ALONE WITH GOD

 

We should set prayer as a priority in our lives. This is something only you can do. A person who does not have an understanding of the importance of prayer and does not have a successful prayer life is always weak in his spiritual life.

Since prayer is so essential to the spiritual life, it is imperative that we devote time and effort to make sure we know how to pray effectively. There are two responsibilities in prayer, God's responsibility and ours. Prayer is both human and divine. Prayer is not an incessant repetition of words and phrases, as if it were a formula. We must understand that neither our eloquent or long prayers nor our emotional outbursts move God. Although prayer can come instinctively, to pray effectively must be learned. Mankind has prayed from the beginning, but it was not until God Himself came to live with us on this planet that we began to learn the meaning of prayer and how to pray effectively.

There is a reason why many are not experiencing results in their spiritual lives and this lack of results in large has to do with prayer. There is an alarming reality within the people of God that there are a large number of believers who have neglected this fundamental practice and some have distorted the effectiveness and purpose of it.

Prayer is talking to God with our heart, without frills, not out of obligation or routine, it is to talk to God in faith, fully believing in our hearts that He is there to attend to our supplications. It goes beyond simply opening your mouth and saying words, it is more than just a simple communication (John 14:14).

Prayer should give us tranquility and peace, as we believe by faith that what we have asked has been granted. You cannot pray with fear and doubt in your hearts, we cannot expect to hear from God unless we are totally convinced of what we have asked in prayer. The word of God warns us that whoever asks in this manner (doubtful) cannot expect anything from God (James 1:6-7).

Many of us have at one time asked ourselves, how are we to pray? The disciples asked Jesus the same question and the Lord gave the example of “The Lord’s prayer", which is the basis and prayer guide for how effective prayer is made. Based on the principles taught in this prayer we can develop our communication with the Lord with deeper and more intimate prayers. God wants to answer our prayers. He did not give us prayer with the purpose of frustrating us or with the intent of leaving our prayers unanswered.

Focus is one of the biggest reasons why believers have trouble establishing a prayer life or going deeper in prayer. Have you ever noticed that when you go to pray suddenly your mind is bombarded with all of the cares and concerns of this world? You start thinking of your responsibilities, your worries, your to-do list, and your relationships. All of a sudden these thoughts seem to come when you pray and because of this many believers have trouble establishing that consistency or that depth in their prayer life. If prayer is to be effective it must be focused, a wandering mind keeps the believer bound to the natural realm, and the excess of distracting thoughts is too heavy to allow for heavenly ascension. So how do you focus, how do you get your mind to be disciplined when you pray?

PRACTICE SILENCE

Jesus said in Matthew 6:6: “But when you pray go away by yourself shut the door behind you and pray to your father in private then your father who sees everything will reward you.” This is a very practical but effective means to establish a focused mind when you pray. Jesus here is talking about going to a private place.

There are two kinds of distractions: exterior distraction and internal distraction. Exterior distractions are things like your phone, conversations, and the cares of the world around you. To eliminate exterior distractions you must have a scheduled time and place when you pray. You must practice both spontaneous and scheduled prayer. Spontaneous prayer is all throughout the day, you can be working, you can be conversing, and you can be eating while you're in prayer. Scheduled prayer is when you set aside time to go and just focus on the presence of the lord. Jesus gives us this powerful key to shut that door, to tell our loved ones this is our time to pray, to turn off the phone, put away the work, and put away the concerns.

Interior distraction: How do you focus the mind when you have things going on inside of you internally that are causing you to lose focus when you pray? How can we focus and fight against those internal distractions? First, we have to quiet our minds when we pray. First by prayer request: Philippians 4:6-7 say this: “Don't worry about anything instead pray about everything tell God what you need and thank Him for all He has done, then you will experience God's peace which exceeds anything we can understand.”  His peace will guard your hearts and minds as you live in Christ Jesus. God is saying, Don’t worry about anything instead pray about everything. Worry is the flesh's powerless counterfeit for prayer. Worry is how your flesh prays but the scripture tells us that when we tell God what we need and when we thank Him for everything that He has done then we will experience God's peace. So when you unburden yourself by giving God your to-do list, by giving Him all your responsibilities that is when you experience perfect peace.

You should not just say; “Lord take care of all my responsibilities and I leave them to you and I’m not ever going to do them.” That’s not what he is saying. What he is saying is the worry over those responsibilities the concern over those tasks, that's what you give to Him. When you submit your prayer request to God you're lifting those burdens of life from off of your shoulders and you're placing them in God's hands and in doing that you experience the peace of God that fills your heart. This is the mistake many believers make, they make their prayer requests, they tell Him what they need then they feel that burden lifted from off of them. They're filled with peace and they say I feel much better thank you Jesus and then they walk away. But peace is not the conclusion of prayer it's the beginning of prayer, it's when you're filled with that peace that you can now focus your mind to go deeper into the places of prayer than ever before. So peace is not the conclusion of prayer it's the entryway. Silence puts away the exterior distractions by shutting yourself in for a moment to focus and to be alone with God.

Prayer Request helps to silence those internal distractions. Isaiah 26:3 “Thou wilt keep him in perfect peace whose mind is stayed on thee because he trusteth in thee.” When you focus your mind on the Lord, you’re filled with peace. When you focus your mind on God the cares of this world fade into the background.

Worship is also a key to focus because when you’re worshiping God you’re looking at Him. When you’re worshiping God you’re not worried about your problems you’re in awe of His presence. The glory of God is so brilliant, so beautiful and so blinding that when you’re focused on the light of His presence it washes away everything around you. You get lost in that moment raptured in His presence and all of the cares and concerns of the world fade into the background. This does not mean that you set aside your responsibilities and never again pick them up. What this means is that when your before the lord that is the time to lay things down so that you might ascend to higher places. The first step to effective prayer is focus. How do you focus? Practice silence, use the prayer request, and worship.

Luke 10:38-42: Some believers approach God like Martha, from a works-based mentality; others approach God like Mary from a fellowship-based mentality. Often we think that prayer is our working to connect with God and we’re so distracted by the work, we’re so consumed with what we think we have to do that we forget that the way was already paid.

Matthew 6:9-13: This is the Lord’s Prayer and here Jesus is teaching us how to pray. Notice that Jesus begins his prayer by saying “Our Father in heaven.” He is acknowledging who God is, He doesn’t doubt that connection with God and he doesn’t even doubt that God hears Him. He didn’t begin prayer by saying God do you hear me, which is how many of us begin. He didn’t begin that prayer by saying, God are you there?

He didn’t begin that prayer by imagining that He had to work up some connection. We do not pray to connect with God. We pray from connection with God. It’s because we are already connected with Him that we can pray. Many believers have issue with this because they imagine that their past sins disqualifies them or they think that because they skipped a few days of reading their bible or skipped church or skipped praying that now they have to work to gain back that relationship with God, It’s not a points-based system.

It’s not as though for every day that you miss praying God takes another step away from you. How could He ever leave you if He lives within you? What happens when we make mistakes, when we neglect prayer God does not distance Himself from us; it’s that we become less aware of the presence that’s always abiding with us. Instead of seeing prayer as a point-based system, instead of looking at prayer as an obligation in order to please God, look at it as an opportunity. Many believers neglect prayer because of this very reason, they think that it’s going to be work. They think that they have to exhaust themselves to conjure a connection with God, but there’s nothing that we can do in our own power or strength to ever connect with God, it’s all Him in the first place.

When you pray, go boldly, don’t let the enemy tell you that God doesn’t hear you, don’t let the enemy tell you that you have to work for that connection with God, and don’t let the enemy shame you because of your past, but do what the Bible says in Hebrews 4:16 . Imagine how much time you could save in prayer if instead of begging God to hear you, you simply believe that He already does. This does not mean to save time in prayer as in spend less time in prayer. What we mean is all those wasted moments of pleading and begging, we come at Him with an orphaned mentality, trying to work up that relationship that’s already ours. You could be enjoying more of your time in prayer instead of going through that initial moment of working and trying like Martha who imagined that she had to work for that connection with the Lord.

FAITHFULNESS TO PRAYER

To become faithful in daily prayer you must make up your mind concerning prayer. We must choose to pray more. There are spiritual disciplines that we must choose to practice every day. Prayer is a spiritual act, but it’s also a practical discipline. That’s the partnership that we have with God. God will do the impossible after we’ve done the possible.  Every believer wants to pray consistently, but some have a certain view of prayer that actually keeps them from praying consistently. We imagine that daily prayer is like climbing a ladder. I prayed Monday through Friday and for every day of the week that I pray consistently I take another step up that ladder. Then we imagine that if we miss a day of prayer we’ve fallen off the ladder and we’ve lost all of our progress, everything is gone now, and our connection with God is gone.

Every now and then we’re filled with guilt and shame and we’re even filled with regret because we think that we’ve somehow messed up or blemished our record. If you think of prayer in that way it’s going to be very difficult to pray faithfully, because as you go to pray or re-establish your prayer life you’re just going to be thinking of all the days that you’ve missed.

Here’s something that’s liberating, when you miss days of prayer and come back to prayer, you will come back to that prayer life, you begin to establish. God is not looking to see how much we pray, that’s not how God is. When we go to pray after days of missing prayer, God will be there to embrace us. Sometimes the guilt of having missed days of prayer can affect our faithfulness to prayer. Sometimes missing prayer on Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday will prevent us from praying on Thursday because we think, I have to do all this work again, all my progress is lost. Looking at it that way is a religious way to approach prayer (Matthew 26:40-41).

We must commit to pray faithfully every day. Establish that spiritual discipline in our lives. We must make that decision and we must arrange our entire schedule around it. Guard your prayer life and don’t let anyone or anything compromise it. Let that be a sacred time for you.