Prayer Ideas and Help

Here's a simple formula to structure your prayers:  A.C.T.S.  Using this can help you remember all the things that should be included in your prayer life.

A - Adoration - praise God for who God is
C - Confession - own up to our sins
T - Thanksgiving - thank God for all God has done
S - Supplication - make requests for ourselves and others  

Helps For Your Prayer Life

"Surely the Lord is in this place, and I did not know it." Genesis 28:16

Teach us to Pray, Lord!

In Luke chapter 11, we learn that one of the disciples approached Jesus and ask:

"And it came about while He (Jesus) was praying in a certain place, after He had finished, one of His disciples said to Him, 'Lord, teach us to pray just as John also taught his disciples. ' And He said to them, 'When you pray, say: Our Father, which art in heaven, hallowed be thy name. Thy kingdom come, thy will be done, on earth as it is in Heaven. Give us each day our daily bread. And forgive us our sins, for we ourselves also forgive everyone who is indebted to us. And lead us not into temptation.'"

Why do you think they ask Jesus to teach them? Most likely, there was something real and alive about Him when He prayed which they knew nothing.

Want to pray? Ask Him to teach you

Prayer cannot truly be taught by principles and seminars and symposiums. It has to be born out of a whole environment of felt need. If I say, "I ought to pray," I will soon run out of motivation and quit; the flesh is too strong. I have to be driven to pray. The more we pray, the more we sense our need to pray. And the more we sense a need to pray, the more we want to pray. Jim Cymbala

Prayers from the Bible

Thanksgiving
"Pray without ceasing, in all things give thanks; for this is God's will for you in Christ Jesus."
1 Thessalonians 2:17; Psalm 33; 1 Chronicles 16:8; 2 Corinthians 9:15

Praise - Worship
"Bless the Lord all my soul; and all that is within me, bless His holy name."
Psalm 103:1; Psalm 100; Psalm 135; Psalm 148

Growing in Faith
"For this reason also, since the day we heard of it, we have not ceased to pray for you and to ask that you may be filled with the knowledge of His will in all spiritual wisdom and understanding. So that you may walk in a manner worthy of the Lord..."
Colossians 1:9, 10; Ephesians 3:14-21; Philippians 1:3-11

Confession - Forgiveness
"If you confess your sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us and cleanse us from all unrighteousness."
1 John 1:9; Luke 23:34; Psalm 51; Jeremiah 36:34

Concerns/Failure
"In my trouble I cried to the LORD, and He answered me."
Psalm 120; Psalm 77; Psalm 74; Psalm 26

Prayer Concerns

True prayer is an approach of the soul by the Spirit of God to the throne of God. It is not the utterance of words, it is not alone the feelings of desires, but it is the advance of the desires to God, the spiritual approach of our nature toward the Lord our God.

True prayer is a spiritual business from beginning to end, and its aim and object end not with man but reach to God Himself. - Charles Spurgeon

"O come, let us worship and bow down: let us kneel before the LORD our Maker."
Psalm 95
How to get involved: "My House shall be called a House of Prayer." Jesus Christ.