What
is Prayer? Prayer can be said to
be a means of communication between a mortal and an immortal. In our case as
Christians, it is a means of communication between us as humans, and our creator,
God. It is our direct line to Heaven. God Himself instituted this mystery
called prayer. Read Matthew
6:7-14, when Jesus Christ taught
his disciples how to pray. Prayer to a Christian is like petrol to
a car. Without it, it would be impossible to make great progress in our
Christian journey. We need to talk to God about any and everything that happens to us and around us.
It
is important we talk to God at all times; at work, when walking, running,
cooking, bathing, every time. But two of the most important times we need to talk
to God is when we wake up to start the day and when we are ready to go to bed.
We need to commit ourselves fully into the divine care of God and we can only
do these through the act of Praying.
Prayer is a tool, a weapon and a means of communication. It is a mystery, people wonder why Prayer is necessary or doubt its effectiveness, but the truth remains that, it is beyond human understanding to assimilate how God works. We only need to have faith, and believe that there is someone up there in Heaven who answers our prayers.
God
wants us to communicate with Him, just as we communicate with our earthly
father. To so many people, prayer seems like a complicated task, but it is
simply a dialogue, a discussion between you and God in heaven. Most people are
confused on what to say, how to say it (aloud
or silently), what position to stay (kneeling,
sitting, standing of pacing from a place to another). Basically, prayer is just like talking to your
best friend; at least that’s how I see it.
Here
are few tips on how to go about it:
What Do
I Say? There are actually no manuals on words to say when you pray, the
point is just to talk to God about whatever is bothering you.
- Thank Him for the gift of life in you.
- Ask Jesus to forgive you of your sins.
- Talk to Him about your needs.
How Do I
Say It? This is how I personally say my prayer; it could help you
position yourself on how you make your requests known to Him.
- Make your intention known with confidence that He will hear and answer you.
- Be joyful in your heart when communicating with Him, for the Bible says ‘in the presence of the Lord, there is fullness of joy (Psalms 16:11)
- Be expectant of the deliveries of your requests (Psalms 5:3).
FORMS OF PRAYERS
Prayer comes in different forms, the Bible
reveals different forms of prayers
but we would be summarizing them up to just write out a few of them.
Here are
some of them.
- Prayer Of Faith: When we pray, we are expected to believe in the healing and delivering powers of God (Mark 9:23).
- Prayer Of Agreement Or Corporate Prayer: This deals with joining hands with people or joining faith with people around you when you all pray (Acts 1:14 & Acts 2:42).
- Prayer Of Binding And Loosing: Just like every other form of prayer, this type of prayer works in accordance to God’s words and will. We can bind foul spirits and demonic powers with this type of prayer. This is one of the most aggressive styles of prayers amongst us Christians, as we all have a thing or two that needs binding or we need to lose angelic spirits to work on our behalf in areas where God have already promised us results. God puts His heavenly seal of this kind of prayer, especially when it is been prayed in accordance to His will (Matthew 18: 18-19).
- Prayer Of Supplications Or Requests: Philippians 4:6 teaches us not to be anxious about anything, but in everything by prayers and supplications with thanksgiving let our requests be made known to God.
- Prayers Of Thanksgiving: We need to be thankful to God for the things He has done, for the things He is doing and for things He will still do in our lives. This type of prayer is done by being thankful for every situation we find ourselves in.
- Prayer Of Praise And Worship: This form of prayer is similar to that of prayer of thanksgiving. The only difference is that in this case, we focus on who God is and His awesomeness.
- Prayer Of Intercession: in this form of prayer, we are putting the requests of others before yours. When we present the supplications of others to God in our prayers, then we are praying the ‘intercessory prayer’ (1 Timothy 2:1) also the entirety of the book of John 17.
- Prayer Of Adoration Or Blessings: This is done in total silence to adore and concentrate on the awesomeness of God. We exalt the greatness and acknowledge our dependence on Him in all things.