BRAND CHRISTIAN: Christian Prayer-life

As Christians, we all pray right?

What do you say?
How long do you pray for everyday?

If I had to say that prayed for 1 hour every day and you prayed for 5 minutes every day, does that make you a 'better' Christian than me or a better 'disciple' that is closer to God than I am?

You know, when I pray, most often I don't even know what to pray for. Sometimes I ramble on about nonsense just because "I have to pray every day to stay in a relationship with God". Really?

I will close my eyes.......and then start with Father....... (And then I don't know what to start with).

I think to myself:
Do I need to start with Thanking God or do I end with that?
When, in the prayer, should I begin all my requests, forgiveness and healing for myself and others?
How do I end off?
If I forget something, does that mean it won’t be 'granted'?
You know I look at these questions and think "How ridiculous I am".
Does God care in what order you prayer in?

But here’s my 2 cents worth. Something I have thought about and I really now take the stance of the following:

· Hasn't God forgiven us already? He sent His son, Jesus Christ, to die on the cross for our sins on the cross. These are for sins Past, Present  AND future (believe it or not!) Why am I asking for God’s forgiveness every time when I have already been forgiven?

·All of Gods work has already been planned. There is nothing I can say or do that will "convince" God otherwise or to change His mind. Who am I to think that I can manipulate God into doing something for me or my family or my life?

· How often do start in prayer by rambling on about how bad things are, how I need healing, how someone hurt me emotionally, how, how, how......  Basically all I am doing is complaining to God and moaning about all the things that are wrong in my life and how I want healing in certain areas, and then I spend 5% of my prayer thanking God for what He has done and is doing.

· Does it really matter how long I have to pray. Do I need to lock myself away for 2 hours and pray to God? What would I say?

· Is there any point in me praying to God and asking Him to 'save' me, to 'forgive' me, to come into my life?

I think maybe the whole difference here is being either a Christian or a disciple. A disciple will spend time on what matters the most and that is a relationship with God, not about himself or how he can try and change Gods mind about something that has already been planned and decided upon by Him.

A disciple wouldn't worry about how long a pray is. He wouldn't worry about where to pray and how to pray but He would place His attention on God only, thanking Him for what He has done and here goes.....TRUSTING Him that He is with you in your current situation.

God has already saved us; He has already sent His son to do what he did on earth thousands of years ago. IT’S DONE!

Isn’t it a bit of a contradiction to ask God to save us and to come into our lives, when He already has? God is always there, always loving us, always knocking our door.

Instead of Asking God to 'come into our lives', why not just believe what He did and believe what Jesus did on the cross. By accepting what Jesus did on the cross FOR US, is all we need to do to have eternal life.

God is not in this faraway place where we have pray and call Him to come and start taking notes on what we do and then guide us away or advise us. He already knows our lives, He created us, He saved us and He is always with us every minute of the day. We just have to accept that!

Often if we pray for God to heal someone over and over and that person is not healed, we wonder where God was, or we wonder that maybe we didn't pray in the correct way or say the right thing.

Maybe we don't actually trust God enough that everything is taken care of.

Jesus didn't send out His disciples and say to them that they should pray these long elaborate prayers and waffle on about healing. He commanded them to go out and heal the sick!

They did this by and with the authority of Christ, trusting Him that whatever happened was God’s plan.

Am I way off here? These are certainly the thoughts going around in my mind, what do you think?

Amen.