Why I am writing this Blog/Guide - According to the Wall Street Journal—in March 2020 during the early stages of the COVID panic—the number one most searched term on Google was “prayer.”[1] I too during that time began writing down and further researching my understanding of prayer, in response to a challenge by one of the elders in our church. I had been studying prayer on and off for 14 years when this challenge came. It started back in 2006, in our church’s weekly prayer group, we began to ask God to “…teach us to pray (Luke 11:1).” This guide is a collection of Bible passages on prayer that the Creator of the universe and author of the Bible—The Word—has been showing me over the years since that prayer. I believe the best commentary on the Word is the Word itself, so these prayer related passages are organized together topically and flow somewhat from one related prayer issue to the next.
Format Conventions - I have deviated from some of the usual format conventions in this guide. After this paragraph, quotations from the Word are not in italics as most quotes are, but are in plain, unitalicized text. The Word portions of the text are the most important segments of this guide and I feel should be easiest to read. Bold text and underlines are added to the Word passages by me for emphasis; [unitalicized, bracketed text is from the Bible translation indicating words that were added for grammatical correctness but not in the original language text (Greek, Hebrew, etc.)]; [italic brackets are non-Scripture commentary and testimonies that reflect my personal journey and should NOT be considered Scripture.]
[Most Bible passages have been copied from the online resource www.blueletterbible.org , an easy to use online resource. Many of the views found in the bracketed commentary sections may have been pointed out to me by others, but as I have meditated on them, they have taken up root deep in my soul so I’m not exactly sure whom I may have heard the views from. Forgive me for not giving them their due credit. I think they would agree that the real credit goes to the ultimate author of the Word which I strive to tie all these views back to.
Many of the ways we pray are often based on the way we hear others pray, more than how God’s Word instructs us to pray. Even still, God knows our hearts and knows what we are going to pray before we pray it and He often answers prayers, which may have been modeled for us by others, even though they may not have followed the instructions on prayer found in the Word. God answers these often-flawed prayers because of God’s exceedingly perfect love for us.]
[Rom 8:1 NKJV] says, “[There is] therefore now no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus, who do not walk according to the flesh, but according to the Spirit.“
[It is important to not feel condemned on how we pray or how our prayers may not have been answered in the past because we didn’t pray according to the instructions found in the Word. Satan is the accuser and no matter how we may have fallen short in our prayers, praise God there is now no condemnation thanks to Jesus who’s sacrifice saves us! I heard someone say, “Satan calls us by our sin, but Jesus calls us by our name.” If we follow God’s Word on prayer more closely—which came from the Holy Spirit—we might learn ways to pray that are more effective than the religious traditions we may have been taught.
Discerning between religious tradition and teachings of men, and a major teaching from the Word can be a challenge. One of the methods I use is that every major truth in the Word should be established by two or three witnesses. Meaning if the Word mentions a teaching multiple times, we need to pay attention to it. Here are four passages that speak to this truth that “the best commentary on Word is the Word itself.”]
[Deut. 19:15, 2 Cor 13:1, Heb. 10:28, Mat 18:16 NKJV] 16 "… 'by the mouth of two or three witnesses every wordmay be established.'
[This guide tries to firmly establish these prayer tips with multiple references to Scriptures. I have found that some people never let the Word get in the way of what they believe. If you come across a tip that is different than what you may have been taught, I encourage you to test it against what the Word says.
I’m still learning to pray and far from perfect at it yet. However, as I have started implementing prayer as seen in God’s Word—rather than how I learned growing up—I have seen considerable improvement in the effectiveness of my prayers. I have developed an un-anticipated close, trusting friendship with my Creator that I didn’t have before, even though I grew up in a pastor’s household and attended Bible college. For example, our church prayer group recorded 425 answered prayers between August 2010 and August 2020. Recording the answered prayers in our prayer log was spotty at times, however, on weeks we were diligent to record all our answered prayers and praises, we would see an average of 2-4 answered prayers a week!
This guide is what I call Prayer Tips for Making Friends with your Creator. I am learning to live out these tips, and have included some testimonies from my personal prayer journey as I have been learning to develop a friendship with my Creator. My prayer for the readers of this guide is that you will find an even deeper relationship with your Creator as well.]
[1] Elizabeth Bernstein, “The Science of Prayer,” Wall Street Journal (May 17, 2020) https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-science-of-prayer-11589720400.
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