The following four principles about prayer help to explain how we may communicate with God effectively through a personal relationship with Him: (1)
1. God loves you and created you to have a personal relationship with Him. He wants to communicate with You in intimate friendship, where you are fully known and loved by Him. He desires you to discover His indescribable love and good plans for you as you get to know Him for who He really is.
“Ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you. 8 For everyone who asks receives, and he who seeks finds, and to him who knocks it will be opened. 9 Or what man is there among you who, when his son asks for a loaf, will give him a stone? 10 Or if he asks for a fish, he will not give him a snake, will he? 11 If you then, being evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father who is in heaven give what is good to those who ask Him! 12 “In everything, therefore, treat people the same way you want them to treat you, for this is the Law and the Prophets.
--Matthew 7:7-12 NASB1995
Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, and comes down from the Father of lights, with whom there is no variation or shadow of turning.
--James 1:17 NKJV
What prevents God from answering our prayers? Are there some spiritual communication blocks or kinds of prayers to which God will not respond?
2. When we don’t trust God or believe that He has our best interests in mind, we get stuck. We become spiritually separated from God and get imprisoned by fear, bitterness, rage, pride, folly, accusation, self-pity, grief, wrong mindsets, slander, and anything that hinders perfect love.
The sacrifice of the wicked is an abomination to the Lord, but the prayer of the upright is His delight.
--Proverbs 15:8 NKJV
The Lord is far from the wicked, but He hears the prayer of the righteous.
--Proverbs 15:29 NKJV
One who turns away his ear from hearing the law, even his prayer is an abomination.
--Proverbs 28:9 NKJV
Behold, the Lord’s hand is not shortened, that it cannot save; nor His ear heavy,
that it cannot hear. 2 But your iniquities have separated you from your God; and your sins have hidden His face from you, so that He will not hear.
--Isaiah 59:1-2 NKJV
But if any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask of God, who gives to all generously and without reproach, and it will be given to him. 6 But he must ask in faith without any doubting, for the one who doubts is like the surf of the sea, driven and tossed by the wind. 7 For that man ought not to expect that he will receive anything from the Lord, 8 being a double-minded man, unstable in all his ways.
--James 1:5-8 NASB1995
3. Jesus Christ is God’s perfect expression of His love. Through a relationship with Jesus alone can we know God personally and know the Truth that will make us free.
So Jesus answered and said to them, “Have faith in God. 23 For assuredly, I say to you, whoever says to this mountain, ‘Be removed and be cast into the sea,’ and does not doubt in his heart, but believes that those things he says will be done, he will have whatever he says.
24 Therefore I say to you, whatever things you ask when you pray, believe that you receive them, and you will have them. 25 “And whenever you stand praying, if you have anything against anyone, forgive him, that your Father in heaven may also forgive you your trespasses. 26 But if you do not forgive, neither will your Father in heaven forgive your trespasses.”
--Mark 11:22-26 NKJV
“I am the vine, you are the branches. He who abides in Me, and I in him, bears much fruit; for without Me you can do nothing. 6 If anyone does not abide in Me, he is cast out as a branch and is withered; and they gather them and throw them into the fire, and they are burned. 7 If you abide in Me, and My words abide in you, you will ask what you desire, and it shall be done for you. 8 By this My Father is glorified, that you bear much fruit; so you will be My disciples.
--John 15:5-8 NKJV
4. We must submit to Jesus Christ as our Savior (who saves us from sin) and Lord (who commands us how to think and to live). Only then can we experience what it means to be fully known and fully loved by God.
But what does it say? “The word is near you, in your mouth and in your heart” (that is, the word of faith which we preach): 9 that if you confess with your mouth the Lord Jesus and believe in your heart that God has raised Him from the dead, you will be saved. 10 For with the heart one believes unto righteousness, and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation. 11 For the Scripture says, “Whoever believes on Him will not be put to shame.”
--Romans 10:8-11 NKJV
But as many as received Him, to them He gave the right to become children of God, to those who believe in His name:
--John 1:12 NKJV
“As the Father loved Me, I also have loved you; abide in My love. 10 If you keep My commandments, you will abide in My love, just as I have kept My Father’s commandments and abide in His love. 11 “These things I have spoken to you, that My joy may remain in you, and that your joy may be full. 12 This is My commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you.
13 Greater love has no one than this, than to lay down one’s life for his friends. 14 You are My friends if you do whatever I command you. 15 No longer do I call you servants, for a servant does not know what his master is doing; but I have called you friends, for all things that I heard from My Father I have made known to you.
16 You did not choose Me, but I chose you and appointed you that you should go and bear fruit, and that your fruit should remain, that whatever you ask the Father in My name He may give you. 17 These things I command you, that you love one another.
--John 15:9-17 NKJV
The following is a suggested prayer for entering into a personal relationship with God. God is not so concerned with your exact words as He is with the attitude of your heart. Pray this prayer aloud if it expresses your desire to know God personally and to live every day with Him as your perfect Father:
Father,
I want to know You personally. Thank You for creating me to know You and to enjoy eternal life--the wonderful life that You desire and planned for me that is filled with Your love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, trust in You, humility, self-control, and victory over every spiritual danger and harmful thing that is not of You.
I’m sorry for the many ways that I have not trusted You and doubted that Your plans and desires for me are good. I’m sorry for accusing You for the bad things that have happened to me. I take personal responsibility for the way that I have gone my own way and violated your spiritual laws--all the ways that I have listened to pride, rage, self-pity, complaining, anxiety, bad news, accusation against You, slander, gossip, bitterness, unforgiveness, envy, trying to control others because of fear, bad thoughts, and things like these.
Father, thank You for sending Jesus to save me from my sins (those unclean or bad thoughts, attitudes, and behaviors). Jesus never sinned and loved You and others with perfect love, and You are inviting me deeper into that same kind of trust relationship and friendship with You. I choose to believe that Jesus died on the cross in order to take away all my sins, to forgive me, and to cleanse me from everything that is not of You.
I choose to submit to Jesus as my Lord and my God whose commandments I obey. Jesus has the words of eternal life, and He loves me and gave Himself for me. Father, I thank You that no other accusing or tempting voice shall have authority over me, because now I choose to submit to Jesus’ authority in every area of my life.
I choose to believe that You raised Jesus from the dead, proving that all my sins have been dealt with, buried, and defeated by Jesus once and for all. I ask and thank You for filling me with Yourself--Your Holy Spirit--to give me new spiritual life. Thank You that I am connected to You and have the ability to communicate with You and to walk with You as Your love and grace teaches me to become more like You everyday.
As I let You love me more and think about Your words day and night, thank You for making me more like You--the kind of person You created me to be.
In Jesus’ name,
Amen.
Suggestions for further spiritual growth and maturity:
Therefore, laying aside all malice, all deceit, hypocrisy, envy, and all evil speaking, 2 as newborn babes, desire the pure milk of the word, that you may grow thereby, 3 if indeed you have tasted that the Lord is gracious.
--1 Peter 2:1-3 NKJV
Then Jesus said to those Jews who believed Him, “If you abide in My word, you are My disciples indeed. 32 And you shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free.”
--John 8:31-32 NKJV
For more information on growing in your relationship with God through talking and listening to Him, I recommend my post “Intro to Meditation and Prosperity.”
(1) Four-point format of this presentation based on Would You Like to Know God Personally? A version of the Four Spiritual Laws, written by Bill Bright.
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