Monday, 17 December 2012

How should we pray?

The only Biblical requirements for our prayers to be answered by God are compliance with His commands and faith that He hears us ( Proverbs 15:8 &28:9 ; James 1:5-8).

Consider the following Biblical examples. Jesus prayed alone on a mountain at Matthew 14:23 and in public during Lazarus' resurrection at John 11:41,42.

Do you always have to pray out loud? No. Hannah prayed silently to God. "Her lips were moving but her voice was not heard". Yet, God heard and answered her.(1 Samuel 1:12-2o) . As a matter of fact,silent prayers allow you to communicate freely with God without hurting others. You can thank God for giving you an A in that course without offending the person standing next to you who failed. You can ask God to punish your enemies without putting those you quarrelled with recently on the defensive. If you pray silently to God to give you a sign,as Gideon did(Judges 6:36-4o),no human can overhear you and manipulate events.

What is the best praying posture? Do you always have to kneel down when praying? Jesus knelt at Luke 22:41,42 but stood up facing heaven at John 11:41.

What should we pray about? At Matthew 6:9-13, Jesus listed some prayer points. However,we do not have to repeat the Model prayer(or any other prayer) by rote. (Matthew 6:7). The Model prayer was never repeated outside the Sermon on the Mount, either by Jesus himself or by any of his disciples. "No matter what we ask according to his will,he hears us "(1 John 5:14; Matthew 26:39).


You can use any language to pray, since God accepts people from all nations,tribes and languages(Acts 1o:34,35 ;Revelation 7:9,1o). Pray in the language you understand best, to avoid making blunders and probably cursing yourself.

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