Catechism on Prayer

The early church had catechisms which were an instruction book on how to grow as a disciple of Jesus and be a responsible member of God’s church.  God’s wants us to grow in holiness and prayer but most people are trying to do it without the wisdom of others much less the community of faith the church.  God wants to rule your heart.  What God is teaching me at the moment is if we are going to grow into a life of holiness it will only happen as God sanctifies our heart through prayer.

When it comes to prayer, prayer is God giving us His thoughts and then us praying God’s thoughts back to God.  Preparation of prayer is study of God’s Word, meditation in silence to listen to what God is speaking to us through Scripture and God’s Holy Spirit.  We often pray in Jesus name because Jesus asks us to ask anything in his name.  The problem is we pray all sorts of things and then simply end our prayers “in Jesus name.” 

Look at the prayers of Paul in his letters in the Newer Testament.  His prayers were all about Jesus and he did not end his prayers in Jesus name.  Prayers are praying God’s Word back to God.  Prayer is praying whatever God puts on your spirit back to heaven.  Heaven and earth are to collide in prayer and heaven wants heaven sent prayers to rain back on earth and not earthly prayers with heaven’s blessings added onto them.  So here are some instructions on prayer and what God has been teaching me.

1.  The secret of prayer is to know you don’t know how to pray.  Only God’s Spirit can teach you how to pray.  Only the spirit of Jesus can lead you into heaven’s throne room.  When you pray, ask God to teach you how to pray.  Ask God to give you more passion and love for Him and others.  Ask God to strip you of all pride and self-righteousness.  Confess your weaknesses to God and ask God to give you Christ’s righteousness.

2.  The other secret of prayer is to stop looking outside yourself and find what God has already placed within you.  Seek God with all your heart and if you look in your heart, you will find God there.  Jesus said “the kingdom of God is within you” (Luke 17:21).  God does not want you sweating in busy activity of prayer.  Prayer is more about being than doing.  It is a rest from striving and entering into God’s rest and peace.  Prayer may start with words but often it is in the silence that God does His greatest work in us.

3.  Prayer must be focused on God in Christ.  Breathe in Christ.  While you pray, begin focusing on your breathing.  Exhale distractions and worries.  Inhale Christ and his love and peace.  Exhale your bad feelings and negativity.  Inhale God’s goodness and beauty.  Let the peace of Christ invade your soul.  For too long we have let the enemy invade our soul with negative and destructive thoughts.  Ignore the enemy and focus on loving Christ.  You won’t have to resist the Devil if you are already submitting yourself to God.  By submitting yourself to God, the Devil will have to flee (James 4:7).

4.  Let Jesus lead you in prayer.  Jesus disciples were taught from childhood as Jewish boys how to pray but when they heard Jesus pray, they suddenly knew they did not know how to pray.  So they asked Jesus to teach them how to pray and then he taught them.  Ask Jesus to teach you how to pray.  What is difficult for you is easy for him.  What seems impossible for you is possible for him.  Embrace Christ completely in your prayers.  Embrace pain and suffering in your prayer, do not try to avoid, manage, ignore, or hide your fears, distractions, or pain from God.  Like the Psalmist, take all of these in prayer to God and let Jesus carry them and leave them with Jesus.  Do not take them back upon yourself.  Completely surrender yourself to God and keep surrendering everything to God.

5.  Pray with open arms and ask God for His grace.  Whatever God puts on your heart, do it immediately in obedience.  You will discover that simply entering the posture of opening your arms to God fills you with God’s grace and presence.  Pray for God to show you the “unseen” things to you.  God will show you both the glories of heaven and many self-deceptions and illusions created by your own pride.  Pray the ancient prayer, “Lord Jesus Christ, have mercy on me.”  Repeat it over and over but very slowly.  Concentrate on every word.  Pronounce Jesus name with all love and reverence and speak it out loud.  As God begins to slowly fill your heart, you will continue this prayer in silence since you will begin say it with your mind and spirit and not with your vocal chords.  God’s pleasure and love will fill your soul and the more you practice this prayer, the more God will teach you about his mercy and grace.  Understand when you say “have mercy on me,” the “me” also means “all of us.”  The me means me and everyone else around me.  The me means me and every other person who surrenders their life to God.  The prayer is about Christ, others, and lastly about me.  When we take the “I” out of prayer, God begins to really change us from the inside out. 

6.  Let God through prayer occupy first place in your life.  In prayer we learn to die to ourselves and live for Christ.  In prayer I do not have to think about hell or heaven.  I only ask God to have mercy on me and every one in the world.  My focus is on Christ, not myself. Prayer is not a work I do but becomes a work that God is doing in me.  When we raise our arms, visualize Christ giving you his grace.  Abandon yourself completely to Christ and let the Holy Spirit pray through you.  Sometimes you won’t even use words in prayers.  You will just give God all your emotions and then God will answer and respond by giving you all His emotions.

7.  Pray with a sanctified imagination.  Some people pray with icons which are pictures of Jesus life, death, and resurrection.  An ancient Christian practice to sanctify our imaginations (which we often imagine the wrong things) and give us spiritual strength for the day was to spend 15 to 30 minutes visualizing yourself in heaven.  Imagine yourself around the throne of God in Revelation chapter 4.  Picture yourself with all the saints and angels giving God praise and shouting “Holy, holy, holy, Lord God Almighty, Who was and is and is to come.”  Picture yourself sitting in Daddy God’s lap and telling him your deepest desires or secrets of your heart.  Picture yourself running to Jesus and throwing yourself at his feet or simply Jesus hugging and holding you like a brother.  Start imagining what God already sees.  Faith sees before it happens (Romans 4:17).  Faith believes and acts like it has already received (Mark 11:24).  This kind of faith is unshakable and believes God can remove the greatest obstacle (that seems like a mountain).  In your breathing, visualize your exhaling as giving God all yourself and love.  When you inhale, visualize God giving all His love back to you.  Every breath is a gift from God that fills us with gratitude.

8.  Self-examination should always come before confession in your prayers.  Do not depend upon yourself to see clearly or know yourself.  Depend on God for the discovery and knowledge of your sins.  As God reveals and shows you things, acknowledge them and then embrace them by embracing God.  You do not have to fight your battles for the Lord God will fight your battles if you come with surrender and complete trust that God really knows better than you do.  When we strive to die to things, it is a great chore and monumental challenge.  When we allow God to kill the things in our lives, expose them by the light of His Holy Spirit, and the destruction of self, then our burdens become light as Christ carries them on the cross for us.  The cross of Christ and dying daily to ourselves then becomes a beautiful part of the spiritual life and not a difficult burden.

9.  For prayer to be fruitful, we must renounce all our activity and self-righteousness.  We must ask God to fill us daily with His life giving Spirit and empty our self of trying to come to prayer on our own terms or our own agenda.  Humility, Honesty, and our Heart is what God desires.  Our soul must become completely still.  “Be still and know God” (Psalm 46:10).  When we cease from our activity, God begins His activity.   It’s in the stillness we die to ourselves and everything in the world and we are made alive by the Spirit of God and resurrected as new creatures to tasting the first fruits of a heavenly life on earth.

10.  Meditate on the prayers of the saints and let them instruct you.  Pray the Psalms.  Read them out loud walking or standing.  Let every sentence burn in your heart.  Feel every emotion that is being expressed.  Let the Psalms become your prayers.  Pray the Lord’s Prayer in Matthew 6.  Find others to memorize this prayer and pray it with two or three others in unison.  In doing so you are inviting the presence of Jesus to be in the middle of your prayer.  Pray the prayer of Saint Francis of Assisi. 

“Lord, make me a channel of your peace;

Where there is hatred, may I bring love;
Where there is discord, may I bring harmony;
Where there is error, may I bring truth;
Where there is doubt, may I bring faith;
Where there is despair, may I bring hope;
Where there are shadows, may I bring light;
Where there is sadness, may I bring joy;
Lord, grant that I may seek rather to comfort than to be comforted;
To understand, than to be understood;
To love, than to be loved;
For it is by self-forgetting that one finds.
It is by forgiving that one is forgiven.
It is by dying that one awakens to eternal life. 
Amen.”

When a word or phrase draws or grips you, stop, and simply keep repeating it in your heart.  Let it wash over you like the waves of an ocean.  Let’s say the word is “Lord,” just let the word sink in.  I empty myself, please be my Lord.”  “I trust you as Lord, help my unbelief.”  “I’m so used to being in control, I surrender myself to you.”  “Help me to make you Lord.”  As you pray the prayer, keep repeating the process as the Lord leads you.