Prayer is speaking with God. It’s so incredible that it’s almost unfathomable. And yet if you struggle with prayer you are not alone. The majority of Jesus-followers struggle with prayer.
Yet giving ourselves to prayer is so vital because we value and believe in the power of prayer. Not only that, we believe that God answers prayer and uses it as a means of achieving His purposes in the Church and world.
“We must not think that Christians are wasting time when they pray and praise.”
C.H. Spurgeon
Prayer in the Christian life is as integral as breathing to the human being. It is the difference between learning about God and walking with God in relationship. You can learn some facts about a person in your life but you can only have relationship with them through time spent together in communication.
God has spoken and continues to speak to us primarily through His word and we speak to Him in prayer.
“Prayer does not fit us for the greater work; prayer is the greater work.”
Oswald Chambers
Find any great move of the Spirit of God in history and you can trace it back to faithful servants of Christ, desperate and fervent in prayer.
Jesus: The harvest is plentiful, but the labourers are few. Therefore pray earnestly to the Lord of the harvest to send out labourers into the harvest field. Luke 10:02
Growing as a person and a people of prayer starts with creating space in your daily life to pray. Start small, with just a few minutes each day set aside for prayer. Then grow it from there, by extending the duration and frequency of your prayer times each day.
My hope is that the prayer templates in this post help you grow in your prayerfully-dependent walk with Jesus:
PRAY THE PSALMS
In his book, Praying the Bible, Donald Whitney advocates for just that: When you pray, pray through a passage of Scripture, particularly a psalm.
“The Psalms: they are designed to be prayed.”
Gordon Wenham
The best place to learn how to pray the Bible is to start in the Psalms. Give it a try.
THE LORD’S PRAYER
When the disciples of Jesus asked Him to teach them to pray He offered them what is now our model for prayer. We refer to it as The Lord’s Prayer but it would fit better to call it The Disciples’ Prayer.
When Darrell Johnson wrote a book on the Lord’s Prayer he entitled it, 57 Words That Change The World (the prayer is 57 words in the original language), because when while it is short, it is rich, powerful, and makes a difference!
There are 7 petitions in the prayer: the first three are about God’s honour, kingdom, and will, and the last four are about human needs. This is the right perspective because when we fix our eyes on God and see Him rightly, everything’s put into its proper perspective.
Jesus isn’t giving us a prayer to pray as a mantra but as a model for our own prayer. We may choose to pray these exact words reflectively or use it as a model to direct our own words towards similar concerns.
Try to recite The Lord’s Prayer from the heart at least once a day as a way of growing a life of prayer and praying the prayer Jesus taught us to pray:
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Our Father in Heaven |
That Jesus invites and enables us to call God, “Father” reveals His goodness and grace. That He is our “Father in Heaven” reveals His greatness and glory. |
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Hallowed be Your Name |
Pray that God would be honoured and set apart as holy. |
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Your Kingdom come, Your Will be done |
Commit yourself to His will. |
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Give us our Daily Bread |
Ask God to meet your basic needs today. Bring your petitions before your loving heavenly Father. |
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Forgive us our Debts as we forgive those who sin against us |
Acknowledge and repent of your sin. Forgive others. |
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Lead us not into Temptation |
Ask God to reveal areas of temptation, weakness, and vulnerability to the evil one. |
PERSONAL PRAYER GUIDE
In his book, The Hour That Changes The World, Dick Eastman outlines how you can spend an hour in prayer by spending 5 minutes on each of the following 12 aspects of prayer (or spend 2-3 minutes on each section for half-an-hour of prayer):
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1 |
Praise & Worship Psalm 115:1 |
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2 |
Waiting on the Lord Psalm 46:11 | Romans 12:1 |
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3 |
Confession of Guilt and Sin Psalm 139:23-24 | 1 John 1:9 Ask Him to search you, know you, and cleanse you. This is the time to confess sins by name, admit that you are wrong, turn from your sins, and accept God’s forgiveness. |
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4 |
Praying Scripture Psalm 119:9-16 |
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5 |
Watching Colossians 4:2 |
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6 |
Intercession 1 Timothy 2:12 |
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7 |
Petitions Philippians 4:6 | Matthew 7:7 |
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8 |
Thanksgiving 1 Thessalonians 5:18 |
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9 |
Singing Psalm 100:1-2 |
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10 |
Contemplation/Meditation Joshua 1:8 |
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11 |
Faith Matthew 21:22 | Hebrews 11:6 |
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12 |
Praise Matthew 6:13 | Psalm 52:9 |
“To get nations back on their feet, we must first get down on our knees.”
Billy Graham
24-HOUR PRAYER SCHEDULE
If prayer matters (which it does) and makes a difference (which it does) and no great feat in the history of the church has happened apart from faithful, fervent prayer (which it hasn’t) then we believe that key times in our ministry year should be marked by prayer: significant moments marked by significant commitment to fervent, dependent, expectant prayer.
We see the kick off to the Fall, the lead up to Christmas, the ushering in of a new year, the lead up to Easter, and the launching of new campuses as momentous events in the life of our church.
As dates like these approach we will invite members of our congregation to sign up to pray for one hour, filling a 24-hour timeframe with prayer.
PRAYER WALKS
A common practice in our prayer lives is to close our eyes and maybe even fold our hands. But what if you spent some of your prayer time with your eyes open while walking through your neighbourhood? What would you see? Would it change what you prayed about?
Adam and Eve used to walk and talk with God in the garden and Jesus was walking along the shore of the Sea of Galilee when He came across Simon Peter and his brother Andrew and invited them to follow Him.
To prayer walk is to be fully aware of your surroundings and to pray about what you see and experience. It’s praying for the good of the community, that God would be honoured and glorified in the community, and that your neighbours would hear the message of the gospel and receive it with joy.
A number of our pastors have committed to prayer walk in the neighbourhoods of our campuses each week and we invite you to prayer walk in the neighbourhoods where you live, work, and worship as well.
LET'S PRAY
What would it look like if we were a church constant in prayer for the Kingdom of God to break into our communities, for His rule and reign to invade the lives of the lost, broken, and disenfranchised?
Let's pray...and find out.