We can all benefit from some more encouragement to pray. And if we believe that God wants us to communicate with Him, we might ask: When? Where? How do we build a habit of prayer?
The Bible gives us a lot of freedom in answering that question, but it’s clear God wants us to pray. And God didn’t create prayer as a chore we have to do, to feel guilty about when we fail. Like many things in life, while we could see prayer as our duty, it is also something we get to do as believers in Christ. It’s a great privilege to address the God of the universe.
Where do we find motivation and power to pray?
What we do as believers in Christ can be called good work, or fruit, and this is a result of the Holy Spirit living in us. (Galatians 5:22-24) Where there is no Spirit, there is no fruit of the Spirit. First Corinthians 2:14 says, “The natural person does not accept the things of the Spirit of God, for they are folly to him, and he is not able to understand them because they are spiritually discerned.” (emphasis added)
Before knowing Christ, all of us had our minds set not on spiritual things but on worldly things. (Romans 8:5) In that state, Scripture says we “cannot” submit to God’s law. (Romans 8:7) But when we as believers by God’s grace turned from a life of sin to trust in Jesus for our right standing before God, “the Spirit of God dwells” in us (Romans 8:9). The Spirit then spurs us on to spiritual disciplines, including prayer. He is our inspiration. He is the source of our motivation and power to do what is right.
So the beginning of a habit of prayer is to first know and love the God we are praying to.
Thank God! The beginning of prayer is faith and love for God.
Part of knowing God is to know: He is not just any god. He is the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. Our God is the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Jesus is fully God and fully man. And If it weren’t for Jesus, who pointed us to read the Old Testament, and sent His apostles to write the New Testament, we would not have Bibles today, and our Bibles teach us some very specific things about God and prayer.
God’s Word teaches that we would have no access to God at all if it weren’t for the mediating work of Jesus Christ. This is why God’s Word says to us in Ephesians 2:12, “Remember that you were at [one] time separated from Christ … having no hope and without God in the world.”
In fact, there are even several verses in Scripture where people apparently need to be told that their prayers will not be heard (see Psalm 66:18, Proverbs 21:13, Isaiah 1:15, Micah 3:2-5, James 1:5-7, James 4:3, James 4:6, and 1 Peter 3:7 to name a few). This is very different from what many of us are told from when we are young that God hears every prayer no matter what. Jesus paid the price on the cross for us and granted us the access we now have to speak to God and believe our prayers are heard. Jesus is our mediator. He is our go-between. (1 Timothy 2:5-6) This is why Christians pray to the Father in Jesus’ name. (John 14:14) Jesus is how our prayers reach God.
Knowing Jesus is the foundation of prayer that is powerful and effective. James 5:16b says, “The prayer of a righteous person has great power as it is working” (emphasis added). A standard biblical definition of “righteous” is to have right standing before God because of obeying all of God’s commands. Since only Jesus has ever had that kind of righteousness, that verse about the prayers of a righteous person being powerful could be very discouraging. But as believers in Christ, we have been declared righteous by His blood. (2 Corinthians 5:21) So we’re not just hoping our prayers will be heard, we know they are. We know that, because answered prayer has nothing to do with our own innate righteousness (which has never existed) but everything to do with His.
This really great news causes our hearts to overflow with love toward the One who saved us from our sin.
Nobody has to force us to talk to someone we love, right? We long to talk with those we love. So to increase our habit of prayer is to increase our love for the Lord.
How do we learn to love God more so that we pray more?
Here’s one way: Jesus said, “he who is forgiven little, loves little” (Luke 7:47b). This also implies that he or she who is forgiven much, loves much. If we know we are wicked, broken sinners saved by God’s grace alone and not by anything good in ourselves, then we know God’s amazing love for us — and in return, we love Him all the more.
David, the man God used to record most of the prayers in the book of Psalms, was well acquainted with his own wickedness and the forgiveness he received from God. After Nathan confronted David for adultery and murder, although there would be significant consequences, “David said to Nathan, ‘I have sinned against the Lᴏʀᴅ.’ And Nathan said to David, ‘The Lᴏʀᴅ also has put away your sin; you shall not die’” (2 Samuel 12:13). This was tremendous grace, especially since this happened during a time when Israel was governed by the old covenant of the law.
So to increase our love for God, we increase our understanding of His grace, which we do by better understanding the depths of our sin. To understand the depth of our sin, we study God’s law. We read the Ten Commandments in Exodus 20. We study God’s holiness. Like a mirror, God’s law shows us how utterly short we fall of being worthy of eternal life. (Isaiah 6:5) But if we reject a life of turning away from Him and instead turn to Him, He runs to us with open arms and receives us as His children just like the father received his prodigal son in Luke 15:11-32.
Then, motivated by His love, we desire to thank our Savior by obeying Him and imitating Him. It’s at that point we can receive examples from Jesus Himself and rise early in the morning to pray. We can take joy in fasting and praying like Jesus did in the wilderness. (Matthew 4:1-4) We can pray into the night like He did in the garden of Gethsemane. (Matthew 26:36-46) We can also do as God’s servants did in the Old Testament: David prayed at seven different times throughout the day. (Psalm 119:164) Daniel prayed three times a day. (Daniel 6:10) But the point is not the number of prayers — it’s the love for God that fuels them.
What does this mean for today? Where do we start?
Jesus’ mention of “our daily bread” in the Lord’s Prayer (Matthew 6:11) implies at least daily prayer. Certainly every moment we are awake can be an opportunity for prayer (1 Thessalonians 5:16-18) Some days we have less time to pray than others. But perhaps somewhat ironically, praying may be a way to increase the time you have to pray! Church reformer Martin Luther was known to have said, “I have so much to do today that I shall spend the first three hours in prayer.”[1] However and whenever we pray, it seems clear from Scripture that we are called to pray frequently.
God also wants us to use words when we pray. When our Lord Jesus said, “pray then like this” (Matthew 6:9), what followed were words. Getting into the habit of verbally relating and communicating with God is a practice of reinforcing truths about God and who we are in light of God. What comes out of our mouths usually indicates what is present deep within our hearts. Making a commitment to use words in our prayers is multifaceted: First, we learn from Scripture what words to use. Second, we can consider the words that flow out of our mouths to help us consider the condition of our hearts. We may also find that the honest words we pray will actually teach us about what we need to pray for.
Maybe you haven’t prayed daily in a long time — or ever — and if so, you’re not alone! You can start today, right where you are: The Lord’s Prayer in Matthew 6, just four sentences long, shows us that God is honored by even a short prayer.
Or maybe you struggle with wanting to pray regularly because you know God is in control and does all He pleases anyway. (Psalm 115:3) It may help to remember that throughout Scripture, God is pleased to work and act after prayer (e.g., 2 Chronicles 33:12-13; Numbers 14:13-20; Mark 9:25-29; Acts 9:40-41). Answers to prayers happen after prayers. So in the very act of praying, it is as though we are writing a part of the same kind of biblical history of how God loves to move, act and answer. It pleases God for it to be that way. So rather than thinking of prayer as trying to get God to do something, we can see the act of praying as part of the answer itself, because God has shown us He loves to act afterwards. The very moments in which we are praying are themselves gifts and graces from God.
May you continue to build a habit of daily praying “on all occasions with all kinds of prayers and requests” (Ephesians 6:18, NIV). And in the years to come, may you look back and see how God has strengthened you so that you might “in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God.” (Philippians 4:6)
Adorn the Gospel 