Christian Prayer

About Christian Prayer

The bible says that if two or more agree in prayer, and they do not ask amiss, they shall have what they request.

It is important to know, and to understand, the conditions that apply e.g. the phrase"...not ask amiss..." refers to the many things spoken of in the bible about motives, intentions, hopes, needs etc. on the one hand, and about God's will on the other hand. Furthermore, God guarantees our free will; God will not change someone else's mind about something to suit us, neither will he cause someone to love us.

(a) God is not fooled: It is necessary that our motives agree with our words. It is no good asking for funds for A when we mean to spend them on B. We might quite truthfully mention in prayer that we need funds for the rent, for our car repairs, for our children's education, but if we mean to spend the funds on a holiday or drugs or some other thing, God will see our prayer as a lie and since God is truth, He will not answer that prayer or He will answer in the negative. Another thing to realise is that God is not particularly concerned about our comfort; what we think of as needs, he may see merely as false desires created by advertising or other motivators. In my personal experience, if I ask for more funds, he provides these by giving me more work so that I can earn more funds. It is good to remember that God regards work as being good for us and slothfulness is a sin. The thing to know here is that God reads our hearts to see what our secret motives are. Therefore we must make sure that what is in our hearts agrees with the words we speak.

(b) Build a relationship: God wants to have a relationship with us, He being our Heavenly Father, us being His family. We must not treat God like a genie in a bottle that we rub the right way when we want something (i.e. pray for something). We ought to nurture our relationship. We shouldn't treat our flesh and blood father that way; how much more respect ought we have for the Father of all creation?

(c) God's will: God gave us ten commandments to govern our behaviour. All other laws or rules should be in agreement with these ten; whether they are church rules, school rules or the laws of our nation, or even international law, this is still true. When we pray to ask for something we must make sure that we are not asking for something that goes against God's revealed will. e.g. if we ask for wealth when all we want it for is to lay about in luxury, He will merely reply, "look to the ant thou sluggard".

How do we pray?

Thus: The Pattern:

Our Father which art in Heaven
We bring to mind the person we are speaking to and address Him.

Hallowed be thy name
We are speaking of our awe and respect of Him and praising His name.

Thy Kingdom come
We are asking God to establish His Kingdom on Earth

Thy will be done on Earth, as it is in Heaven.
We are looking forward to the day when God's sovereign authority is respected on Earth as it is in Heaven. He is King of Kings and the time is coming when all will acknowledge that.

Give us this day our daily bread
Here we mention the details of our needs and those of anyone else we are praying for.

Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive others
Here we are asking for our own short-comings and weaknesses to be forgiven and acknowledging that God has said He will do this in the fashion that we forgive those who have done anything against us. If we are holding a grudge against someone, neither will He forgive us.

Lead us not into temptation
Help us avoid situations and circumstances where we will fall into error. Here we should list any such matters that our personal history shows have previously caused us to fail. This should remain private between each of us and God. We are not to remind God of things we have previously repented of, and have been forgiven for, but just the sort of things where we find we are still at risk.

Deliver us from evil
We are asking for protection from our enemies and their schemes and devices.

For Thine is the Kingdom, and the Power, and the Glory forever.
We should conclude our prayer with thanks for the expected answer, and then remain in a prayerful attitude while listening for the "small still voice" with which God chooses to speak to us in that area of our mind where we find intuition.

Amen.
This signifies agreement.

In general, we should not make a practice of reading set prayers whether in a prayer book or of our own devising. This is because it is easy to fall into the trap of merely 'barking' at the print, not really being connected in our mind or in our heart, with what we are saying. A brief heart felt prayer is worth more than volumes of mindlessly repeated formula type prayers.

Email A Prayer Request

Now having read and understood the information above, feel free to request a prayer by writing or emailing us in English about your prayer needs. If you need urgent help, you should contact the appropriate agencies in your locality.

Email: gethelp@livingconnections.com

God does answer prayers. Read Miracles Happen - a true miracle story - and find out how prayer helped save a young woman's life.