Our heavenly Father loves to listen to us and have fellowship with us and one of the ways we communicate with Him is through prayer. But with all that is going on in the world today, Christians are confused about how to approach God and pray to Him.
Psalm 28:7 – “The LORD is my strength and my shield; my heart trusted in him, and I am helped: therefore my heart greatly rejoices; and with my song will I praise him.”
Here are seven things that every Christian believer should know about what prayer is to help improve their walk with God:
1. Prayer is communicating with God
The essence of prayer is having a heart-to-heart talk with God. We can express ourselves using simple heartfelt words in all humility to our Creator.
Job 22:27 “You will make your prayer to him, and he will hear you, and you will pay your vows.”
2. Prayers are granted by God when done in Jesus’s name
We get answers to our prayers when we pray to God in the name of Jesus. Jesus made this plain in John 14:6: “I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.”
We have to depend completely on God and believe that He will grant the answers to our prayers. Our prayers are not answered because of our own goodness or worthiness but because of what Jesus has done for us on the cross.
3. Prayers unanswered doesn’t mean God is not listening
We must know and believe that our heavenly Father is in control of everything. He is constantly listening to our prayers and even our thoughts (Psalm 139:2).
God hears every prayer that we make to Him but answers the prayers of those who are in a relationship with him through Christ and honor his word.
Proverbs 28:9, “If one turns away his ear from hearing the law, even his prayer is an abomination.”
Proverbs 15:8, “The sacrifice of the wicked is an abomination to the Lord, but the prayer of the upright is acceptable to him.”
Jesus also said in John 14:6, “No one comes to the Father except through me.”
4. Prayer should be an everyday habit
The same way children start communicating with their parents as soon as they are born, we too must because the Holy Spirit makes us children of God and we cry, “Abba! Father!” (Romans 8:15).
The work of the Spirit in our lives helps us to see the Father as our heavenly Father and causes us to speak and communicate with Him as His children.
We become prayerful people of God with the help of the Holy Spirit and ask all our prayer requests in the name of Jesus to the Father.