- How to pray effectively,
five biblical tips.
Rejoice always, pray without ceasing.
Give thanks in all circumstances.
For this is the will of God and Christ Jesus for you.
The Christian life is a life of prayer.
It is written in the Prophet Habakkuk
that the righteous shall live by his faith.
Every moment that we are alive
is lived by our faith in Christ.
Everything that we do is Christian and spiritual
only if it is an act of faith.
We do not look to ourselves for success.
We know that comfort in each moment
and salvation for eternity only comes from our Lord on high.
This moment-by-moment faith
is expressed in the act of prayer.
When we pray we entrust God with our well-being.
We express our dependence
upon his providence for our needs to be met
and we glorify the savior of our souls.
Because this act
is so deeply important to the Christian life.
It is only natural that we want to know
how to do it most effectively.
Thankfully, scripture does not make us guess
how to strengthen the power of our prayers.
In this video,
we're going to explore five biblical passages
that teach us how to pray effectively.
So that we can strengthen our relationship with Christ
and have a powerful prayer life.
Number one, pray according to God's will.
When discussing biblical prayer
there is only one real place to start.
When Jesus taught about prayer during his time on earth.
This is what he said,
"Pray then like this,
our father in heaven hallowed be your name,
your kingdom come,
your will be done on earth as it is in heaven.
Give us this day our daily bread and forgive us our debts.
As we also forgive our debtors
and lead us not into temptation,
but deliver us from evil."
"Pray then like this," Jesus says.
This is a model prayer that lays out the pattern
for how his disciples like to pray.
There are a lot of things
that we can learn from this valuable prayer.
But right now, I'm only going to focus on one.
Jesus hasn't gotten too far into the prayer
before he begins asking God for things,
but how does his wishlist compare with yours?
Jesus asks that God's kingdom and rule
would be perfectly established on earth
and that his will would be done.
In other words, he tells us to pray for what God wants.
The apostle John reaffirms this message in 1st John 5:14.
"This is the confidence we have toward God,
that if we ask anything, according to his will, he hears us.
But why doesn't God answer our prayers
unless we pray according to his will?
Because he's a good father."
Jesus says in Matthew 7:9-11,
"Or which one of you, if his son asks for bread,
will give him a stone?
Or if he asks for a fish, will give him a serpent?
If you then who are evil
know how to give good gifts to your children.
How much more will your father who is in heaven
give good things to those who ask him?
So often we think we're asking our loving father for a fish,
but we're really asking for a serpent.
We think we're asking for something good,
when it is actually something bad,
but God is a loving father
and he won't give us something bad
just because we ask for it.
This doesn't always make sense to us
and sometimes it's hard.
Sometimes God won't take away
the pain or struggle when we ask him.
Other times, he knows that it's time
to call a family member home,
even if you want them to stay.
Those are tough situations
and that's why we follow God in faith.
We won't always know why certain things are his will
and why other things aren't.
But as long as we pray faithfully
and ask him to transform our will to align with his.
Our God will be faithful to strengthen both
our relationship with him and the power of our prayers.
Number two, be persistent.
Jesus has a lot to say about prayer.
It was very important to him.
And so our next biblical tip on effective praying
also comes from his teachings.
He told his disciples, a parable in Luke 18:1-8
about a persistent widow
in a town with an unrighteous judge.
Though the judge feared neither God nor man,
the widow kept coming to him and asking,
"Give me justice against my adversary."
The judge refused at first,
but after a while he gave in
and he gave her what she wanted.
He said, "I will give her justice,
so that she will not beat me down by her continual coming."
Jesus explained the story like this,
"Hear what the unrighteous judge says
and will not God give justice to his elect
who cry to him day and night.
Will he delay long over them?
I tell you, he will give justice to them speedily."
When it comes to prayer, persistence pays off.
Sometimes it doesn't feel like God is hearing our prayers
but as we learned before,
God loves his children and wants what's best for us.
Part of having faith in God is knowing that he hears us
and that he cares for us
as a loving father cares for his children.
When we give up on our prayers
we're saying that we have a hard time
trusting that God is hearing us
and wants what is best for us.
Jesus tells us to be faithful and consistent in our prayers.
A good and righteous judge, like God,
here's a persistent voice.
Number three, fix problems in your marriage.
Most people are surprised to hear
that the health of their marriage
is specifically listed in scripture
as a reason that God may help or hinder their prayers.
But first 1st Peter 3:7 says
"That husbands should grant their wives honor
as a fellow heir of the grace of life,
so that their prayers may not be hindered.
Marriage is a very special relationship and a gift from God.
It is not only important in its own right,
but also because of what it symbolizes."
Ephesians 5, compares the relationship
between a husband and a wife
to the relationship between the church and Christ.
In other words, marriage is a gift from God
that images our salvation.
It is an extremely sacred relationship.
And so a fault in how we treat our spouses
is a good indicator of the state
of our heart's feelings toward God.
If we're sacrificially loving our spouses.
That love is probably overflowing from our love of the Lord.
If we're failing to love and honor our spouses,
then it's probably an indicator that our hearts
are hardened towards the loving God
whose actions are imaged in our marriages.
So important is our marriage relationship to God
that he hinders our relationship with him
when we fail to uphold it.
But don't worry,
this discipline is not meant to permanently hurt you.
Proverbs 3:12 says,
"The Lord reproves him whom he loves,
as a father, the son in whom he delights."
The discipline of the Lord is meant to get your attention
and to bring you back
into a life-giving relationship with him.
Even if you aren't married,
hindered prayers could be a sign
that God is trying to get your attention
and turn you away from unrepentant sin
that's been building up in your life.
When our hearts are hard towards God,
we stop loving and obeying him as scripture commands.
This is not only a violation of God's law.
It is also a major source of pain
in the life of a Christian.
Part of God's loving care as a father
is drawing us away from that sin
and preserving us in his salvation.
Do you feel like your prayers
are being hindered because of sin in your life?
God wants to see your relationship with him restored.
Turn away from the sins that you've allowed to build up
and faithfully cast yourself
upon his endless grace and mercy.
It will not be long until God keeps his promises
and restores the effectiveness of your prayer life.
Number four,
don't try to force God's hand through repetition.
Let's turn back to the words of Jesus,
which contains so many excellent truths about prayer.
Right before teaching us the Lord's prayer,
he tells us something
that we should take care not to do when we pray.
He says, "And when you pray,
do not heap up empty phrases as the Gentiles do,
for they think that they will be heard
for their many words.
Do not be like them,
for your father knows what you need before you ask him."
In Jesus's time,
it was common for religious people to go out into public
and do all sorts of things
to try to get their God's attention.
One of the most common tricks that they used was repetition.
They believed that if they said the same thing
over and over again,
they could get their God's attention
and get him to answer the prayers.
They treated prayer like a machine
or a mathematical equation.
Input the right words, push the right buttons,
enter the correct formula
and your prayer will certainly be answered,
or so they said.
But our God isn't like those gods,
we don't need to get his attention.
In fact, he already knows what we need before we ask it.
The Bible says that the spirit of God
prays for us in groanings too deep for words,
asking the father for things
that we don't even know that we need.
At the same time,
Jesus is at the right hand of the father at all times,
interceding on our behalf.
We don't need to get God's attention
for him to hear our prayers, far from it.
Jesus, our Lord and God, the spirit
are praying for us right now.
We don't need to use repetition to get results.
Repeating the Lord's prayer
or any other formula a certain amount of times
won't get us anything.
Simply have faith
that God has your best interests at heart somehow
and in some way.
Do your best to pray God's will.
Number five, trust in the power of Jesus to plead our case.
To approach the throne of God is a fearful thing.
Just look at how the Prophet Isaiah reacts
when he sees God on his throne in Isaiah 6.
He cries out, "Woe is me for I am lost.
For I am a man of unclean lips
and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips.
For eyes have seen the King, the Lord of hosts.
God is Holy and man is sinful.
We don't deserve to approach the throne of God,
much less have our prayers heard by him."
But that is not the of the story.
The power of the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ
turns all who put their faith in him into new men and women.
Hebrews 4:14 tells us that in Jesus Christ
we have a great high priest
who has entered into the heavens.
He was tempted and tried in every way that we are.
Yet, he remained without sin.
And as the sinless son of God,
he gave his life on our behalf.
He took the punishment for sin
that we rightly deserved when he died upon the cross.
And when he rose from the grave,
he took his place at the right hand of God
and is advocating for us.
We now approach God, not as unredeemed sinners,
but in the shadow of Jesus Christ.
And so Hebrews 4:16 says, "Let us then with confidence
draw near to the throne of grace.
That we may receive mercy
and find grace to help in the time of need.
To be heard by God is a privilege
purchased for us by Jesus Christ
and because Christ is advocating for us,
and because we are sheltered in him.
We can have confidence that God will hear us favorably
and make our prayers effective."
This is my final
and most important biblical tip for effective prayer.
Trust in the power of Jesus
to plead our case before a loving God.
Let us pray,
"Dear Lord, all praise and glory belong to you.
Our constant, invisible, only true and living God.
You are the revealer of all secrets
and the source of all wisdom and knowledge.
But you give to us to know the secrets of your kingdom.
Thank you for listening to us when we pray
and for understanding when we ask you,
for having sent us your word and entrusted your truth to us.
We commend you for having revealed
the true knowledge of God's mystery, Christ himself.
In which all the treasures of wisdom
and knowledge are hidden.
As you have answered Daniel, Lord,
send your word to give us understanding.
In Jesus' name,
Amen.
These have been only a few of the many teachings
that the Bible offers us on prayer.
I hope that you do not stop with this video
but that you keep learning and keep reading the Bible,
so that you can grow closer with Christ
and stronger in your prayer life.
I hope that you have been blessed by this video.
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