First Things First
No matter where you are at in life everyone has the burning urge to talk to God. It doesn’t really matter what kind of lifestyle they lead either. People from all walks of life claim to pray; gangster rappers pray, real gangsters pray, swindling CEOs pray, even two-timing housewives are down to pray every so often.
I haven’t met many people that are against prayer, and I know a pretty diverse group of people. Not only do they not resist it, they also claim to do it…from time to time. Really, who doesn’t pray at least on special occasions? You know, on occasions like when the company we work for is starting to lay-off. Hey, that’s as good a time as any to take a knee and say, “Lord, if you do this one thing for me I’ll do anything for you”. Which by the way, is a prayer that is a lot less impressive to God than it is to us as we utter a promise we are ninety-nine percent sure we’ll never live up to. Nevertheless, we pray “Lord give me”,” Lord Help me”, Lord, right now”.
If you pray the way the world prays, then you’ll probably never get an answered prayer. I know what you are thinking, “Who in the heck does this guy think he is?” or something worse. Well, I will tell you who I am. I’m a guy that took some time to see what Jesus actually taught about prayer, instead of just following the self generated theories of the masses. Let me tell you, I am so glad that I did take the time because if I would have continued praying like most other people I’d probably never get an answered prayer, unless of course I asked someone that actually knew what they were doing.
Please don’t get me wrong, I’m not suggesting you need a manual to know how to pray, well not one other than the Bible. Prayer is a fundamental spiritual practice, it is simply communication with our Creator, but even the most elementary practices have some guidelines. For example, pretty much anyone can use a microwave. Microwaves are simple cooking appliances. You just pop the food into the compartment and hit the button of your desired time, how many ever minutes later the bell goes off and your food is ready. That’s simple enough, right? Unless, you’re unaware that nothing metallic should go into a microwave. If you pop your fork into the mic along with the rest of your food, you will find out real quick that something very simple can get very complicated when you are not thoroughly informed. Prayer is similar to that.
I could say a lot about prayer, because the Word of God has a lot to say about the subject. God’s tells us the best times of the day to pray, the right attitudes for prayer, most effective places to pray from, etc. However, I think the most overlooked fact about prayer in today’s world is prayer is not a right; prayer is a privilege. Prayer is a benefit of having a personal relationship with God, and you don’t qualify for prayer just because you are a human. Biblically speaking, people don’t have a right to ask God to help them with anything, until they have genuinely asked Him to be their Lord and Savior. Simply put, you have to actually belong to the Lord’s family if you want to be named on His benefits package.
I know many people are unaware of that fact, because the people that do know it are too nice to tell everyone else the truth. So I’m going to tell right now, “If you have not come to Christ, and asked Him to save you and be Lord of your life, while understanding that means you must turn from sin, then you do not have a relationship with God, and you have no right to pray for anything.” Let me just show you, so that you don’t think that I’m tripping.
John 9:31 “Now we know that God does not hear sinners; but if anyone is a worshiper of God and does His will, He hears him”.
Let me first address the most obvious objection that will probably be made after reading that verse. No, we are not all sinners! Good, got that off my chest. If we were all sinners then according to that verse, God would not hear the prayers of anyone. He tells us who he hears; he hears people that worship Him. Notice that worshipers does not fall in the same classification as sinners. We are all born sinners, but you can make a choice to become a worshipper of God (Romans 5:19). It’s not until then that you have the right to pray and expect for God to answer you. So what do you choose; worshipper or sinner? It’s a no brainer if you ask me.
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