What Is Prayer?

Selfishness “When you ask, you do not receive, because you ask with wrong motives, that you may spend what you get on your pleasures” (James 4:3 NIV). When we pray for God to use us,

Prayer is one of the Christian’s most powerful spiritual assets, yet some are missing out on its effectiveness. No, I am not merely speaking of some clever tactic of the devil that prevents our prayers

Since Jesus placed such an emphasis on forgiveness, you would think that forgiving others would easily be at the top of our list of priorities. Unfortunately, that is not the case. Pastor John MacArthur gives

As we continue studying Jesus’ model prayer for us in Matthew 6:9–15, we now come to the second set of three petitions of the prayer: requests for daily bread, forgiven debts, and the avoidance of

“Our Father in Heaven” Jesus begins His model prayer (Matthew 6:9–13) with the phrase, “Our Father in Heaven.” This was a revolutionary thought to the Jewish mind. The Jews feared God and attached such sacredness

“Lord, teach us to pray” (Luke 11:1). The disciples brought this request to Jesus after they had witnessed the countless times He went out to spend time with His Father. Likewise, this should be the

You might ask, “If God already knows what we need before we ask, why even bother praying?” Scripture makes a very strong case for prayer in the life of the believer. Jesus told us to

Jesus gave this incredible promise concerning how to have answered prayer: “If you abide in Me and My words abide in you, you will ask what you desire, and it shall be done for you”

No one is better qualified to teach us about how to pray than Jesus Himself. We often read of Him spending the night in prayer. Even on the night before His crucifixion, we find Jesus

When we read the stories of these great men and women of faith, we may think that these people were super-spiritual, that our prayers could never be answered like that. But look at how Scripture

Someone has said, “If you are swept off your feet, it’s time to get on your knees.” Scripture backs up this claim. In the pages of the Bible we find ample evidence that prayer can

The Bible identifies several different types of prayers we can pray. One model for how we should pray is captured in the acronym ACTS. Each letter stands for a specific aspect of prayer, arranged in

“Praying always with all prayer and supplication in the Spirit, being watchful to this end with all perseverance and supplication for all the saints” (Ephesians 6:18). Notice the use of the word “all” in this

Perhaps you used to pray when you were a small child, or you started to pray as a young Christian, but it seemed as though God always answered your prayers with a resounding “No!” Frustrated

Prayer is not some mystical process whereby we call out to some force. Nor is it a kind of power with which we create things or speak them into existence, ordering God around like some

Prayer is as essential to knowing God and growing spiritually as breathing is to living and staying healthy. Interestingly, according to recent studies, prayer is more popular than ever among Americans today. One recent poll