize that prayer is vitally important. Prayer should not be the last resort, it should actually be the first thing we do when dealing with everything in our lives, especially when dealing with the trials and tribulations of our life and most importantly, when confronting evil.

How to Pray

Since prayer is so important, I for one, want to do it as effectively as possible.  Jesus Christ gave us the “five easy steps” to praying in the Lord’s Prayer – Matthew 6:9-13:

Pray then like this:

“Our Father in heaven,

Hallowed be your name.

¹⁰Your kingdom come,

Your will be done,

On earth as it is in heaven.

¹¹Give us this day our daily bread,

¹²and forgive us our debts,

As we also have forgiven our debtors,

¹³And lead us not into temptation,

But deliver us from evil.”

Step 1.) Lift the Lords holy name up in reverence

Step 2.) God’s will is what matters, not ours

Step 3.) Ask the Lord for what is needed, not what is wanted

Step 4.) Ask for forgiveness (we must give forgiveness in order to receive it)

Step 5.) Protect us from evil temptation and the devil himself

Using this simple 5-step prayer template we might pray something like this before witnessing to someone:

Heavenly Father, I come to you with a humble heart,

I pray that your name be glorified by what we are about to do,

And that you provide the tools and opportunities needed to

reach the lost when You decide the time is right.

Please forgive us of any sins, known and unknown so that we

May have a pure heart to do your work and Father provide us with

Protection from the enemy as only you can do.

In Jesus name, Amen.

Now Listen up

If prayer is a conversation with God it can’t be one-sided.  The part that most of us leave out is listening for the Lord to speak to us after we speak to Him.  In order to “listen” for the Lord we must have an open, receptive heart.

Ways to pray

The 5-steps learned in the Lord’s Prayer can serve as a checklist for prayer but are not meant to restrict how you communicate with your Lord and Savior.

Romans 8:26-27 explains…

“²⁶Likewise 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. ²⁷ 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.”

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