How to Pray

Millions of people want to know how to pray - and what. Deep in our hearts most of us know the importance of prayer and that there is a chance to connect with God who is more powerful than us, and that the method is prayer to Him. But what is the most effective way to pray?

There are five basic kinds of prayer, and Christians who have studied up on this often try to incorporate all five into their daily prayer time before God. We can go into more depth on each of these another time, but just now, let's summarize what they are so that we know how to pray in five ways.

How to Pray by Worship

In the New Testament, in John 4, we read the true account of Jesus stopping at a well in Samaria, and talking with a woman, whom the Jews saw as a despised half-breed, for the Samaritans were not pure-blood Jews. In their conversation, Jesus told the woman that, "God is spirit, and His worshippers must worship in spirit and in truth." (John 4:24). Prayer is our spirit coming to talk with the Spirit of God, and we are to come as worshipppers! How do we worship God in prayer?

This is where we set intimacy aside, and we speak to God with reverence and awe. For our own sakes more than His, we should review how great and majestic and powerful our God really is. Express that in words.

I know it is hard to find good words to tell God how great He is, but we need to keep trying because the more we do the more we begin to grasp in our own spirit and mind just how awesome and beyond understanding He is.

Furthermore, I find that the more I dwell on God's tremendous traits and deeds, as I find them in the Bible, the more my faith and confidence in Him grows so that when I come with my petitions a little later I really believe He will hear and answer me!

Worship flows best from us when we really love and trust the One we worship.

Worship is something we do from our spirit, so they who are filled with the Holy Spirit of God find that worship comes easier to them. But this also means that God will speak to us via His Spirit and will give our spirit instructions and messages. We must then exert our minds, wills and our physical bodies to carry them out.

How to Pray with Thanksgiving

We need to be constantly naming things we are thankful for, and deliberately giving thanks for specific things that God has brought into our lives. (Even if we think we made them happen). God deserves our gratitude, but we also do this for our own sakes. If we stop saying thank you to God, our attitude becomes self-centered and we start to think we are responsible for the good that comes to us.