Christian Living

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If you are seeking a spiritual breakthrough this year, it begins with you. A revival begins with your own personal relationship with Christ. That relationship depends upon prayer. If you seek change this year – pray.

“But when you pray, go into your room, close the door and pray to your Father, who is unseen. Then your Father, who sees what is done in secret, will reward you.” (Matthew 6:6 NIV)

You may not have a physical closet to pray in but you need a PRIVATE PLACE to pray. It needs to be a place that you can go without any distractions so you can concentrate on talking (and listening) to God. It can be a spare bedroom, the car, a place in the woods, etc. When you go to pray, you need your BIBLE. Sometimes God will speak to you through His Word. Sometimes I just start reading and find encouragement or instruction in an area I need help with. In addition to your Bible, take a WRITING TABLET and PEN with you so you can write down notes or things you may feel that God is saying to you. Sometimes a thought or feeling might come to mind while you are praying or sitting quietly before God and you need to write it down before it leaves you. Sometimes to get into the atmosphere of prayer, you might need to start with a PRAISE & WORSHIP CD. This is a great way to shake off the feelings or things going on before you entered your place of prayer. You have to get into an attitude of prayer. Otherwise you can’t have proper communication.

Praying doesn’t mean that you have to do all the talking. In fact, some of my greatest prayer times were times where I didn’t say a word. If you are constantly talking, you won’t be able to hear Him when He speaks to you. Be still before the Lord.

There is always debate about WHEN to have your prayer time. There are some, which say that it is best to start the day with prayer while others say that the evening is the best. Forget this debate. Just choose which is best for you. Now, if it means that you need to get up earlier or stay up later in order to have that time alone with God, then you must make that sacrifice to do it. Regardless of when you pray, the important thing is that you do it.

Don’t know what to say? Just use your normal, every day talk. There’s no need to talk in the King James Version. God knows English and He knows what you are saying. He can even understand Southern!

The important thing we should do this year is to make prayer a part of our lifestyle. If we want prayer to change things then we must make prayer a priority. Not only will we discover that prayer changes things but we will discover that prayer also changes us in the process.

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