The first step to a quality prayer life is to trust God, love Him, and establish a good relationship with Him.
What must be done to have a powerful prayer life? It begins with one simple step, love God. The relationship you have with God will determine the power in your prayer. This is because the power in a powerful prayer life is in God. The power is not in you or your prayer.
Getting Serious About Prayer
How is your prayer life? Perhaps you are just starting to look into prayer. Perhaps you have just been saved.
If you have never seriously prayed before on a regular basis, then you might be wondering what prayer is all about. It seems to be important. Christians talk about praying, but how is praying every now and then different from a quality prayer life?
How Did Jesus Pray?
Let’s look to Jesus as our example and consider what made His prayer life different and special.
Matthew 26:36 says,
“Then cometh Jesus with them unto a place called Gethsemane, and saith unto the disciples, Sit ye here, while I go and pray yonder.”
When Jesus prayed, He prayed to His heavenly Father. It was the relationship with His Father that caused Him to pray. This was the cause of having a prayer life, rather than just praying once in a while.
Praying In Christ’s Name
To pray like Jesus is the goal. Whatever He asked of His Father, He received. How would you like to pray like that?
To pray like Jesus is to pray in His name. Have you ever heard that phrase used in prayers? It is commonly used. Perhaps you did not know what it meant. Most do not. They just say it. But to pray in Jesus’ name means to pray in agreement with Him, like Him, and as He would pray.
The quality of Jesus’ prayer life reflected the quality of His relationship with His Father. The quality of your prayer life is a reflection of the quality of your relationship with God. If you are struggling with prayer, your relationship with God is struggling.
If you understand this concept, then you understand the significance of what Christ was talking about in John 16:23, where Jesus says,
“Verily, verily, I say unto you, Whatsoever ye shall ask the Father in my name, he will give it you.”
Receiving Whatever You Request From God
Here is how praying in Christ’s name results in being granted whatever you ask for.
To ask the Father for something “in the name of Christ” is to ask for something in the fellowship and relationship you have with Christ.
Having a good relationship with Christ means you are in unity with Christ.
Being in unity with Christ means that you share the same desires as Christ.
Sharing the same desires with Christ means that you will ask for the same things as Christ would.
Asking for the same things that Christ would ask for means that you are asking for the things that are according to the will of God.
Asking for the will of God to be done means that the heavenly Father will grant your requests.
Quality Prayer Requires Abiding In Christ
Jesus told His disciples in John 15:7,
“If ye abide in me, and my words abide in you, ye shall ask what ye will, and it shall be done unto you.”
How is your relationship with Christ? Are you abiding in Him?
The quality of your relationship with Christ determines how you abide in Him, and a quality relationship with Christ is essential to having a quality prayer life that results in your being granted whatever you pray for. So how do you develop a quality relationship with Christ?
Start Your Powerful Prayer Life With Belief
First, you must let Him save you. Second, you must nurture your relationship with Him. The first step is obvious, and it is this step I want to address.
Believe To Change Your Life And Prayers
Believing in Jesus Christ for salvation means believing in His promise to save you by His grace, not believing that He will save you as a reward for your works.
Believing Him requires a change in what and how you think. This means changing your thoughts about His will for your life. Instead of believing that your way will make you happier, you change your thinking to believe that God’s way will make you happier.
Repent To Change Your Life And Prayers
This change of mind in what you believe is called repentance. When you have changed what you believe about Christ, you have repented.
Luke 13:3 says,
“I tell you, Nay: but, except ye repent, ye shall all likewise perish.”
If repentance was anything other than change of mind in what you believe, it would be a work. But Ephesians 2:8-9 says,
“For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God: Not of works, lest any man should boast.”
Galatians 2:16 says,
“Knowing that a man is not justified by the works of the law, but by the faith of Jesus Christ, even we have believed in Jesus Christ, that we might be justified by the faith of Christ, and not by the works of the law: for by the works of the law shall no flesh be justified.”
What you believe is not a work. Repentance is a change in what you believe; therefore, repentance is not a work.
Repentance is often confused with the fruit of repentance. Repentance is change in belief; the fruit of repentance is change in works. As already shown in Ephesians 2:8-9 and Galatians 2:16, you are not saved by works.
Change For Good To Pray Good
The concern people have about repentance for salvation is whether the claim of change in belief is real or not. People do what they believe, so it follows that people’s lives will change when there is change in what they believe. If there is no fruit of repentance, it is reasonable to conclude that there was no true repentance.
Second Corinthians 7:10 explains that
“… godly sorrow worketh repentance to salvation not to be repented of: but the sorrow of the world worketh death.”
True repentance is a change in belief due to sorrow and regret for having been wrong. False repentance is just a sorrow that you have to change how you live in order to avoid the consequences.
You remain lost and condemned in your sins until you truly change what you believe about Christ (repentance). In other words, you are already condemned due to sins. You must be saved from condemnation.
In John 3:18, Jesus says,
“He that believeth on him is not condemned: but he that believeth not is condemned already, because he hath not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God.”
Once you change your mind and believe in Jesus Christ, He saves you from eternal condemnation. His gift is to give you eternal life.
Eternal life means that you live forever. It is a never-ending life. And 1 John 5:12 explains further that
“He that hath the Son hath life; and he that hath not the Son of God hath not life.”
In other words, having Christ, which results from believing in Him, is a relationship with Him. Therefore, being saved means that you have a never-ending relationship with Christ. Once your relationship with Christ is established, it will last forever.
Nothing can change your relationship with Christ because of the change He makes in you. When you repent and believe in Christ, He changes you by imputing to you His perfect righteousness. With His righteousness, you are preserved forever.
God Changes You To Be Right
Second Corinthians 5:21 says,
“For he hath made him to be sin for us, who knew no sin; that we might be made the righteousness of God in him.”
In other words, Jesus became like us in order to make us like Him. He was made sin like us to pay for our sins (Romans 8:3). Those who believe in Him are made like Him in righteousness (Romans 8:29).
Does this make you God? Of course not. Does this mean you will never struggle with temptation and sin? No. When you are born again, you are born spiritually, not physically. It is your inward spirit that is born again and made as righteous as God. Your physical body stays the same, and that is the reason, when you die, your body stays in the ground. God will give you a new physical body. He will give you a righteous body to match your righteous spirit.
As for qualifying to go to heaven, the only way to achieve this perfection of righteousness is to believe Him, that His way is the only way. Hebrews 7:19 reminds us that our way is doomed, saying,
“For the law made nothing perfect, but the bringing in of a better hope did; by the which we draw nigh unto God.”
The “better hope” is the promise made by Jesus Christ. It is better than trying to be saved by your efforts to be worthy of being rewarded with salvation.
The choice is yours to make. Believe in the promise of Jesus Christ, or believe in yourself to prove that you are worthy of being saved. It is a choice between doing it His way or your way. What will you choose?
Take The First Step To Powerful Praying
If you make the right choice, the second step to developing a quality prayer life is to nurture a quality relationship with Him. But you must take the first step before worrying about the second.
Do you want a powerful prayer life? Believe God. You will find the power is in Him.
Change your life for good
If this article has helped you in some way, share your blessing with others. Let me know in what way you benefitted.
Ask God to teach you more about prayer. And search for more articles in my blog for more insights into prayer.
I look forward to hearing from you and reading your comment below.
