Category Archives: How to Pray

We all need help how to connect with God in prayer.

Prayer of Declaration

Bible Prayer of Declaration - Sunrise over Sea of Galilee in Israel

Bible Prayer of Declaration – Sunrise over Sea of Galilee in Israel

Here is a prayer of declaration to the Lord:  “Lord, You have been our dwelling place throughout all generations” ( Ps.  90:1 ).  Only the Lord satisfies. Places, things and projects do not replace Him.  We try to do many things to get satisfied, but only the Lord can satisfy us in reality. So this is also another example of a Bible prayer.

In Psalms 119 there are many more examples.  Psalm 119:89, “For ever, O LORD, thy word is settled in heaven.” In other words, in the heavenlies there is no problem with the Word of God, but on the earth there is some problem. That’s why the Lord Jesus taught us to pray, “Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven, indicating that in Heaven there is no problem with the Word of God. Yet, Jesus taught us to pray to bring the will of God from the heavens to the earth.

Psalm 119:89 says, “For ever, O LORD, thy word is settled in heaven.” Yet it is God’s intention that His Word would also be established on the earth.   This is another prayer of declaration. Declaring this prayer on earth reminds us and God that His word should also be settled in our hearts while we are on the earth.  Why should His word only be settled in the heavens and not in us on the earth.

I Will Pray in the Morning

Pray in the Morning - three beach rocks

Pray in the Morning – three beach rocks

David prays in psalm 5.  David the author of  this psalm, lifts up his voice to God in prayer in the morning. What a great time to pray and think about God, the source of our life. Morning sets the direction for the day. Our time reading the Bible and praying in the morning is crucial to the atmosphere of the day. The morning prayer time is little like breakfast in the morning, giving us energy to start the day.

Psalm 5:2 Hearken unto the voice of my crying, my king and my God; for to thee will I pray. 3 Jehovah, in the morning shalt thou hear my voice; in the morning will I address myself to thee, and will look up.

The Lord is My Strength – Prayer

Consider this verse:  Exodus 15:2 The Lord is my strength and my song, and he has become my salvation; this is my God, and I will praise him, my father’s God, and I will exalt him.   In this verse, it does not say to “pray for strength”, it says the Lord is my strength. So the prayer for strength is simply to say “The Lord is my strength”.  Just say this a few times, and the realization will hit you, it’s not  asking for strength, it’s declaring the fact about where our strength comes from. Our strength is not a thing, but a person Jesus Christ. This is the best prayer for strength.

Prayer in the Middle of Anything

How do we prepare to pray to pray?

Sometimes we feel very insecure. We are very fumbly and wobbly in ourselves. We try to hide it from other people but a lot of times we feel this way. David had that experience too. But many times he prayed by calling upon the name of the Lord and the Lord became like a rock to him. In his experience in himself he was sinking. It looked like everything was all over. And to him nothing was going to happen. But God came to him. David experienced God like a rock—stable, secure, and unmovable. A rock is protection. You can hide behind a rock.  David had this type of experience and Paul had this type of experience.  David had prayer in the middle of anything.

I encourage you to all have this type of experience, to pray and call on Jesus for help.  Suppose you are in the middle of something.  For instance, this television program we’re doing was potentially a real problem for me because in my natural self I’m not that aggressive, and I’m even afraid to talk in front of people.  Here I am with three cameras staring me in the face and people watching this thing and they are thinking good, or thinking bad—I don’t know.  Potentially this could be a very dangerous situation for my soul, my psychology. Consider what you would do if you were up here talking like this? Well anyway, today I have the experience of just trusting in Jesus and relying on Him. How? Just by speaking His name.  Jesus, “You’ve got to come and help me. Jesus I’m a little insecure today. You’ve got to come and help me today.” He wants to come. So I encourage you to have this experience.

God’s created man for a purpose, to express God’s image and to represent Him.  God created man with three parts; body, soul, and spirit. Don’t forget that our spirit was made for us to experience and contact God Himself because the Bible says that God is Spirit.

As the God-Man, with all His virtue, His wisdom, and His life experiences, He went to the cross and dealt with every negative thing, including sickness.  He rose from the dead. He rose out of death, out of negative things, and He is Lord of lords. And today He is the Spirit—so available for us to enjoy.  Receive Him today as your Savior.   So feel free to contact God in prayer in the middle of anything.

Prayer Experiences of King David

Prayer Experiences of King David

In the Old Testament, King David had many prayer experiences. If you ever read the Psalms you realize how many times he called upon the name of the Lord.  In fact many times he was being pursued by his enemies. He was in a lot of trouble and didn’t know what to do. If you read those Psalms you’ll find out that he called upon the name of the Lord and the Lord was his salvation–not just eternal salvation in the future, but David was saved right then.  You and I can get saved right now if we just call upon Jesus. Other times David had the experience because of his enemies and the situations and turmoil he faced in his kingdom, when he felt very insecure. He just wasn’t sure what was going to happen and wasn’t sure God was going to come and do anything for him. When you read those verses where he’s down and discouraged and ready to give up, all of a sudden you see him call on the Lord. The Lord comes in and David says, “Oh Lord You are my help.”  Of course he didn’t know it was the Lord Jesus. He just called on the Lord. He said it was like his feet were set on a rock. A rock is something very stable. In all these situations David was learning to pray right in the middle of difficult situations.

Consider David’s prayer in Psalm 5:3  O Jehovah, in the morning shalt thou hear my voice; In the morning will I order my prayer unto thee, and will keep watch.

Preparation for Prayer – We Need to Receive Jesus

Preparation for Prayer

How do we prepare to pray to pray? We need to receive Jesus.

How do we receive Jesus?  We know it is God’s purpose for man to receive Jesus so that Jesus can live in our spirit. How do we do this? What do we do? Well, in the book of John it says, “As many as have received Him they have the right or the privilege to become the sons of God.”  According to the Bible it’s very simple. You just receive Him. Now how do we receive this Jesus? Well, again it’s very simple. You just say, “Jesus please come in.” In fact there’s a verse in the Bible that says “Whosoever calls upon the name of the Lord shall be saved.” I don’t always like to use that word, “saved”.  Saved from what? We are saved from our inability to please God, our inability to express God.  We know we should love.  We know we shouldn’t be depressed but we just can’t get out of it. When we call on the Lord it says that He comes and He saves us. It’s so simple. You just say, “Jesus please come. Come right now. I need you. I need your wisdom.  I need Your patience. I need what You accomplished on the cross for me. I need how You dealt with every negative thing, even depression. Jesus I need that right now.”  Jesus will come.

In this studio here and there is a real person.  They are really living and they’re not asleep. They are awake and not real busy doing other things.  They are available. If I called their name they would probably come up to this set and help me. Well listen, our God today, our Jesus today is real, He’s living, and He’s available. He wants to come to man, wants to come to help us, He wants to come and fill us.  Sometimes we can’t even find human love, but we have the love of God. We have the love of Jesus. So we need to call on this Jesus many times. I want you to try an experiment.  You know George Washington, the first president of the United States. He’s a real person but today’s he’s not living.  Suppose you call on his name. ”George Washington come right now and help me”.  Try that and see what happens. Then try Jesus. What happens when you call Jesus?  Jesus is not only a man that lived 2000 years ago but Jesus is also the Spirit. And because He’s the Spirit He’s so available. He’s so real. He’s so near. He wants to come and help us. We just have to say His name, “Jesus”. And what happens? He comes into our spirit.  We can’t feel Him all the time. Don’t forget our feelings and our emotions are not always dependable.  Eventually Jesus will fill our emotions.  We don’t always think about Him. He comes into our spirit. Eventually He’ll fill our mind. But we need to receive this Jesus for us to pray.

Pray by Being Filled with Him

Pray by being filled with Him

Now I want to give you an example, another way to look at prayer.  I have a glove.  This glove is made in the image of my hand.  My hand has four things here and one thing there. And the glove has four things here and one thing there. So this glove is made in the image of my hand. This glove was designed to do things for my hand. On it’s own it’s very flimsy. Yes, it looks like my hand but if you try to do anything like pick up this pen it’s very flimsy.  It doesn’t have the ability to do anything.  A lot of times we, in ourselves, don’t have the ability to do what we know we should do.  God never intended for us to do it on our own. God intended us, like the glove, to be filled. The best way to use this glove is to let it be filled with your hand.  Not only, then, does the glove more fully express the hand, but it can do things like hold onto this marker. In the same way, God created man to be filled with God so that man could express Him and represent Him on this earth. There is no way you and I could love somebody that we just don’t love. We can try for a while, and for a while we can do it, but eventually our human love gives out—or else we don’t even have any love at all.  It is also hard to pray until we let God fill us with His prayers. But when God comes in, we don’t just get some guy telling us to do this or not to do that.  We receive God’s love. When Jesus comes in we get Jesus, Who is God, Who is man, Who died on the cross, and Who rose from the dead. So pray by being filled with God.

Preparation for Prayer – Getting Right with God

In the Bible it says:  If we confess our sins, he is faithful and righteous to forgive us our sins, and cleanse us from all unrighteousness.   If we say that we have not sinned, we make him a liar, and his word is not in us.  (1 John 1:9-12)

So there is something to admitting we all are sinners and getting right with God. God is holy, we are sinners.  So one of the preparations for prayer is getting right with God.

God created us to express Him and God created us to represent Him on this earth.  How does man do this? Can man do it on his own? Do you think you and I can express God on our own? For instance God is love. The Bible tells us that God is love. Is there somebody in this universe that you can’t love? I have trouble with this sometimes. I sometimes find myself incapable of loving certain people. What is this? This is like a defect in me. I sometimes have an inability to express God.  The Bible has a good word to describe this problem that keeps us from experiencing God and from expressing God. This word is called sin.  Paul gives us an excellent definition of sin. Paul says “We all have sinned and fallen short of God’s glory”. Now what is God’s glory? This passage says we are missing out on, or have fallen short of God’s glory. This means what? God’s glory is simply the expression of God.  We have all sinned and fallen short of expressing God or expressing God’s purpose for us.  For instance, when your automobile is not functioning properly, when it’s not a vehicle suited for travel, you become frustrated.  You wish you could go someplace. You’re going to be late for work and you’re going to have to pay money to get it fixed.  It’s a big hassle and it becomes a big frustration for you. In the same way, when we are not functioning properly we become frustrated and unhappy. When we can’t love someone because we’re depressed and we’re just out of it, we are not happy. You could say we are broken down. God has a provision for this problem. God has a provision for sin. By the way, sin does not just mean doing something evil or bad.  That is normally what we think of when we think of sin. Yes, it includes that, but sin encompasses more than being bad or evil. Sin encompasses the inability in us to express God. Sometimes we just can’t do it. We’re depressed. We’re out of it. We just can’t love somebody.

God’s Provision for the Sin Problem 

What is God’s answer to this problem? What’s God’s answer to this dilemma? God knew sin was going to be a problem for man. So what did God do? Well, God has an answer. God has made provision for this sin problem. God’s answer is Jesus Christ. Who is Jesus Christ? I’m sure you’ve heard about Him. Maybe you’ve gone to church and read Bible stories about Him.  Maybe you know He’s a historical figure who lived about 2000 years ago.  But who is this Jesus? We need to see some very definite points concerning who Jesus is. First of all we’re going to make a diagram on the board here. And the first point we want to see is that Jesus is God. At the very top of our diagram we have God.  God is up in the heavens.  The Bible tells us that God didn’t just stay up in the heavens but He also became a man.  He came down to the earth and became a man. That means Jesus is not only fully God but also fully man. He didn’t just became man for five minutes and tell us a few do’s and don’ts, tell us to do the best  we can, and then take off back to heaven!  He came to us a babe, grew to be a child, then a teenager, and finally an adult.  Jesus had a short three-year ministry at the end of His life.  He was here for about 33 years. Then at the end of that life He did something very interesting. He died on the cross. So we’ll draw a cross here. Now why did Jesus die on the cross?  Jesus died on the cross in order to deal with every negative thing in this universe, including the problem of sin, including the problem of our inability to do what we know we should do, including our problem of not being able to express God, including the problem of the devil, and including the problem of sickness. Jesus on the cross dealt with many negative things—even more beyond what I already told you. Then, after three days, as He promised, He rose from the dead. He was resurrected.  Why did Jesus rise from the dead? Was it just so we could have Easter? Well, I think it’s more then that.  Jesus rose from the dead to be able to impart into us His resurrected life. That is the life of God that passed through death.  Jesus went into death and came out into resurrection. You know when we’re down or depressed or just out of it, sometimes we are really frustrated and do not know what to do.  The strongest negative thing that can happen to any human being is death. You may not have time or ability or resources to do something and you might be frustrated, but once you’re dead you have total inability. Our Jesus passed through death into resurrection and He wants to impart into us His resurrection life. That is the life of God that can pass through death.

After He rose from the dead He also ascended, and when He ascended He became Lord and Christ.  He became Lord of lords and King of kings. This Jesus Who is God, Who is man, Who died on the cross and rose from the dead, is now Lord of Lords. You could say He has the highest management position, or He has attainted the highest executive position in the entire universe! Then as He promised, He didn’t just stay there in the heavens but He got poured out as the Spirit. The Bible says He became the life-giving Spirit. Why did He become the life-giving spirit?  He became the life-giving spirit so He could get into our spirit.  Jesus is fully God and fully man, lived on this on earth for 33 years. I am sure that while He lived on the earth He passed through many frustrating situations. I’m sure there were times He wanted to lose His temper but He lived a perfect human life. He died on the cross. He rose and He ascended, and became the Spirit to get into our spirit. This is how God solves the problem of sin.