How to Pray

Praying is a way to talk to God. The bible encourages us to pray, Jesus himself urges us to pray and showed us how to do it. However we pray by crying out loud, singing joyfully or muttering quietly to God that is our way of communicating with him. 

In Philippians 4:6-7, Paul writes that we should pray and petition God in every situation and in 1 Thessalonians 5:17, the bible says to pray without ceasing.

Praying helps us develop our relationship with God. When we first got saved by Jesus, we say the sinners prayer and invite Jesus into our lives. To build and grow this relationship and make it strong we need to continue to pray and talk to Jesus everyday. Prayer can also bring peace and joy into our lives. Peace and joy is already given to us by the Holy Spirit in our lives but we don't experience this often because we don't pray. When we pray we are allowing these words to become alive in ourselves. 

There are different types of prayer to pray depending on the situations you are in.

1. Prayer of thanksgiving: Giving thanks for what God has given and done.

2. Prayer of petition: Asking God for what we need including forgiveness.

3. Prayer of intercession: Asking for what others need.

4. Prayer of warfare: Praying against satan and his works.

5. Prayer of blessing and adoration: Praising God.

How to pray is in Mathew 6:9-13.  Prayer based on the Lord's prayer help you focus on God and let go of your worries. 

P: PRAISE_ acknowledge and express gratitude for what he has done. "Our Father in heaven hollowed be your name.."

R: REPENT_ take responsibility of sins you've committed and seek forgiveness. "and forgive us our sins, as we also have forgiven our debtors.."

A: ASK_ Ask for your or the needs of others. "Give us today our daily bread.." "lead us not into temptation but deliver us from the evil ones.."

Y: YIELD_ surrender your will to God's will and trust His plans. "Your Kingdom come, your will be done, as it is in heaven."

Some things to take note;

* know to whom you are speaking: Pray to God.

* Pray the Word: Pray based on the Bible and memorized scriptures

* Pray throughout the day: Make time for prayer throughout the day 

 * Essential aspects of prayer: confession, petition, intercession, thanksgiving, and praise 

Benefits of prayer 

According to the Bible, prayer can help you develop a relationship with God, find direction in life, and experience God's love and miracles.

- Prayer allows you to invite God into your daily life

- Helps you see things from a Biblical perspective

- Helps you make the right decisions, avoid temptations and sin and learn to submit to God's will

- Prayer helps you feel God's love and receive forgiveness.

- Prayer helps you love your enemies

- Helps you feel peace and joy, alleviate anxiety, and gain confidence. 

- Prayer and faith can lead to miracles. The prayer of a righteous person is powerful and effective

- Prayer helps you become more like Jesus

Remember the Holy Spirit is here to help us when we pray so be excited, be encouraged and don't stop praying all kinds of prayer. If you need more information on prayer, there are many scriptures about prayer in the bible and it's effect. Look it up.

Don't follow the crowd, follow God.

I fall apart alot more than I stay kept together. I have a road map of where I want to go but some days it's all a blur. 

I get lost easily when I let my ears listen to the voices of those around me and let my eyes see the things around me. When I do, I feel less confident, I become envious, I do not feel good enough in almost all I do and everyday I battle with thoughts that drain my energy. I had to isolate myself often than necessary. I get tired at working hard on things that don't bring me peace and contentment.

The more I gave in, the more lost I was to the point where I did not know where to go and what to do.

Where to go and what to do

I've always been a Christian but I've never given enough time to allow this part of my life to be an effective one. At one time, I decided it was time I tune out all other voices and things and focus only on the word of God.

So, I attended church regularly, devotional fellowship with other Christians and made time to read my Bible. I'm also blessed to be surrounded by family members who loves God and talks about Him all the time. Especially my parents, we always have wonderful conversations and then I began to realize change.

Change in my confidence, I wasn't self-confident but I was god-confident, I wasn't envious anymore but I was grateful. I began to strive to be the best in things that brings me joy in serving God and the best part was and is, I get to not worry about where I'm headed, or what's to come.

Note:

Trust, means to wait. We pray, seek God's  instructions through the voice of the Holy Spirit. How? We just have to listen to the little voice in our heads that's telling us things that agrees or aligned with the word of God. 

Every step, means whatever we do, our decision in every activity we must consider His ways, go back to the Bible first. 

In closing, we loose ourselves and direction to living a fulfilled life when we follow people and things but we find our true self and direction to a fulfilled life when we follow God.

The way to a fruitful Christian life

Are we bearing fruits in our Christian life or are we barren branches?

But first, why should we bear fruits? Well as Christians, followers of Christ, bearing fruits should be an outcome of our commitment and service to Christ Jesus. In John 15:8 Jesus said, "show that you are my followers by producing much fruit. This will bring honour to my Father."

What fruit is Jesus referring to? These are the fruits Jesus is talking about; firstly, the fruit of Christian character. Our life should reflect these characters as written in Galatians 5:22-23, But the fruit that the Spirit produces in a person's life is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. There is no law against these kinds of things. (HolyBibleERV)

Secondly, The fruit of Christian conducts. Scripture says in Colossians 1:10-11 and I quote"...your life will produce good works of every kind" and "...you will be patient and not give up when trouble comes."

And thirdly, the fruit of Christian converts. Our life should be a blessing and inspiration to others through our words and actions that they may see Jesus Christ and become His follower too. Just like Paul to Epaenetus in Romans 16:5 "...he was the first person to follow Christ in Asia."

Now that we know, How can we bear fruits? The answer to that is in John 15:5, Jesus said that He is the vine and we are the branches, if we stay connected to Him, and He to us, we will produce plenty of fruits. But separated from Him we won't be able to do anything. 

Easy. But do we know how we can stay connected to Him? Again Jesus clearly tells us how we should stay connected to Him in John 17:7 and I quote "If you remain in me and my words remain in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be done for you.' (NIV) We are to stay connected to Him through His word, the bible, and through personal prayer. Also we best bear fruit when we are a part of a loving community of fellow Christians who helps us grow. Scripture says in John 15:12-23, we are to love each other for the greatest love one could show is to die for his or her friend. 

Therefore, the way to a fruitful life is to stay connected to Christ Jesus through reading, studying and storing His teachings in us, Praying and talking to Him more and have fellowship with other believers.

Build a relationship with Jesus

A relationship with Jesus, that, that is the firm foundation on which our christian lives should be built on. 

Jesus said in John 15:4 "Stay joined to me and I will stay joined to you. No branch can produce fruit alone. It must stay connected to the vine. It is the same with you. You cannot produce fruit alone. You must stay joined to me." (HolyBibleERV)

Staying joined to Him speaks of a relationship, a connection with him, just like the branch is connected to the vine. To live an effective christian life we must build and cultivate a relationship with Jesus. Only he, like the vine tree can give us, the branch, spiritual vitality we need for us to grow and bear fruit. 

So, how should we build and cultivate a relationship with Jesus? In John 15:7 it says, 'If you remain in me and my words remain in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be done for you.' NIV 

Jesus clearly tells us how we should start and cultivate our relationship with Him. Through his teachings and our conversations with him, our prayers.

Here are 10 fundamental habits to build a relationship with Jesus:

1. Read the Bible, memorize scriptures, get to know Him.

2. Pray Often, talk to Him about anything and everything. 

3. Have time for Praise and Worship. This connects us with Jesus.

4. Read Christian books, devotional, blogs and testimonies

5. Watch Christian movies and videos

6. Listen to gospel music

7. Have fellowship with other Christians

8. Join a Church or a Christian community and participate actively in all activities. 

9. Use every opportunity to let Jesus shine through you by helping and encouraging others. 

10. Fast every so often. 

Lastly, feel free to comment your fav godly habit to share or add on to the list.

What it means to live as God called you

The decision to become a Christian is an easy one but to live like one is always challenging. But hey, challenges are there to mold us, shape us and make us better.

As a Christian, I sometimes put pressure on myself to do and say certain things perfectly but we are not perfect and things aren't always perfect. At the end I only get frustrated and sometimes weak in my faith and in my journey as a Christian.

This shouldn't be. If you're like me, we don't have to put pressure on ourselves to measure up in some way. The key is, we simply have to read our bibles. Simple! I can't stress how important this act is for our spiritual growth, strength and journey. 

1 Corinthians 7:19 says that, and I quote, 'It is not important if anyone is circumcised or not. What is important is obeying God's commands.'(HolyBibleERV)

In other words, it is not important to do a bunch of religious activities or ceremonies or to live up to certain standards and expectations to be accepted by God and be called His children. What is important, that will qualify us to be accepted by God and that we should strive to do is obeying God's commands. 

God's commands refers to the word of God, the bible. Alot of us got saved when we first heard about the Good News, the word of God (Romans 10:17), it is then that our faith and journey started. It was His word that started our journey and now we need His word for whatever circumstances we are in to get us out. We need to go back to the word of God. 

Make it a non-negotiable daily activity to always do. Read your bible. Obedience will follow when we are filled with the word of God. 

In support to all I've said, Galatians 5:6 says, and I quote; 'When someone belongs to Christ Jesus, it is not important when they are circumcised or not. The important thing is faith- the kind of faith that works through love.'(HolyBibleERV)

I love this one! Being part of a Christian group, family or church has alot of positives but if you're not careful and wise you can put negative pressure on yourself to meet people's expectations and standards that can exhaust you physically and spiritually and weakened your faith, giving the enemy a chance to pull you out of God's presence. 

In circumstances like this we have to be reminded of Galatians 5:6, what we are, what we have or do doesn't matter as long as we know we belong to Christ Jesus and that we believe in our hearts that he is our Lord and Savior (That He has all control and power over our lives and decisions). Scripture says our faith is the important thing here. And again, faith comes from hearing the word of God (Romans 10:17). Therefore we need our bible, we need more of God's words in our lives so we can be obedient children to His word, filled with faith and overcome challenges.

In closing, to live as God called us means to trade the life we have for the one He is offering. His offer is not for us to do any rituals or do some kind of religious activities. No, His offer is simple, obey His commands, for His word is the foundation of the life he wants us to have.