Why and How to Pray

What Is the Primary Reason For Prayer

Unless you have read the book of Genesis when God created the first two human beings on planet Earth (Adam & Eve), you would not know that God had a relationship where he spoke with Adam and Eve, and they spoke with him every day of their lives before there was not any sin in this world at the time. During the time when God made Adam and Eve, there was no need for neither of them to pray because they lived in the presence of God Day and in day out and they can hear him speak and they can speak to him. All of that changed once sin had entered the world. From that time on prayer with necessary to communicate with God. Prayer has a primary reason for it and that reason is fellowship with our Creator and our God. Some of you may think that God is just a powerful energy but that is far, far from the truth. When you pray to God, it is not a monologue, it is a dialogue between you and God. If you were wondering rather or not God speaks, then wonder no more. God usually the does not speak audibly to anyone but you can hear God through your faith. The words of the bible will but help when you pray to God, God’s spirit will remind you of the word that tells you your answer. And that is only one way. The best way is to hear God is through faith. You must remember that God communicates with us though his spirit and that takes faith. That is the best way to hear him speak to you. Because that way he can speak to you no matter where you are, and when you don’t have access to the Bible. You can still hear him speak to you through faith. If he sent you on a mission trip to a foreign country, God’s spirit that dwells inside of you will tell you what you should do and what he is going to do. With, that is why the Bible tells us to live by faith so that everything that we do will always be done in fellowship with God. So what is the primary purpose of prayer? Fellowship with God. Many believers think it is going to heaven but that is not so. Fellowship with God is the reason.

When praying to God, do not always come to God asking for something that you need from him because if that is the only reason you’re praying, then you are missing the whole point of prayer. As I’ve told you, prayers will be communication and fellowship. Am I saying to you that it is wrong to ask God for help, no. I’m not telling you that you are wrong; I’m telling you that God already knows what you need. You should come to God just to fellowship. In the word of God, God says what you should do if you have needs.

Matthew 6:33 (KJV 1900)

33 But seek ye first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness; and all these things shall be added unto you.

One more thing to remember, Jesus died on the cross so that we would need nothing but him. That we would find every satisfaction in him. I am not telling you that you don’t need a job, a wife or husband, children, friends and a nice home in a good church in good health. But what I am telling you is that you can find those things when you make Jesus the only one you truly need. You will find that your prayers will have a greater effect on your life and the lives of the people you are praying for the well. Whether this is true or not this is what I believe. It is much easier to hear when God speaks when you are focused on him, and it is more difficult to hear him speak when you’re not focus on him. God is always speaking to his children, but his children cannot hear because their focus is on someone or something else. And yes, you can hear him when he speaks.

The key to learning how to pray is to pray in faith. Without using faith when you pray, you will not receive anything from God, and I mean nothing that you asked for. Because God is a loving God, God will give you what you need to sustain your life.

Learning how to pray will probably take you a little while and it is not because you don’t know how to speak to God because prayer is just speaking to God. What can be easier than that? The difficulty with prayer is that you must believe and trust that God not only hears your prayer, but he will answer your prayers well. It is not easy learning how to pray to a being that you cannot see in some time you cannot hear if you don’t have faith in the to do so. So it takes time to perfect yourself as a believing Christian with a prayer life. A prayer life I believe is one of the most important things is that Christians must learn how to do.

If you don’t believe that God will answer your prayer, then you have just wasted your time. When in prayer, it is best to pray alone by yourself, just you and God. God is everywhere at the same time, so even though there’s millions of people praying to him, he can still hear your prayers just like with you and him. They call it omnipresent. God is omnipresent. But God knows what you want to pray and rather are not you believe it or not long before you pray anything. You probably will ask the question if God already knows what I’m going to pray about, then why should I pray at all? You should pray because that’s how you have a relationship with God. God is a real being just because you can’t see him means nothing. And he is called our heavenly father. Once you become a believer and you are a trusted believer, which means you trust the things God says in his word and you trust he will answer your prayer, just imagine what your life would be like?

You can trust God when praying to the God that he will give you anything because everything in this world belongs to him. There is nothing in this world that does not belong to God. But there is a catch, yes there is a catch.

Psalm 66:18–20 (KJV 1900)

18 If I regard iniquity in my heart, The Lord will not hear me: 19 But verily God hath heard me; He hath attended to the voice of my prayer. 20 Blessed be God, which hath not turned away my prayer, Nor his mercy from me.

This Scripture concerns the old covenant or what is called the Old Testament.

Luke 11:9–10 (KJV 1900)

9 And I say unto you, Ask, and it shall be given you; seek, and ye shall find; knock, and it shall be opened unto you. 10 For everyone that asketh receiveth; and he that seeketh findeth; and to him that knocketh it shall be opened.

And I just call it that because it really is not a catch at all, it’s just that whatever you pray for must be God’s will for you. God will never give you something he don’t want you to have, then he will not answer your prayer. The reason being if you ask God for something that’s going to do you harm in the long run, he will not give it to you. Also if you ask God for something that is just what you and that maybe something you don’t need at all but you just ask God for it out of your lust, God will not give it to you.

James 4:2–3 (KJV 1900)

2 Ye lust, and have not: ye kill, and desire to have, and cannot obtain: ye fight and war, yet ye have not, because ye ask not. 3 Ye ask, and receive not, because ye ask amiss, that ye may consume it upon your lusts.

God wants you to do things for people, but he wants you to have faith in him. Faith means that you trust all that God says in all that God does. And you never doubt at least not that much.

1 Thessalonians 5:16–18 (KJV 1900)

16 Rejoice evermore. 17 Pray without ceasing. 18 In everything give thanks: for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus concerning you.

The Scripture above does not mean for you to literally be on your knees praying without ceasing. That is not what the Scripture means. Whenever you speak in your talking to God, your praying. If you are meditating on Scripture that you read in the Bible that’s praying as well as meditating. Until you learn how to pray in a unknown language, which is called praying in tongues, you will probably find it difficult to pray without ceasing. Remember what I told you about Adam and Eve first two people on earth. They were in God’s presence all the time. And prayer was not needed. Now we need prayer all the time to be just like they were.

It is hard to believe that God makes it possible for you and I to move, breathe, walk, talk and everything that we do. No one understands how but he does. Once you realize what God does for you and how powerful that even his words are, then you will pray to God every day of your life and thank him for watching over you and all those you love.

Now what I just said does not mean that nothing at all would never happen, that’s bad. No that does not mean that. What that does mean that you will have a relationship with God and that means that once your time here on earth is done, you will be raised to life again. If you have read one of the other web pages which will tell you about the spiritual versus the physical world, you will find out what I am talking about when I say that if you have a relationship with God, you will be raised to life again.

Acts 17:28 (KJV 1900)

28 For in him we live, and move, and have our being; as certain also of your own poets have said, For we are also his offspring.

If you don’t know God at all, you will not be raised to life at all, you will be dead for eternity. And as I have said on all the pages of this website you will learn that God created life. If you don’t have a relationship with life is very simple to realize that anyone who does not know life is dead. Without a relationship with life, it only means that you’re dead. All I am saying is that the definition of death. Is that being separated from God’s call death. Sin is called death because it separates you from God. So, you pray so that you will have a relationship with God, and you learn to let God love you because God loves you without any conditions. God does not love the way we do. God is love. Love is part of who God is not something God does.

There are people who use prayer as a way to get the attention of others. But always remember this, when you pray, you are only praying to God only and thus you don’t need anybody else’s attention but there are people who do it. But don’t be one of them. This is an example from the Bible concerning what you would pray:

Matthew 6:5–13 (KJV 1900)

5 And when thou prayest, thou shalt not be as the hypocrites are: for they love to pray standing in the synagogues and in the corners of the streets, that they may be seen of men. Verily I say unto you, They have their reward. 6 But thou, when thou prayest, enter into thy closet, and when thou hast shut thy door, pray to thy Father which is in secret; and thy Father which seeth in secret shall reward thee openly. 7 But when ye pray, use not vain repetitions, as the heathen do: for they think that they shall be heard for their much speaking. 8 Be not ye therefore like unto them: for your father knoweth what things ye have need of, before ye ask him.

The prayer below is sometimes called “the Lord’s prayer”

9 After this manner therefore pray ye: Our Father which art in heaven, Hallowed be thy name. 10 Thy kingdom come. They will be done in earth, as it is in heaven. 11 Give us our day our daily bread. 12 And forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors. 13 And lead us not into temptation but deliver us from evil: For thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory, forever. Amen.

Praying prayers that are very long does not get God’s attention more than short prayers do. Many people who pray long prayers, repeat the same thing over and over again. In the Bible it said these people think God’s going to hear them because they pray long. I would say dad whatever prayer you pray long or short, is the condition of your heart that gets God attention because anybody can say words. Some words come from your heart some discount from the way you feel. Or some words come from your heart. Always be sincere when you pray.

One thing I almost forgot to tell you, all prayer in with “in Jesus’ name” then Amen. If you leave out Jesus’ name, it will not even be a prayer. God does not communicate with you (meaning your physical body) your physical body which is called the flesh is full of sin. God is a holy God. God has nothing to do with sin. God communicates with you and I through his Spirit. Once we become a believer in God, then we had the spirit of God on the inside of us. Because Jesus was the one who took our sins, when we pray we must pray to our heavenly father in the name of his son Jesus. And then whatever you say will be a prayer. There are right ways and wrong ways to pray but I will not get into any of that now.

Fasting

There is something that we Christians do as far as praying this concern and what we do is pray and fast or fast and pray. What praying and fasting does, it starves our flesh for the thing that it wants such as sin that is used to committing every day. But when we fast it teaches the two control our flesh so that we can listen and hear God speak to us and spend more time with them because we deny ourselves which is the whole object being a Christian.

Matthew 16:24–25 (KJV 1900)

24 Then said Jesus unto his disciples, If any man will come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow me. 25 For whosoever will save his life shall lose it: and whosoever will lose his life for my sake shall find it.

This verse tells you that you must come out of your comfort zone. If you are used to doing or saying things that everything will day without doing anything at all for the kingdom of God, then you are not carrying your cross which means that you are not dealing with people and things to get the gospel of good news out to the people. And you’re not denying your flesh to send that it wants to commit. But you are living in your comfort zone where you are comfortable doing the things you do. Jesus hung on a cross for approximately six hours. I can tell not from experience, but I don’t believe it was comfortable. Incidentally, a cross is what they use as capital punishment for criminals in those days. They usually tie the people to the cross so that they would died from suffocation. Jesus was whipped I believe almost to death and then nailed to a cross. That sounds very painful, doesn’t it? So, as you can see he did not seek his own comfort. Because if he wanted to he could have. He did not owe you or me anything. This is why we pray and fast and deny our flesh what it wants so that we can spend time with God without any distractions.

Mark 2:19–20 (KJV 1900)

19 And Jesus said unto them, Can the children of the bridechamber fast, while the bridegroom is with them? as long as they have the bridegroom with them, they cannot fast. 20 But the days will come, when the bridegroom shall be taken away from them, and then shall they fast in those days.

When it comes to fasting, three days is usually the general time that people fast. If you are going to fast for more than three days, you should consult the Lord God. But then again there are different types of fasting. There are full of fasting (no food or water), fasting (with water but no food), fasting (with one meal for the whole day). Many people stop doing things they usually do in a call that fasting such as watching too much TV, talking on the phone, using your computer etc. These are things you can do fast but the best fast is fast food because your body needs it. The things that were mentioned before your body do not need to be done. Those are just things that your flesh wants.

Jesus disciples did not need to fast because he was there with them. Today Jesus is not here with us, so we must fast so that we can seek to be in his presence.

The best time of the day to pray is in the morning. Why morning time? Because in the morning when you first get up from your bed, nothing has happened yet. If something is going to happen during your day, it hasn’t happened yet because you just got up from your bed. So I will call this the best time to pray to the Lord God and thanks for the new day and to praise him for his goodness. Especially if you are I working with a family to support. That may be the only quiet time of the day to spend a little time with the Lord God in prayer.

Praying in tongues

There also exists a prayer language that is called praying in tongues. This kind of prayer is from God’s Holy Spirit. When praying in tongues, it is called the prayer language that only God understands. When you are praying tongues, you cannot even understand what you are saying but God does. The reason believers do this, is to edify them and it is said to be evidence of one of the gifts of the Holy Spirit in themselves, but we won’t get into that type of praying, I am just mentioning it to you because it does exist.

You will find out that when you are praying, that many distractions will come into your mind. These distractions come from our adversary called the devil. As you have read on another page or if you did not read it yet, the devil is a real being. What the devil does is to steal, kill and destroy anyone that God loves. Why does he do this is, it is because he hates God’s people and really all people because God created all people. But the Lord God did not leave us defenseless against the devil. But that to is what we’re not going to talk about on this page. I’m just letting you know that when you pray he the devil will try to distract you from praying. There is one more thing also he does to a new believer. He will lie to you about your conversion which will if you believe him, you may reject God. The devil cannot make you do anything. He has only lies and deception but do not take his lies and deception as nothing. He is the master of lies and deception and has caused millions and millions of people through the ages to fail.

God loves to commune with us when we pray. You must always be honest and sincere when praying. Do not pray just to be praying. When you pray to God, pray to God so that you can spend some interment time with God. Remember God is your heavenly father.

Remember what the Bible says about your words.

Proverbs 18:21 (KJV 1900)

21 Death and life are in the power of the tongue: And they that love it shall eat the fruit thereof.

It is said that your words will count even when you pray and they will produce life or death. When you start your prayer time with the Lord God, always remember to start with praise when you start your prayer time and always end with praise as well. Praise is when you tell God how good he has been to you and things that he has done when you prayed to him, and he answered your prayers and he done them for you. That is one type of praise. You can also praise him and tell him how great and majestic he is and how awesome he is in power.

Whenever you pray, you should never beg God for anything. Just go to God and let your prayer be known to God and as you know he knows I’m already. But you need to understand that if you don’t ask, you will not receive. And if you asked for a self is reason as the Bible puts it, you will not receive that either. When you have a need or request make that known to God in faith, and then just wait. You also need to know that God would not withhold anything that is good from you or anyone. You must come to God in prayer even if you have committed a sin come to God and tell him about the sin. Do not try to hide it because it is impossible to hide anything. Make it known to God because if you do not, he will not hear your prayers.

If you are a married man and you miss treat your wife which is also a sin, your wife does not need to complain to God but if you did that God would not answer your prayers.

And never fall into a habit of committing the same sins that you use to commit before your conversion to Christianity. It is not necessary to always come to God when you sin, but it is better for you to not sin at all. Remember the gospel message even when you’re praying. God came to earth in a human body. He was born to a virgin named Mary. His name was Jesus and Jesus was born on Christmas day. When Jesus was 30 years old, he started his own ministry of bringing the kingdom of God to the world through his 12 disciples of which one disciple betrayed him to those priests who hated him.

And they crucified him on good Friday. And then they buried him in a tomb. And then he arose from the dead-on Easter Sunday. We Christians call Easter Sunday resurrection day. And that is how Christianity got started. So as you see the Jewish people started Christianity. Jesus himself was a Jew. So, remember if you say anything bad about the Jewish people, that Jesus who was God in the flesh came to earth from heaven as a Jewish human being. There is a lot more to be learned through prayer but the best way to learn about prayer and anything that has to do with God, is to read your Bible every day and practice everything you learn.