In our life with Christ our one avenue to the heart of God is through prayer. Many Christians today will say they have no real relationship with Christ in prayer. They unable to either take the time, or they don’t have enough time to pray. They want more out of their Christian life. They want to overcome this world and its desires, but they can’t take the time to build a relationship, so they remain powerless to the many addictions of this world.
1st John two says this, “4 The man who says, “I know him,” but does not do what he commands is a liar, and the truth is not in him. 5 But if anyone obeys his word, God’s love is truly made complete in him. This is how we know we are in him: 6 Whoever claims to live in him must walk as Jesus did.”
We can not walk as Jesus did if we have no relationship to him. If we say we are Christians and still fall prey to repeated and perpetual sins we are not really Christians. (Read the entire book of 1st John, it explains this in detail and it only takes about 15 minutes to read)
At some point in our Christian life we may have been told that we are free and salvation is only for the afterlife. Maybe you heard this, “I curse and yell because God made me this way.” Those excuses are just not true, refer back to first John. We can not overcome this world by ourselves, but Christ can and did, and he expects us to trust him and let him change us so that we can open up his light to others. I fell into both of these traps myself and spent the first eight or nine years as a Christian struggling with terrible sin. I’m not perfect but I am still letting Christ work in me to make me more and more like him knowing full well I will not be perfected until the end.
It doesn’t matter how long you have known Christ. If you have spent all this time putting him on a shelf only to take him off when you needed help it’s time to stop. This process starts where our Christian life started, with prayer. Tell him you want him to be the Lord of your life and let him in to change you. Remember you have spent your life up until now living this way so some things you may have to work on but some he may remove instantly. Remember, “The one who is in you is greater than the one who is in the world.” (1 John 4:4B)
I listed the Lord’s Prayer in the post before this one as the skeleton for our prayer life. Some other examples we can use are:
- 1. The Acts Model. Adoration, Confession, Supplication, and Thanksgiving.2. Start a Prayer Journal. This lets you see where you came from and where you are going.
3. Praying the scriptures. If you are looking for help in this area Beth Moore has a book that lists many scripture you can pray Praying God’s Word: Breaking Free From Spiritual Strongholds
4. Just Pray. Do something whether it is screaming at the ceiling or crying on the floor, (both of which I have done) just do something
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