The last way we will look at, in this series where we are learning how to pray, is by listening and watching others.
At home, listen to how your parents pray. Notice their choice of words, what they use to pray, where and how they pray, whether they hold hands, do they pray in the Holy Ghost? Do they shout or mutter to themselves? When do they raise their voices? What do they do then? Do they say a prayer at night? How often? What time at night? Do they say a prayer in the morning? How often? What time in the morning? This is a way of learning how to pray.
This list is just a way for you to see how prayer is done. What you notice might not be how you would want to do yours, but it would certainly help you to learn the art of prayer.
At church, watch how people pray. Sure, you will see tons of differences there. Again, you are not meant to follow everything you see. The Holy Spirit can give you your own way. He will supply you with the words to use. That is how unique you are to God. Yes, you are unique to God and He will teach you how to pray too.
Watching and listening to fellow Christians praying is meant to point out to you where you need to improve, how to improve, what to stop doing, and what to continue. You learn, unlearn and relearn.
The bible says we should not abandon the gathering of brethren. I believe this is to help us grow spiritually. Part of spiritual growth in Christianity is learning how to pray. When in the presence of other brethren regularly, we grow our prayer muscles.
Iron sharpens iron as the bible says, so, if you want to learn how to pray, one sure way to do that is to watch and listen to other believers when they say a prayer. Be a sponge and soak what you see. Also, as a sponge get ready to be squeezed – flushing out wrong perceptions about prayer, building your prayer muscles for more spiritual growth, and learning new ways and things about prayer.
May God bless you with the grace to learn how to pray. Amen.
Prayer: Dear Father, thank You for the wonderful believers you have surrounded me with. I ask that you enable me to glean from their prayer life. Let the Holy Spirit lead me on which to use, let go of, and continue using, in Jesus name, amen.
Action point: Learn how to pray by taking a good look at your parents when next they pray. Note how they do so – time, words, gestures, voice intonation, et cetera. Look at three believers you know, either at church or elsewhere, notice how they say their prayer too. What do you like about how all these people pray? What does the Holy Spirit say about them to you?
Yesterday, we started on how the Holy Ghost helps us to pray as children. Let’s continue with more benefits of praying in the Holy Ghost.
Sometimes, while praying in the spirit, God could drop a word that you should continue to pray or stop. He could also give you simple instructions.
More benefits of praying in the Holy Ghost is that it helps you to trust the Holy Spirit more and more. You trust the process – that every time you engage in prayer using the Holy Spirit, He connects you directly to the Father and helps speak what is on your mind to Him.
The bible says the Holy Spirit intercedes on our behalf with groaning. He teaches us what to say, when, and how to do so. This was evident in the lives of the disciples after they received the Holy Spirit.
More benefits of praying in the Holy Ghost is that it helps you pray with ease. It’s a language you don’t know how the words are formed. Even if you write them down, they don’t follow any earthly language pattern. They just flow out of your spirit.
You can also praise God in the Holy Spirit. Praising God in a language you don’t know. How sweet does that sound? God hears you call Him beautiful names in the language of heaven. Don’t you think God will smile?
One final thing the Holy Spirit can do is to lead you to pray for someone somewhere who might be in danger at a particular time. This is also part of more benefits of praying in the Holy Ghost. He asks you to pray to help avert danger or get help. This way, he leads you to intercede on someone’s behalf as He does on our behalf with God. So, you can see the immense benefits of having the Holy Spirit.
The Holy Spirit can be imparted into you either by another believer or the Holy Spirit Himself. If you are yet to receive the Holy Spirit, ask your parents, pastor, or another believer full of the Holy Spirit to lay hands on you.
I pray that the Holy Spirit will come upon you in Jesus name. Amen.
Prayer: Dear Holy Spirit, thank you for all that you are. LORD, open my eyes to more benefits of praying in the Spirit. I ask that you come upon me and teach me how to pray. Help me to pray from the heart of the father in Jesus name. Amen.
There are benefits to praying in the Spirit. The Holy Spirit is the spirit of God, the third part of the Godhead. He empowers us in the place of prayer, interceding for us when we don’t know how to pray or what to pray for.
“At that time the Holy Spirit will teach you what you must say.” Luke 12:12 ICB.
Praying in the Spirit is a great and powerful way of connecting to God. Once you have accepted Christ into your life as Lord and savior, you have a right to the Holy Spirit –
“God poured out to us that Holy Spirit fully through Jesus Christ our Saviour.” Titus 3:6 ICB.
Before Jesus ascended to heaven, he told the disciples that He had to leave for them to receive the Helper (the Holy Spirit) –
“But I tell you the truth. It is better for you that I go away. when I go away I will send the Helper to you. If I do not go away the Helper will not come”. John 16:7 ICB.
After Christ’s departure, the believers received the Holy Spirit as promised, on the day of Pentecost. They received tongues of fire – praying in languages they didn’t know. That’s one way of praying in the Spirit.
You are speaking in heavenly language when praying in the Holy Ghost. It is direct access to God. Only you and God know what is spoken. God’s spirit has connected with your spirit. At that point, both spirits have become one. Praying in the Spirit thereby brings such unity of spirits that is so great.
Praying in the Spirit helps you to concentrate more on God and reduces distractions. God vividly shows you things in your spirit, you can see things through your spiritual eyes. As God reveals things to you, more faith is released in you, praises flow from you, and strength is made more available for you.
Tomorrow, we will see some more benefits of praying in the spirit as children.
Prayer: Dear Holy Spirit, thank you for all that you are. I ask that you come upon me and teach me how to pray. Help me to pray from the heart of the father, in Jesus name. Amen.
In the last post, we talked about praying from the bible. Today, we will be looking at some of the importance of prayer.
Prayer is how we connect to God, so, the more time you spend with God, the more you learn how to pray.
How does spending more time with God increase your capacity to pray?
More time spent in God’s presence helps you to develop your spiritual muscles, much the same way you put your body through a regular exercise routine to build your muscles and level of fitness. And you keep adding more minutes to it as you go on. It’s the same with prayers. This is one importance of prayer. The more you stay in God’s presence, soaking yourself into His presence, reading his word (the bible), and attending church regularly, the more you grow spiritually.
You can increase from ten minutes a day to an hour. The more you want to grow the more time you have to give to prayer. The length can even be broken down into little chunks spread over the day. You can decide to spend thirty minutes in prayers early in the morning and thirty minutes of bible reading and meditation later in the day. How you do it doesn’t matter. The major thing is that you are praying.
Another importance of prayer is that spending more time in prayer will increase your capacity to receive more from God. You get to know more things about God, discover new things about his word, and Christianity.
Sometimes, you need to spend more time with God and/or His word concerning a particular issue before you get your answer. That could be how God wants to reveal the answer to you.
Another way this will help you is in your daily life. God will give you answers or solutions to situations in your daily life. Things that will be hard for others to accomplish, you will do so fast and with little or no effort, just because God is your helper and constantly is with you. This is an importance of prayer.
God loves to spend time with you. It’s how He grows His relationship with you. You bond with Him through prayer. And the more time you spend with Him, the more the bond between the two of you grows stronger and stronger.
When your bond with God is very strong, you get many benefits that others won’t have. That’s because the God of the universe counts you as his friend. This is a very good importance of prayer.
So, increase your time with God. Add more minutes to that prayer routine today.
God bless you as you do so. May He give you strength for this. Amen.
Prayer: Heavenly Father, thank You for connecting with me in prayer. I ask that You strengthen me more as I increase my prayer time, having learnt some of the importance of prayer.
Action point: Add five more minutes to your prayer time today. Increase it gradually as the week progresses.
You should learn how to pray from the Bible. The bible is full of so many power-packed prayers from ordinary people like you and me; people who faced one issue or another at different times in bible history.
It’s a reservoir of prayers said out of fear, pain, and loneliness. Some were faced with destruction and had to cry out for help. Some more said prayers out of confusion, hopelessness, and despair.
Prayers for mercy, deliverance, and strength are found in the bible, said by people who were faced with huge challenges. This is one of the reasons you should learn to pray from the Bible.
Sometimes, God can lead you to a particular book, chapter, and verse in the bible as a guide to pray with. Remember the part where obedience was mentioned, in the last post? When directed to read from the bible, obey. That way, you get to know what God wants to teach or tell you about that burning issue in your mind.
Someone you can read about in the Bible is David. His story will encourage you to pray from the Bible. You will see the many times and ways he prayed to God. He asked for help, encouragement, forgiveness, provision, and deliverance. He even asked God to punish him alone and not the people for the sin he committed in 1 Chron. 21:1-13.
David praised and worshipped God a lot in the psalms. His prayers also show that he too had fears and prayed about them. He had hope in God to save him from all his enemies. And the Bible records that God gave him victory over all his enemies.
Learn to pray from the Bible. When David was afraid, lost, and unsure of what to do –
“Later David prayed to the Lord. David said, “Should I go up to any of the cities of Judah? The lord said to David, “Go”. David asked, “Where should I go?” The Lord answered, “To Hebron”. 1 Sam. 2:1 ICB
When he sinned against God in 2 Sam. 2:12, he owned up to it immediately – “
…I have sinned against the Lord.”
As you learn how to pray from the Bible, which includes reading and meditation from the bible, God will bless you.
Prayer: Lord, as you lead me to read the bible, help me to grasp the meaning of what I read. Help me meditate on these readings so I can learn how to pray. Amen.
Action point: Read some Psalms of David. Note the different ways he prayed for help, forgiveness, and other things.
