Someone once said, "Prayer is the highest use to which speech can be put." That is true, but prayer goes so much deeper and heartfelt prayer draws you closer to God. It is communication with the Almighty God; you acknowledge Him and thereby give Him credit and honor that is due Him. If you never talked with your spouse about anything, the relationship would suffer and eventually die. The same is true where the LORD is concerned; if we never communicate with Him in prayer, there is no relationship with Him, no closeness. Charles Spurgeon said, "A prayerless soul is a Christless soul." Without Christ, you will never have eternal life in heaven. You will never be able to have a close, personal, intimate relationship with God the Father, because Jesus is our advocate to/with God. "My little children, these things write I unto you, that ye sin not. And if any man sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous." - 1 John 2:1
Someone may say, "I don't know how to pray." Jesus gave us an example to follow at Matthew 6, called "The Lord's Prayer". Below is a video with blind artist Andrea Bocelli singing a beautiful rendition of the Lord's Prayer.
One of the reasons we pray is to make our requests known to God. Sadly, sometimes that is the only way we pray. We should pray to draw close to God, to give Him thanks in all things. to intercede for others, and of course to confess our sins to Him, repent, and ask for His forgiveness. If you notice in the Psalms, often a Psalm will begin with moaning and groaning and complaining, but as the attention is focused on the LORD, the Psalm will end in praise to Him and in thanksgiving. So prayer can help clear out all the garbage in our minds and life as we focus on God. It is important to pray in Jesus' name, however. Sometimes we may think God will not listen to us or answer our prayers, but rest assured he does listen and, more than that, He always listens to His Son.
"And whatsoever ye shall ask in my name, that will I do, that the Father may be glorified in the Son. If ye shall ask any thing in my name, I will do it." - John 14:13-14
We need to pray to find out what God's will is, and to ask for discernment. To find that out, we need to spend time "listening" to what God says. That happens when we read the Bible, because it is, after all, God's Word. Listening to God happens when we spend quiet time with Him, and we can "hear" a small, quiet voice within our soul that we will know is God speaking by the revelation of the Holy Spirit. It may direct us to a Scripture, or prod us into an action the LORD wants us to take.
"God does nothing except in response to believing prayer." - John Wesley. We need to have faith and believe that God will answer our prayers, because without faith it is impossible to please God as stated in Hebrews 11:6. Keep in mind that you need to pray in agreement with God's will for Him to answer your prayers. God is sovereign and knows what is best for you; He has plans for you, if you are a true believer, and He will not answer a prayer of yours that goes contrary to His plans and His will for you.
"Likewise the Spirit also helpeth our infirmities: for we know not what we should pray for as we ought: but the Spirit itself maketh intercession for us with groanings which cannot be uttered. And He that searcheth the hearts knoweth what is the mind of the Spirit, because He maketh intercession for the saints according to the will of God." - Romans 8:26-27
Below is an excellent sermon by Charles H. Spurgeon, a Baptist preacher who lived in the 1800's and who is known as the "Prince of Preachers." The sermon is about pleading prayers.
Prayer is Powerful !!
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