A Step Further (Prayer)

You may wonder why I post so many blogs on prayer.  Well, there are two reasons; one, because I'm learning something new about it every week and two, because it is crucial to my walk with God.  I would challenge you to take as much from these as you can and look at your prayer life to see if there is anything you need to fix, because face it.  We ALL fall short of the glory of God and none of us are perfect, therefore our prayer life isn't always going to be perfect.  And that's OK as long as we learn from our shortcomings.

The Things That Matter To God When We Pray

1. Your RELATIONSHIPS matter
2. Your MOTIVES matter
3. The way you LIVE matters to God
4. Your FAITH matters
5. God's WILL matters

When dealing with your prayer life your relationships matter to God.  You cannot come to commune with God when you have tension between you and one of your brothers or sisters in Christ.  This could be friends, family, spouse, girlfriend or boyfriend.  Any of these are included in this list.  The relationship with God is hindered and that line is weak when you do not have good relationships with others.  This is clearly stated by God in 1 John 4:20 If anyone says, "I love God," yet hates his brother, he is a liar.  For anyone who does not love his brother, whom he has seen, cannot see God, whom he has not seen.

Your motives matter to God.  The motives you have when you pray drive your prayer life and your prayer life is what drives your life in general, so check your motives.  Pray with good and sincere motives.  Something that advocates your motives are the things that you put into your life.  What you intake determines production.

This one is a little more obvious than the rest of the five.  The way you live matters to God.  To live for God is to be a "Dead Man Walking."  This is a phrase coined for people on death row.  But it is so true...we are to die to ourselves daily and take up the cross. (Luke 9:23) When you decided to follow Jesus you gave up your rights to be right.  Jesus is truth.  I mean, think about it.  Dead men don't have rights.  The difference between those on death row and us is that we have smiles on our face as we walk.  We are the real dead men (and women) walking.

Your faith in God and HIS will for your life matters.  Hebrews 11:1 states Faith is the substance of things hoped for and the evidence of things unseen.  Your faith in Him gives you the power to pray.  In retrospect, faith is what drives all of these things.  Without faith we wouldn't be Christians and all the promises given to us would be extraneous.  In this same light...we must have faith in God's will.  I struggle with this one; letting go.  People say "let go and let God."  For me that's so easily said but its so difficult to carry out.  We must give our future to God and trust that his will is perfect and true.  Romans 12:2 - Do not conform to the patterns of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind.  Then you will be able to test and approve what God's will is -- His good, pleasing, and perfect will.  On top of that we have a promise in Jeremiah 29:11 - "For I know the plans I have for you, declares the Lord, "plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future."   We must trust in His will for our lives.  

I challenge you to review all of these things and see where you might be lacking.  Then fix it.  Fix it so that your prayer life can go further then it has before.  Remember, ALL of these things matter to God when you pray to Him.  Let your relationship grow through prayer because it's a powerful thing.

Some of the things said in this blog were quoted from Tim Houston's Prayer 102 class