There are three simple ingredients for prayer: a relationship with Jesus Christ, a belief that you live in the Presence of God at all times, and the ability to talk or communicate.
With these 3 simple ingredients you can have an awesome prayer life.
Prayer doesn’t have to be complicated. You don’t have to do anything special to get to the place where you can talk with God and He will talk to you [we’ll talk about this part another time].
First of all you need to have a relationship with God through Jesus Christ. Once we have established this relationship, our hearts and spirits are open to communication with God. In John 3:5 Jesus said “no one can enter the kingdom of God unless he is born of water and the Spirit.” [John 3:5-7] We must be born again to enter into a relationship with God; that is our first simple ingredient.
Secondly, as the people of God, we must understand that we live continually in His presence. There is nothing, absolutely nothing; we have to do to get there. Jesus has done it all for us already [Hebrews 9:24]. This is vital for us to comprehend before we can mature into some of the wonderful teachings about different types of prayer and intercession. Jesus promised us in Matthew 28:20 “surely I am with you always to the very end of the age.” Always means always! We also have great encouragement in Deuteronomy 4:7 ‘that the Lord is near us whenever we pray to Him.’
The third and final ingredient to prayer is the ability to communicate. If you can talk, you can pray! If you can think, you can pray! If you can listen, you can pray! There are no special words, or formulas; God desires us to talk to Him and listen to what He has to say. Sometimes, for example, in a crowded room, you can’t always burst into prayer and say the things you’d like to say, but you can cry out to Him with your mind. Yet there are those moments when you can say anything to Him you need to say. You can speak to Him while you are living life—working, gardening, going to school, driving in the car, studying, shopping—anytime, anywhere, He is available to us! Isn’t that incredible!
Just make sure that after you have done the talking, you take some time to listen….
more about that later.
