Prayer is an integral part of the Christian faith. It’s something that we must set aside quality amount of time for it. Prayer is us talking to God concerning our needs, wants, or anything that we’re struggling with that’s beyond our control. If God demands us to do something, it’s because it’s of great importance. So it’s something that we have to take very seriously if we really want to live the kind of life that He desires for us to live through His Son.

As Christians, we’re all following the footsteps of our Lord and Savior Christ Jesus. Our main objective in this life is to be like Him since we’re His representative on this earth. One thing we know is that Christ was a man of prayer. Numerous times according to the gospel’s accounts, He went to private places for extended period of time in order for Him to pray to God. 

Even though prayer is one of the elements that has been greatly neglected by many Christians due to leading busy lifestyles and ignorance, but we need prayer in order to strengthen our relationship with God. The desire to pray to God daily should become our second nature. For instance, if we’ve ever left home in order to do whatever we had to do that day without praying to God, we should feel like that we’ve missed out on something truly big. It’s like going out there while leaving God home. Prayer is about putting God ahead of everything. We’ll go over 3 key factors that should be part of our prayer life.

It All Starts With The Kind Of Life We’re Living Before God

Prayer is all about us seeking the will of God for our lives, so the kind of life we’re living must be in compliance with His written Word within which His will is revealed to us. It’s foolish to pray for Him to bless and protect us while we’re not even in the proper state that would allow us to receive His blessings. 

Prayer isn’t based on asking God for things without us being willing to commit our lives to Him first. He cannot bless us while we’re trampling under our feet the very element that’s so precious to Him which is His holy Word that is the doorway to every blessing we’ll ever receive from Him.

If God were to bless someone in a sinful state, it would be tantamount to Him affirming the sinful lifestyle such person is leading. Well, there’s, in fact, no such thing. Continuing to live in sin is nothing more than telling God we don’t need Him and anything of Him in our lives. So we have to make sure that we organize ourselves in such a way that gives Him a desire for Him to listen to us.

What does God really need from us? All God truly wants is for us to commit ourselves to Him by offering ourselves as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to Him (Romans 12:1). From that moment on, He gets to work through our hearts in order to line up our desires to His own. With such transformation, we’ll only want to have what He wants us to have.

We Must Pray by Faith

Faith is the leading substance in the Christian life (Hebrews 11:6; Matthew 21:22). Nothing reveres God more than when we trust Him above all. The point is that we’re connected to God through the means of our faith in Him through Christ. We’re led by Him through the means of our faith in Him. Furthermore, we embrace God as He claims Himself to be within His Word by faith. We walk by faith, not by sight (2 Corinthians 5:7). Exercising faith in God is us acknowledging how much we need Him, and why it’s impossible and foolish for us to live our lives apart from Him.

When we pray, we must have a firm belief that He hears us and is greatly concerned about us as His children, especially the very issues that we’re struggling with. Praying by faith allows us to maintain our confidence and assurance that our heavenly Father is working on our behalf even if we don’t even see any visible manifestations in the visible realm. Faith also produces patience which is very critical in waiting for God.

We Have To Pray According To His Will

Accepting the will of God isn’t an easy task at all due to the fact that His will tends to be in direct contradiction to what we want. As humans, once we’ve set our minds on having something that we have a strong desire for, it’s not that easy for us to change our minds as a result. That’s just the way we are. But oftentimes, the very things that we’re chasing in a desperate manner are pretty much the very things that God doesn’t want us to have. Let’s consider these Scripture verses below.

This is the confidence we have in approaching God: that if we ask anything according to His will, He hears us. And if we know that He hears us—whatever we ask—we know that we have what we asked of Him (1 John 5:14-15).

The question we really need to ask ourselves concerning accepting the will of God is that do we really have our best interests at heart more than God who has perfect knowledge? One thing we really need to get a hold of is that God cares about us infinitely more than we can ever care about ourselves. And He loves us infinitely more than we can ever love ourselves. As a loving and caring Father He is, if He doesn’t want us to have something, it’s for our own good.

One thing that’s also associated with His perfect will is called divine timing. So many times it’s His will for us to have something, but He just doesn’t want us to have it now. Why? The main reason is because we’re not ready yet. Or it’s just not the right time for us to have it. The worst thing that we can ever do is to try to manipulate the circumstances by trying our own alternatives so that we can get what we want in the time frame we want to have it. By doing that, we’ll end up losing His best. And there may also be a price to pay as a result of our impatience.

Conclusion

God has tree types of answers to any prayer: yes, wait, and no. In many cases, when we pray, we only need Him to just say yes. The fact is that God isn’t some type of a microwave and everything is done within minutes. He’s not a God that we can manipulate or coerce in order for us to get what we want, whenever we want it, and however we want it.

He does tell us to come boldly before His throne of grace with our requests, but there’s a criteria by which He determines how and when a prayer should be answered. It’s something that we have to embrace because He knows better. In that case, the best way to live your life is to rely on the reality that God is in complete control, and the only things that can transpire into your life are what God allows.