A Lifestyle Of Prayer | Teach Me How To Pray (Class 5)

Hey, whether you're new to the faith or you've followed Jesus for years, learning to pray changes everything. Hey, I'm Pastor Brenda Todd, and today we're going to be talking about a lifestyle of prayer. You know, 1 Thessalonians, the 5th chapter and the 17th verse says, to pray without ceasing. Praying without ceasing means you pray and you don't stop. And I imagine in your mind, you say, how in the world can I pray without stopping? Well, what you need to understand is that you always have in your mind God and that you are talking to him and you want to invite him in on everything. I want to testify a little bit. Praying and having a lifestyle of prayer for me started at a very early age. I was very, very young. I was like 11 years old when I started to pray. You say 11? Yes. Well, one of the things was when I prayed and asked Jesus into my heart, that was my first prayer. And then I heard a testimony from a man who talked about him praying for his wife. Again, I was 11 years old. That was a really, really awesome time. And so from 11 till I was 21 and a half, I prayed for my husband. And here it is, 47 years later, I'm married to the man of my life. It didn't stop there, though. I prayed concerning other people's lives and now I have children and in relationships, prayer and praying without ceasing is so vitally important. Another scripture, Matthew 6, 33 says, but seek first, number one, the kingdom of God and his righteousness and everything else will be added to you. When it says seek first, there is an order on everything. We want the order to always be that we talk to God about how he wants things done in his kingdom. Now, listen, when we talk about a lifestyle of prayer, prayer as a lifestyle, listen,

it's not only when it's a crisis moment or just when we go to church or when we connect with people. It is a time that we connect every day with God. That's so vitally important. You know, again, I brought that good man, my husband up to say, you know, if we went every day and did not connect, it wouldn't be so good in my house. And for us as Christians, we need to connect with God every day. It makes such a difference in your life. Another thing is that we need disciplines in our lives. When you wake up in the morning, what's the first thing on your morning or on your mind? Usually it's we're grabbing for our phones and seeing who left us a message or anything like that. But I want to encourage you to have a discipline of saying, good morning, Lord. What do you have for me today? And so some other things that we can do is make sure that we read our word. What happens with me is when I know that I'm reading the word of God, then it sparks faith on the inside of me to talk to him. And from that, I began to worship him because I have hope when I look at that. And see, also, when you have a habit, when we're talking about doing something on a regular basis and you have a habit of doing something, someone that we can look at is in Acts, the third chapter in the first verse. And in that, it was talking about Peter and John. They went up to the house of God every day because they said, no, we're going up to the temple because it was the hour of prayer. They did it every day. What do you do every day? And what I'm encouraging you for your lifestyle is to pray to God every day, connect with him every day. You know, in Luke 5, 16. talks about Jesus, it says he, so he himself often withdrew into the wilderness to pray.

Jesus would not have been as powerful as he was if he did not connect to his Father every day. He withdrew every day. You cannot continue to just be with the same people doing the same thing if you don't take time to get away, hear what God has to say. You know, the Bible says very clearly, my sheep know my voice and a stranger they will not listen to. The way you get to know the voice of God is you spend time with him. Sometimes his voice sounds like your voice, but it is the voice of Christ because we've studied the word and we hear what he says. You know, in Luke 18, one, it says, and he spoke a parable unto them to this end. He said, men ought to always pray and not faint, not give up. I always say, don't throw in the towel. Pray about everything. Again, if it's your children, if it's you making a decision about college, if it's concerning you making a decision about the person that you're going to marry, we have to pray all the time about everything and don't give up. There are so many things that will try to stop you. Let's look at Luke 11 and one. Look what it says that one of his disciples said to him, Lord, teach us to pray as John also taught his disciples. Now, listen, that's what we're doing right now. We're doing our best to teach you. Some people, I remember so often that people would say to me, you can be taught to pray. Yes, you can. And that's what the disciples asked. Lord, teach us to pray just like you did your disciples. Another thing in Luke, the 11th chapter, a little further, Luke 11, five through eight, and this is how it reads. And he said to them, which of you shall have a friend and go to him at midnight and say to him, friend, lend me three loaves. Now, remember, this is still talking about prayer. For a friend of mine has come to me on his journey and I have nothing to set before him. And he will answer from within and say, do not trouble me. The door is shut and my children are in the bed with me and I cannot rise and give to you. I say to you, though he will not rise and give to him because he is his friend, yet because of his persistence, he will rise and give him as many as he needs. Now, this is still in line with us praying. There are some things that are taught us or that have been taught that you don't need to pray, but one time. No, no, no, no, no. You pray as many times as you need to and don't feel bad about making a trail to God. You keep asking. That's what the word is. You make a trail to him. You know, like I know in my living room, I have carpet and there are some areas that you can tell that that's the way we always go because there is a, the carpet is a little bit low and the reason it's there because we always go that way. But you, you can make a trail to God. You will see and he'll know that you ask and keep on asking. When it talks about persistence,

I look that word up. You know what it means? Shameless asking. Ain't no shame in my game. I'm not going to be shame about constantly coming to God and talking to him about what I know in his word I'm supposed to have. And that's the thing you have to know. There are certain things that God has literally made available for his children. And God wants you to come to the point that you see through his word that you belong to him. And he said, I want good gifts for my children. If you who are evil know how to give good gifts, he will surely give you the spirit of God. Glory to God. And you can't pray too much. Let me tell you, Psalms 55, 17 says, and I love this, evening and morning and at noon, I will pray and cry aloud. Lord, I love that, that it says aloud because I'm a loud person. And he shall hear my voice. Notice that was three times a day. All other religion pray sometimes five times a day, three times a day. And sometimes they will just pray once a day, but man, this scripture has fired me up and I pray it fires you up. Psalm, I'm gonna say it again, Psalm 55, 17, I'm gonna pray in the evening time. I'm gonna pray when I wake up in the morning. I'm gonna pray even in the middle of the day. And when I pray, I'm gonna cry to him. Glory to God. Jeremiah 33, 3 says, call unto the Lord

and he will answer you and show you great and mighty things that are to come. That gives me lots of hope in the name of Jesus. Second Timothy 2, 15 says, be diligent to present yourself approved to God, a worker who does not need to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth. Glory to God. We don't have to be ashamed whether we keep coming to God. We don't have to be ashamed because we have this routine that we do every day. A simple daily rhythm to stay spiritually hydrated. You know how you need to keep water every day? Some people will drink everything else, but what about some good old water that hydrates you? What about a time that you spend with God to keep your spiritual self hydrated? When you pray, it fuels everything. It fuels you concerning whatever position you're in. You know, God wants all of us to lead in various places and things. He wants us to have great relationships. He wants us to call on him when we're about to make a decisions. There are so many decisions that we need to make concerning children, grandchildren, relationships, in our marriage, concerning our money, and then concerning our emotional health in the name of Jesus. There is so much power in having intimacy with our God.

I love this little play on word where it says, into me, see. And that's the thing that I love about God. He sees you. And for us to have intimacy, how do we see him? We see him through the word of God. And when we communicate with God on a daily basis, it makes such a difference. Can I tell you, it's not a monologue where you go and say to God, now God, I need this and I need you to touch this and I need to go here and I need to go there and I need you to provide. No, no, no, no. It is a dialogue. You talk to God and then be quiet and let him talk back to you in the name of Jesus. My prayer during this time is to help you to understand that you can have a lifestyle of prayer. Now, we want you to take some action. The actions that we want you to take is to, when you start off, it may be that you start off maybe five or 10 minutes every day, but you start your day off talking to your creator. Glory to God. And there is something that we started years ago, but we are still doing it right now. Some of us, this really helps us so tremendously. It's called the thirsty 30. And what are you talking about?

We're talking about 30 minutes. 30 minutes, you take 10 minutes to get in the Word, 10 minutes to pray, and 10 minutes to worship. You'll find that as you do that, you'll find that 30 minutes will begin to turn into 45 minutes. It'll begin to turn into an hour. And before you know it, you'll just get lost in that conversation with Him, and He'll get lost in that fellowship. He wants to hear you. He wants to fellowship with you on a daily basis. Now, in talking about a lifestyle of prayer, we pray that this has been a blessing to you and can get you started in that intimacy with your God. From this point on, we want you to go out and live a transformed life. God bless you.