RESOURCES — SHORT ARTICLES

 

SHORT ARTICLES BY TOM ELSEROAD
	2020-07-29	How Can I Jumpstart My Prayer Life?
		Many Christians are unhappy with their prayer life. This article addresses personal prayer, and not public praying. How do we get started with this essential discipline in our lives? This is an important exercise of our faith. Here are a couple suggestions for private prayer. SUGGESTION 01: Set Aside a Time and a Place Each Day, and Show Up. Do not leave this to chance. The devil and our flesh defeats most praying before it happens because we do not make it a plan. If you do not plan, you will be amazed how many “good things” will keep you from praying. The devil does not want you to pray. For those walking with the Lord, it is not sin that keeps us from praying. It is often what we think are righteous things that keep us from praying. Answering “holy emails” and other “holy” things keep me from praying. Or maybe watching or reading another news item we could pray about can keep me from praying. It is not usually evil that keeps us from praying, it is good things. The devil is subtle. The key to this suggestion is to pick a time, pick a place, and show up! SUGGESTION 02: Combine Your Praying With Reading the Bible. Take what you read in the Bible and turn it into prayer. Most people have a difficult time holding a train of thought if they pray alone. The Bible helps us keep focused and not allow simple distractions to derail us. Try to pray alone for 10 minutes and see if your brain can stay focused without something distracting you. “Look at that dust under the window blinds”. It needs to be dusted. It would not be sin to dust it right? Right! But now you are off track. So you read and pray. Read and pray. Read and pray as long as you want to. SUGGESTION 03: Pray Using Either an in-to-out, or out-to-in Direction. The inside out looks something like this. I am the most needy person I know. I know my sins better than I know anyone else's. So I pray about me alot. “Lord, convict me”. “Lord, change me”. “Humble me”. “Guard me”. I pray about me alot because of how sinful I am. Then you move out from yourself to your family. Then we move out to our church family. There may be a list of things to pray about as a church. We then can move on to the wider things such as our missionaries around the world. This is the whole global cause of Christ around the world. Or you can move in the other direction, from the outside in (yourself). Pastor Tom Elseroad

 

An Evangelical Free Church of America

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