- Getting to know God better means spending time talking with Him just
as we would get to know a friend. Prayer is simply talking with Him
and enjoying Him.
- God loves to have intimate and honest conversation with us anytime
of the day or night--about anything.
- Prayer is especially good when we are spending time each day reading
the Bible and contemplating the things on God's heart.
- Psalm 55:17 says "Evening and morning and at noon I will
pray." This is not a formula for timing our prayers. God wants to
hear from us at anytime. However, if we haven't been in the habit of
praying then remembering to pray at these times might be a good place
to start. We can tell God how much we love him, talk about the
circumstances of our day, thank him for His nearness and His help and
confess our failures to Him.
- Prayers don't need to be eloquent or long--we are talking to a
friend who loves us deeply. He knows us and wants our honest thoughts.
- The great news about prayer is that we aren't on our own with
it--Jesus and the Holy Spirit have promised to help us with the whole
thing.
- Romans 8:26 says that even when we don't know what to pray the
Spirit prays for us.
- When we've failed, Jesus is there helping us by asking God to
forgive us because of His sacrifice (1 John 2:1).
- We can bring anything to God in prayer and know that He will hear us
and answer in the way that is best for us. Prayer is not a
"shopping list" of things we want changed; it is a
conversation with someone we know we can trust. He may even leave us
in the difficult circumstances we ask to be rid of so that we can
grow. Whatever He does in answer to our prayers, we can trust Him to
make it work in our lives to make us more like Jesus.
- Even though our prayer life is so much more than God simply acting
on the things we have requested, out of 667 prayers recorded in the
Bible there are an amazing 454 answers also recorded. What an
encouragement! God is truly listening to us and responding in love to
his children.
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