Prayer is the linchpin of the Christian life and the more effectively you pray, the more powerful your life will be for God.

Remember, there are all kinds of prayers, as Paul wrote to the Ephesians: “And pray in the Spirit on all occasions with all kinds of prayers and requests” (Ephesians 6:18). Our private prayer time will have a different nature than corporate prayer. We need to be aware of what is appropriate in a group setting versus our personal prayers.

In Matthew 6:8 Jesus is again teaching on prayer and he says don’t try to impress God with many words like pagans do. God is not impressed with lengthy prayers. Lengthy prayers do not carry more weight with God just because they are long. We also need to be careful that we don’t get into “vain repetitions,” which can happen if we just repeat the same phrases and clichés in every prayer without truly thinking of what we’re saying.

Phillips Brooks has written: “Prayer is not conquering God’s reluctances but taking hold of God’s willingness.” We don’t pray to try to persuade God to do what we want him to do. We pray so that we can align ourselves with his purposes in our lives and take hold of all he wants to do for us and through us.

Prayer is for our benefit. God has no need-to-know. We don’t have to educate him; he knows everything before we ask him or tell him. But when we bring our needs and petitions and praise to God, we show him and remind ourselves that we are letting go of the controls of our lives and giving them to the Lord. We are presenting our cares to God, not to inform him of our need, but to demonstrate our trust in him. To show that we recognize our inability and trust his ability.

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What I've learned from other godly people who seem to have power in their prayer life is that, first, they are disciplined about praying. And secondly, they have developed a structure for their prayer life that enables them to pray more effectively. Jesus taught his disciples how to pray, and we need to learn as well. So, I've been sharing some ideas that can help you pray more powerfully.

Praying Scripture

Have you learned the joy and effectiveness of praying Scripture? I recommend this highly because it is truly powerful praying. How do you pray Scripture, you ask? There are several ways.

First, as you are reading from the Bible, stop and pray back what you read. For example, I was reading Psalm 39 and like so many of the Psalms, it is a beautiful prayer. I prayed, “Lord, show me my life’s end and the number of my days. Remind me of how brief and fleeting is my life, and therefore help me to be focused on what is eternally important and not be swallowed up with the affairs of this world.” You see how a Scripture passage can guide you to a very effective prayer.

There are wonderful praise prayers in the Bible which you can use for your own. As you find them, write them in a prayer journal and use them. There are prayers for others that really improve the way you pray for friends and family. For example, pray Philippians 1:9 for people you know and love: "And this is my prayer: that your love may abound more and more in knowledge and depth of insight, so that you may be able to discern what is best and may be pure and blameless until the day of Christ, filled with the fruit of righteousness that comes through Jesus Christ—to the glory and praise of God.”

I pray Philippians 4:8 often: "Today, Lord, help me to think only what is true, noble, right, pure, lovely and admirable.” It's very important to pray about your thought life. I pray on the armor of God as outlined in Ephesians 6.

These are just examples of praying Scripture, and it will energize your prayer life immensely.

Jesus taught us how to pray and we should therefore pray as he taught us. That makes sense to me, how about you?

We’ve looked at the first two components of The Lord’s Prayer:

Praise: "Our Father, Which art in heaven, hallowed be your name"

Pledge: "Your kingdom come; your will be done on earth as in heaven."

Then we come to:

Petition: "Give us this day our daily bread"

We are told over and over again in Scripture to bring our requests to God, to cast our burdens on him, to tell him what we need, to knock, seek and ask. He is our Heavenly Father, and he loves for us to petition him. That petition time should include our own needs and those of many others. We need to spend a great deal of time in intercessory petition, praying for the needs of others.

Then we need a time of penitence:

Penitence: "Forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors.”

During confession we need to be very specific and very honest with God. You can’t hide anything from him anyway, so it is far better to get all your dirty laundry out on in the open, confess your sins, naming them one by one, and finding his wonderful forgiveness and cleansing. And as we ask for forgiveness, we have to be willing to extend forgiveness to those who have wronged us.

Then Jesus closed his pattern for prayer with a:

Pleading: “And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil."

Surely we need to invoke and plead for God’s protection from the evil that surrounds us every day of our lives. We need to put on the armor of God so that we are able to stand against the evil one, and pray that God will help us to resist Satan and all his temptations.

So, those five words describe what prayer needs to contain in order to pray the way Jesus taught us to. It should always begin with praise, then our pledge to God, then present our petitions to him, come with a penitent heart for our sins and plead for his protection.

I’m not sure the sequence is essential, except beginning and ending with praise is always good. But your prayer time needs to cover these five areas because that’s how Jesus taught us to pray.

The disciples asked Jesus to teach them how to pray, and he did. Obviously, if they needed to learn, so do we. So, I'm sharing a few thoughts on how to structure your prayer time for more effective praying.

Here are my simple first-step suggestions to enroll you in Prayer 101:

First, follow the model Jesus gave us for prayer. You'll find it in Matthew 6 and Luke 11. Briefly, The Lord's Prayer teaches us that prayer should contain:

Praise: "Our Father, Which art in heaven, hallowed be your name"

Pledge: "Your kingdom come; your will be done on earth as in heaven."

Petition: "Give us this day our daily bread"

Penitence: "Forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors.”

Pleading: “And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil."

Let’s look at each of those briefly.

Praise is essential to an effective prayer life. Every prayer session should begin with praise, as Jesus taught us to do. A large portion of your prayer time needs to be devoted to praise, because this is how you redirect your thoughts to God and get them off yourself. Believe me, that is a most important step in having a meaningful time of prayer.

Praise God for who he is, reciting his attributes and characteristics. Praise him for what he has done, recalling his many benefits to you. Praise the Triune God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Let your mind and heart dwell on the nature of God until your mind is filled up with God.

Then you are prepared to pledge yourself to the God of creation and commit your life to his control. I find it very helpful to pray back Scripture verses which I’ve written in my prayer journal—verses of dedication and commitment. For example, Romans 12:1 and 2 can be prayed as a dedication of your body as a living sacrifice. It is your pledge to God that you are giving him control for the day ahead.

During this pledge time, you are asking that the will of God be done in your life and giving God permission to write the agenda for your life and your day. It is a pledge between you and God

How many sermons have you heard on prayer? How many books have you read on prayer? It has always been and it always will be a topic to be discussed and an activity to be inspired because prayer is the linchpin of our Christian life. Without it our spiritual wheels tend to fall off and we get nowhere.

Yet, studies tell us that few Christians—I’m talking about true believers in Jesus Christ who have been born from above and found new life in Christ—few really have a significant and effective prayer life. Why? Well, there are many answers to the question of why we don’t pray more. One reason is it takes discipline and many haven’t learned to be disciplined. That means you have to designate a time for prayer each day and stick to it. Another reason is that prayer has a low priority in our schedules. We leave it for “leftover” time instead of making sure it gets done first.

And then another key reason we don’t have effective prayer lives is because we haven’t learned how to pray effectively. Prayer is something to be learned. We know that because Jesus’ disciples asked him to teach them how to pray, and he did. He gave them a format for prayer which we have called the Lord’s Prayer.

Do you follow that format for your own prayer life? Don’t you think that if Jesus taught us to pray in that way, we should? That doesn’t mean you quote the Lord’s Prayer every day, but you structure your prayer to have the same components as our Lord taught.

Prayer is something you learn to do and get better at doing the more you practice it and learn about it. In our business lives, we wouldn't dare "wing it" with an important sales presentation, where a big order was at stake. When something is important to our lives, we plan and prepare and give it a lot of attention. Yet, many Christians approach prayer very carelessly and undisciplined, and then wonder why their prayers seem lifeless and humdrum.

(Presented by Lisa Bishop)

Gratitude is something we hear a lot about, even in mainstream culture. As followers of Jesus, a posture of gratitude is critical as we grow in our faith and in intimacy with God. But often gratitude can be an afterthought or based on our feelings or circumstances, rather than a regular practice as a follower of Christ. I want to spend some time on the importance of gratitude and why it’s like the air we breathe, we can’t live and have a thriving faith without it.

Before we dive in, I have a question for you. If you were to rate yourself on the God gratitude meter, 1 being, “I rarely express gratitude,'' to 5, “I give God thanks daily for specific things I am grateful for,” where would you rank? 1, 5, somewhere in between? When was the last time you expressed thankfulness to God? What did you specifically thank him for?

In all honesty, over the years I have been hit or miss in my gratitude practice. I didn’t really have a plan or discipline in place. Now that may sound funny. Do we need a plan? A gratitude practice? Is gratitude really a spiritual discipline? I would say, yes.

At the beginning of this year, I vowed to keep a daily gratitude journal. While I have done this in the past if I am honest, my daily practice of gratitude tends to peter out pretty quickly.

This year has been different. I have made gratitude a spiritual discipline, taking time every morning and making a thoughtful and specific list for all of the things I am thankful for as I reflect on the previous day. Over time, with consistency and commitment, gratitude has turned into a daily habit. And it has been a game-changer in my faith life. This really shouldn’t be surprising to us because all throughout Scripture we see the call to gratitude and thankfulness and we see the impact of a lack of it.

So why can we find it difficult to be grateful? I think one reason is because we often let our circumstances and not God’s faithfulness dictate our gratitude. We count on our circumstances to elicit feelings of thankfulness, and when things don’t go our way we withhold it. Or worse, we grumble. One of the many examples of the absence of gratitude and the propensity towards grumbling is found in the book of Exodus. In the book of Exodus, we learn that the Israelites had been enslaved in Egypt for 400 years. For four centuries generation after generation was subjected to hard labor, horrible oppression, and unpleasant living conditions. They lived being daily mastered and ruled by the Egyptians.

I will share a few highlights from Exodus but I highly recommend reading the entire book on your own. And, even though this story may sound familiar to you, I invite you to ask God what he wants to illuminate for you. Ask Holy Spirit, “Is there an area of my life that I am forgetting to be thankful? How am I like the Israelites?” Ask, “Lord, what do you want to teach me through your Word about grumbling and gratitude?”

As the story unfolds throughout Exodus we see how God goes through extreme measures to bring freedom to his people. The culmination of ten plagues appear to finally cause Pharaoh to relent and release the Israelites from slavery. And after Pharaoh lets them go, God leads the Israelites along the road to the wilderness. Exodus 13:21-22 tells us, “By day the Lord went ahead of them in a pillar of cloud to guide them on their way and by night in a pillar of fire to give them light, so that they could travel by day or night. Neither the pillar of cloud by day nor the pillar of fire by night left its place in front of the people.”

Don’t miss that. In the midst of their difficult circumstances God’s presence never left them. He was visibly with them guiding every step. It is the same with you. You may not get to actually see a manifestation of God’s presence but he is always by your side and leading you,

(Presented by Lisa Bishop)

Have you ever experienced an overwhelming sense of anxiety?

Anxiety has been something that has reared its unsettling head in my life for the past several years. I had never really experienced anxiety and now, it can come in long waves. Staring a major life changing decision in the face caused unrelenting anxiety and restless and sleepless nights. I would wake up feeling sweaty and heavy and my eyes had not even been open more than a second.

When anxiety tries to get the best of you, go to the Word, pray, text or phone a friend to talk things through and ask for prayer. At the onset of worry and anxiety, I called my friend Lisa and shared with her that I was really struggling. She graciously created a safe space for me to share all of the thoughts that were invading my mind. Sometimes it can help to find a trustworthy friend who will just listen. When we verbalize what is causing worry and concern, sometimes it can lose a little bit of its power. She graciously listened and said “Girl, I don’t have the answer to your dilemma but have you worshiped?”

With that question, she responded with humility, love, and truth. A tender reminder that in those moments of life when you feel overwhelmed—turn to worship and gratitude.

In Philippians the Apostle Paul instructs us, “Don’t worry about anything; instead, pray about everything. Tell God what you need and thank him for all he has done. Then you will experience God’s peace, which exceeds anything we can understand. His peace will guard your hearts and minds as you live in Christ Jesus” (Philippians 4:6-7 NLT).

The first thing I want to point out is the fact that Paul even talks about anxiety! If he is addressing it, surely people were experiencing it. Sometimes I think we can feel as if we are alone and the only ones who experience anxiousness. Or perhaps we feel like something is wrong with us when we feel waves of anxiety coming on. But Paul reminds us that there will be times when we feel anxious, and he points us to truth and who to turn to in those moments.

When you are anxious, pray. Tell God what you need. His Word says that he inclines his ear toward you. Thank him, express your gratitude for who he is and all he has done in your life. It can sound trite but it is truth. When you do, God promises you will experience peace.

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(Presented by Lisa Bishop)

Being grateful really is an attitude of the heart and a will of the mind. It requires a deliberate effort, a commitment to focus our attention and thoughts on who God is and all of the evidence of his faithfulness throughout our lives. When we are going through a challenging or uncertain season, it is easy to forget God’s character. When we are riding high, and life feels like it is smooth sailing, we are prone to do this same. We can tend to take all of the credit and forget that it is God who has provided and not merely our own self effort. So whether your current season feels like you are in a valley or on a mountaintop, remembering God and his faithfulness is essential.

In the book of Joshua we see a powerful example of remembering, and the call to gratitude.

After wandering in the wilderness for 40 years Joshua is positioned to lead the Israelites into the Promised Land. The Israelites endured an immense number of trials, tribulation, and trauma along the journey. Yet through it all and in the midst of their 40-year trek to freedom, God was with them every step of the way. We see that their long season of wandering comes to an end as they come to the Jordan River. God makes a way for them to pass through as he leads them to the land he promised, the land flowing with milk and honey.

After the people of Israel supernaturally crossed the Jordan River to enter the Promised Land, God commanded Joshua to “choose twelve men, one from each tribe. Tell them, ‘Take twelve stones from the very place where the priests are standing in the middle of the Jordan. Carry them out and pile them up at the place where you will camp tonight’” (Joshua 4:2-3).

Then Joshua (4:6-7) says, “Let this be a sign among you. When your children ask in time to come, ‘What do those stones mean to you?’ then you shall tell them that the waters of the Jordan were cut off before the ark of the covenant of the Lord. When it passed over the Jordan, the waters of the Jordan were cut off. So these stones shall be to the people of Israel a memorial forever.”

The stones were set up in Gilgal as a reminder to that generation and the generations to come of what the Lord had done, to trigger a memory of God’s faithfulness in the past, to reflect on him in the present, and trust him in the future, to invoke a heart of gratitude.

How are you remembering Jesus and expressing gratitude for his faithfulness today? To remember, you have to intentionally look. We can get so mired and fixed on the pain, uncertainty, and current hardship or struggle that we forget to take the time to reflect and recall all of the ways that God has been faithful. It can be easy to forget. How can you create your own stone of memorial, your own reminder that God is faithful, that his promises never fail?

(Presented by Lisa Bishop)

Let’s look at an extravagant response of gratitude by an unnamed woman whose story is told in the gospel of Mark.

Now Jesus was in Bethany, in the home of Simon, a man Jesus had healed of leprosy.  And as he was reclining at the table, a woman came into the house, with an alabaster flask  filled with the highest quality of fragrant and expensive oil.  She came to Jesus, and with a gesture of extreme devotion, she broke the flask and poured out the precious oil over his head (Mark 14:3-9).

In other words, she came to Jesus in a response and act of extreme gratitude!

After this selfless display we see the disciples highly indignant, and in an uproar they question how this woman could waste such an expensive bottle of oil which would have been the equivalent to a whole year’s worth of wages.

Listen to how Jesus responds:

“Leave her alone! Why are you so critical of this woman? She has honored me with this beautiful act of kindness….She has done all that she could to honor me. I promise you that as this wonderful gospel spreads all over the world, the story of her lavish devotion to me will be mentioned in memory of her” (Mark 14:7, 8-9).

We do not know much about this woman, what her life was like or the story of her past. But surely we can surmise that she experienced the saving power and extravagant love of Jesus. And experiencing the extravagant love of her Savior caused her to have an extravagant response towards that love. Her display of extreme devotion and thankfulness to God was so significant that nothing, not even facing the shame, scorn and ridicule of men, was going to stop her from this heartfelt act.

Her act of gratitude towards Jesus was so noteworthy that it is recorded in the Bible for billions of people to read and for us to read as an example 2000 years later.

And Jesus says that as the Gospel spreads, her story of lavish devotion will be told.

When you know how incredibly loved you are by God, more than a head knowledge, but a deep knowing that penetrates your mind, heart, and soul—when you know this love, you can’t help but respond the same way she did. This unnamed woman’s wordless display of gratefulness, her act of worship, is an example for me and for you.

How are you showing your extravagant gratitude for who Jesus is and for what he has done in your life?

The unnamed woman’s act of worship was anointing Jesus’ head with oil. What will be your act of worship and gratitude?

(Presented by Lisa Bishop)

I don’t know about you but I think we have a love problem.

In my personal experience and as I minister to hundreds of women, there is a common theme, a common underlying question that I think we are all trying to get the answer to. Does God really love me?  Now I am not talking about being able to rehearse Bible verses about God’s love (although that is very important). What I am referring to is experiencing and receiving God’s love and affection to the degree that it seeps into the depths of your heart, soul, and mind. I am talking about being convinced to the core of your being that you are deeply loved by God. Are you absolutely convinced that God’s affections for you are great? I struggle to believe and fully receive Jesus’ steadfast love. I am guessing you do too.

I was celebrating a friend’s birthday this weekend and all of the guests went around the table and shared one thing that drew us to her. That was an easy answer for me…. My friend is absolutely convinced that Jesus loves her. She has such confidence in his affection for her, it is very endearing and inspiring. And by the way she lives her life, you can tell she receives God’s love, to her very core.

Why do we often fail to receive and believe in God's love? I mean, evidence of his love is all throughout the Bible.

First John 3:1 says, “See what great love the Father has lavished on us, that we should be called children of God!”

As a child of God, he lavishes his love on you. And you did nothing to earn his love. God’s greatest act of love towards you was sacrificing his son. Jesus’ death on the cross was the grandest display of love the world has ever seen. And yet, we have a hard time receiving.

One of my favorite prayers in the Bible is Paul’s prayer in Ephesians 3. Receive these words as a prayer over you and open yourself up to allow them to penetrate your heart.

“For this reason I kneel before the Father, from whom every family in heaven and on earth derives its name. I pray that out of his glorious riches he may strengthen you with power through his Spirit in your inner being, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith. And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, may have power, together with all the Lord’s holy people, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, and to know this love that surpasses knowledge—that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God” (Ephesians 3:14-19).

Take time to just sit and be grateful to God. Tell Jesus, “Thank you that your love for me is so extravagant, help me to fully receive your love and help me be your love to those around me.”