THE PRAYING CHRISTIAN PART 2

 THE PRAYING CHRISTIAN - PART 2

Hallelujah! It is the second article of the series. In the beginning of the series, we were made to understand that God will have men pray and also pray the right way. In the book of Matthew 6; Jesus was teaching the disciples on the need to pray and how to do so.

Today, we will be looking at Prayer and the need to have a prayer altar.

What is Prayer and why must we pray? 

We must have heard a couple of times that Prayer is a communication between God and man. But the complete definition for this is that Prayer is communication for anything and in any situation; for whatever  and in whatever situations whether it be pleasant or unpleasant". You do not have to feel good to pray. You don't have to expect something from God before you pray. The blessings that you desire do not have to be the reasons why you pray. Prayer is Always; in and out of seasons. In one of Smith Wigglesworth's quotes, He said, "I don't often spend more than half hour in prayer at one time, but I never go more than half an hour without praying".

Yes, there are a lot of definitions to prayer but what validates every definition is the communion that exists between man and God, and between God and man (Matthew 6:6 "But thou, when thou prayest, enter into thy closet, and when thou hast shut thy door, pray to thy Father which is in secret; and thy Father which seeth in secret shall reward thee openly"). 

Prayer is a "two-way" spiritual relationship. Jeremiah 33:3 "Call unto me and I will answer you, and shew you great and mighty things which thou knowest not".  Many times we only say the words without waiting for the response. Prayer is you talking to God and God talking back to you.

Prayer is us talking to God, letting him know our requests. Philippians 4:6 "but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known unto God". 

It is very true that God knows everything about us - our wants, needs and desires but He will have us ask Him. In Mark 10:46-52, Jesus knew that the man Bartimaeus was blind but still in verse 51, he asked what He would do for him. Therefore, we must ask. God wants to give you your miracles but He wants you to first pray. Why, one may wonder? Take for an instance, a child who keeps asking his father for something before it is done and another who gets it done without even asking; the former would appreciate the giftings more than the one who gets it without asking. Matthew 7:7-8 "ask and ye shall be given, seek and ye shall find, knock and the door shall be opened". Verse 8 "For every one that asketh receiveth; and he that seeketh findeth; and to him that knocketh it shall be opened". There is no doubt that there are certain things you need not ask for, you just walk into them by virtue of right, but at certain times, you must pray to receive certain answers.

God knows you have power in your tongue, so He wants you to command certain situations and not just do them for you. It is not necessarily your words that bring it to pass but the same way God is bound by the words of his mouth, he is also bound by our own words. 1 Peter 3:12 "For the eyes of the Lord are over the righteous, and his ears are open unto their prayers: but the face of the Lord is against them that do evil".

Prayer is us having access to God's will and also having knowledge of His purpose. Deuteronomy 29:29 "The secret things belong unto the Lord our God: but those things which are revealed belong unto us and to our children for ever, that we may do all the words of this law". One way by which we access the will of God concerning our lives is through prayer. Through prayer, we catch revelations on His will and plan for our lives. Jeremiah 1:5 ""Before I formed thee in the belly I knew thee; and before thou camest forth out of the womb I sanctified thee, and I ordained thee a prophet unto the nations".

You will not have to live a  meaningless life or take futile journeys on earth if you are a person of Prayer, and if before every move, you seek to know what God is saying. Through prayer, you have access to what God wants to do with your life and is doing in the season and seasons to come. There was a time in Babylon when the King dreamt and could not find an interpretation to the dream (Daniel 2), but Daniel together with his co-labourers went to seek the face of God concerning the matter and they were found of Him. Daniel 2:28 "But there is a God in heaven that revealeth secrets, and maketh known to the king what shall be in the latter days".

Through prayer, we enjoy sweet revelations. 

Prayer is gaining access to what his thoughts are for us. Isaiah 55:8 -9 "For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, saith the LORD. For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways, and my thoughts than your thoughts". Therefore, if the thoughts that will make us do not belong to us, then we must move closer to the one who has all in his hands. To know the way a person thinks, you have to literarily be in a close relationship with him or her. When we pray, we grow in our relationship with God and as a friend who we are close to, He lets us know per time what his thoughts are for the situations of our lives. Genesis 18:17 "And the LORD said, Shall I hide from Abraham that thing which I do". In the new testament as well (Acts 1:24); when the disciples needed to know the mind of God for Judas' replacement, they had to go before God and He revealed this to them "And they prayed, and said, Thou Lord, which knowest the hearts of all men, shew whether of these two thou hast chosen". Verse 26 "And they gave forth their lots; and the lot fell upon Matthias; and he was numbered with the eleven apostles".

TO BE CONTINUED...

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