How To Improve My Prayer Life This Year

How To Improve My Prayer Life This Year

“If Jesus Christ, the greatest teacher in the world followed up his instruction by prayer, what of us? If Jesus Christ, who was set on a mission that changed not just world history but all of eternity, took time to pray, what of us? If Jesus Christ, the Son of God knew that he needed to pray, what of us?

-Alistair Begg-

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The major reasons we find it difficult to pray is because:

1. We do not know what prayer is.
2. We don’t see why we need to pray.

A proper understanding of what prayer is and what prayer does will automatically lead to an improvement in our individual prayer lives.

We will first look at these questions before discovering how to improve our prayer lives. This will unlock our understanding on prayer. So read along. 

What is prayer?

In general understanding, the basic definition of prayer is talking to God.

Not to be confused with meditation or passive reflection; it is direct access to God. It is the best way we are given in scriptures to communicate with God as His children as we journey along in this fallen world.

It is the means by which we make our heart desires known to God. It is the primary way as believers in which we express our emotions to God and fellowship with God.

Prayer can be inaudible or audible, private or public, formal or informal, Congregational or personal.

As people of Faith, we should offer all our prayers in faith in the God we are praying to (James 1:6), and in the name of Jesus,  the only mediator between God and men (1st Timothy 2:5, John 14:14) and only through the power of the Holy Spirit (Ephesians 6:18).

We see that all members of the Godhead are involved when we pray in that we offer our prayers to the Father, through the Son in the power of the Holy Spirit. How Beautiful!

Now that we have answered the question of what prayer is and why should we pray?

Prayer is a very crucial part of the Christian journey of life. To show us how crucial prayer is, the Bible references prayer over 600 times. Wow!. God must be trying to emphasize the importance of prayer for us. For the believer, prayer is supposed to be as essential as breathing. As the saying goes, “A prayerless Christian is a powerless Christian”

A knowledge of science would show us how this quote relates with breathing.

When we breathe, we take in oxygen which converts the nutrients in our food into energy for our body to use. Interesting how science can be used to explain prayer.

It is the very fuel that powers our Christian life. 

The lubricant that keeps our engine running. 

The electricity that powers on our Christian life.

We will now highlight some important reasons why we pray.

1. Prayer is a means of serving God

This simply means that we pray because God commands us to pray (1st Thessalonians 5:17). Obedience is the best way to serve, so if God is commanding us in His word to pray, as believers who love God and want to obey Him, it is expected that we pray in order to show our love and reverence. Lack of prayer is like intentional disobedience.

2. Jesus and the early disciples exemplified it.

In the Bible, we see Jesus starting His ministry with prayer and praying all throughout the three and half years of His earthly ministry (Luke 4). We also see other places in scripture where Jesus taught about prayer (Matthew 6:5-8, Matthew 7:7-11, Mark 7:6-7, Matthew 21:13). Jesus was fond of separating himself from the crowd to pray (Luke 9:18). We also see the disciples of Jesus modelling Jesus’ life of prayer after the ascension because they understood the importance of prayer in the life of the early church. (Acts 1:14, Acts 16:25, Acts 9:40, Acts 20:28)

3. God uses prayer as a means to provide solutions in various circumstances.

• Preparation for major decisions

One very obvious thing we see in the life of Jesus was His fondness for praying before making major decisions.

Decisions like selecting the 12 apostles (Luke 6:12)

In like manner, the Bible tells us to acknowledge God in all our ways (Psalm 3:5-6). We are told in Philippians 4:6-7 to not be anxious for anything but in every situation, by prayer with thanksgiving, present our requests to God.

James 1:5 tells us that if we lack wisdom in any circumstance, we should ask God, who gives generously without finding fault and it will be given.

• As a means of overcoming demonic barriers in people’s life.

The Bible is filled with instances of Jesus praying before performing a miracle.

When He raised Lazarus, He offered a prayer of thanksgiving to God. (John 11:41).

• Giving strength to overcome temptation.

Jesus admonishes his disciples to watch and pray so they do not enter into temptation (Matthew 26:41)

In the Lord’s prayer, we see the statement “And lead us not into temptation..”

It is much easier to fall into temptation when we spend time doing unfruitful things to feed our urge for sin rather than praying. When we pray, our spirit is strengthened to overcome temptation. Just the way Jesus prayed to overcome temptation in the garden of Gethsemane (Matthew 26:39).

4. The gathering of workers for the spiritual harvest. (Luke 10:2)

The harvest is ripe but the laborers are few.

As believers, prayer is a tool we use in asking God to send in missionaries who will take the message of the gospel to places we cannot personally go because of situations we find ourselves. We are never incapacitated because the Holy Spirit helps us to pray.

5. A means of strengthening others spiritually.

Ephesians 6:18 instructs us to always pray and watch patiently for all the saints.

The Christian family is a family knit closely together in love. We express this love by praying for other members of this family in situations where we cannot physically help them.

We pray for unbelievers in hostile nations that they might receive strength to endure persecution and tribulations. Prayer is God’s means of reaching them through us.

We should see it as a great privilege to partner with God in prayer to ease the burden of our brothers and sisters in Christ whether they be going through the loss of a loved one or the loss of things that are valuable to them or when life seems to be coming at them at all sides. 

We can pray in the name of the same Jesus who experienced persecution for himself. He can relate.

6. A means of receiving from God according to His will.

God has promised us in 1st John 5:14-15 that whenever we ask for something according to His will, He will give it to us. What a comforting assurance!

The old hymn says “O what peace we often forfeit. O what needless pain we bear. All because we do not carry everything to God in prayer”

We should not see prayer as a means of getting our own will done on earth but rather as a means of getting God’s will to be done on earth. This should be the delight of any true child of God.

Prayer is in a way like sharing the gospel with people. We do not know who will respond to the message until we share it. In the same way do we not know what prayers would be answered according to the will of God until we see the results of the prayer.

When we do not pray, we are automatically telling God that we’ve got everything figured out and we can handle things on our own and do not have enough faith to trust God for our sustenance on this earth. We are to pray because scriptures tells us that the effectual fervent prayers of the righteous avails much (James 5:16-18)

Now that we have laid the foundation by answering the old age questions of “What is prayer?” and “Why pray?”, let’s see how we can improve our prayer lives.

How to improve our prayer life…

This is a major concern of majority of Christians. In a world where we have everything competing for our time and attention, we all desire to overcome spiritual weakness and draw closer to God in prayer. Follow me as we walk through this.

1. Know what prayer is.

When people do not know what prayer is, they tend to develop a lackluster attitude towards prayer.

The Bible says in Hosea 4:6, “My people perish for lack of knowledge…”. What we don’t know, we don’t do. What we do not know about, we do not use.

Earlier on we discussed what prayer is. Once you have a proper understanding of what prayer is, you are on your way to destroying spiritual apathy and exploring prayer as a power tool given to us by our heavenly Father.

2. Understand why you need to pray.

We previously discussed the importance of prayer and why we need to do it.

When we understand that prayer is the key and that it is a commandment from God and not a suggestion, it puts us in a better frame of mind to consider praying as often as possible.

3. Surround yourself with prayerfully people.

“Nothing tends more to cement the hearts of Christians than praying together. Never do they love one another so well as when they witnesses the outpouring of each other’s heart in prayer” 

-Charles Finney-

The Bible says in the book of proverbs 20:17, “Iron sharpens iron….”

From our experience of reality, we know that wood or plastic cannot sharpen iron. You cannot be surrounded by friends who do not know or care to know what prayer is about and why they should pray and then expect to develop an improved prayer life. It is simply impossible.

Remember that woods are not used to sharpen iron.

When you are surrounded by people who pray fervently, it will run off on you so much that when you are not with these people due to one reason or the other, you find it easy to pray because praying with them has already helped you to get accustomed to prayer.

4. Have a time set aside for prayer.

We see this modelled in the life of Jesus over and over again.

He was God incarnate and yet understood that setting time apart from prayerv was very important to the survival of His earthly mission. If lack of time was not an excuse for Jesus, then it shouldn’t be an excuse for you.

It could be any time of the day. Some prefer to pray early in the morning before other people wake up while others prefer to pray late at night when others are still asleep.

Mythbuster: There is nothing special about the time you pray. What matters is that you pray when you can pray. Some may say “But Jesus prayed at night, so there must be something special about the night time….”. No. Jesus prayed more when he had the time to pray which was nighttime.

When you set time for prayer and discipline yourself by the help of the Holy Spirit to pray at the time you set, you automatically adjust to that time much so that when the time comes, you immediately know that you have to pray and you will pray.

5. Have an accountability partner.

Apart from having a group to pray with, you need to have someone who will ask you if you’ve prayed. Bob Proctor said “Accountability is the glue that ties commitment to the result”

Your end result is to improve your prayer life. If you don’t have someone who genuinely cares about your prayer life the way you do, its easy to give up along the way. Its easy to get distracted when you are walking alone. It is easy to fall down when you are walking alone.

Ecclesiastes 4:10 “For if they fall, one will lift up his companion. But woe to him who is alone when he falls, For he has no one to help him up.”

The Bible says, “He who puts his hands on the plough and looks back is not fit for the kingdom” For you not to look back, you need to have someone to cheer you on. Someone to support you. Someone to bear your burden. This will guarantee victory at last!

6. Have a prayer list.

Are there things you are worried about? Write them down!

Are there things you think are going out of control? Write them down!

Are there things you think needs to change? Write them down!

Are there issues of life drowning you? Write them down!

Are there things your friends are worried about? Write them down!

Do you need guidance on major decisions?

Do you have desires you want to present to God? Write them down!

A prayer list helps you to be focused. With this, you know exactly what you want to pray for and can take notes of the ones you have gotten answers to and the ones you have to persistently pray for.

7. Intercede for others.

Have you ever spent time praying for others that by the time you look at your clock, you realize that you don’t have much time left to pray for your own needs? You’ll eventually get there.

When you put the needs of your friends, colleagues, employers, employees, pastors, parents, leaders and acquaintances ahead of yourself, you notice that you want to pray more for these people because you can see the result of your prayers and how you are partnering with God to transform the lives of others to the glory of God.

To summarize:

• Prayer is talking to God
• We should pray because God commands us to pray. Jesus and the early apostles exemplified it. 
• God uses prayer as a means to get solutions in various circumstances. We also see prayer as a means of overcoming demonic barriers. Gaining strength to overcome temptation.
• God uses our prayers to gather the workers for the spiritual harvest. Prayer is also used as a means to strengthen other believers spiritually.
• Prayer is also a means of receiving from God according to His will.
• Lack of prayers shows that we do not trust God enough to commit our affairs into His hands.
• We improve our prayer life by knowing what prayer is and understanding why we need to pray.
• We improve our prayer life by surrounding ourselves with prayerful people.
• Setting time aside for prayers also helps us to improve our prayer life.
• Having an accountability partner is a very potent method for improving our prayer life.
• A prayer list comes in handy when it comes to improving our prayer life.
• Interceding for others will immensely help us to develop our prayer life.

I hope you got value and I sincerely pray that your prayer life will be rejuvenated in Jesus name.