by Keith Cantrell

Created on: February 27, 2010   Last Updated: March 03, 2010

Prayer, loosely defined, is simply communicating with God.  Therefore it is imperative for the believer to understand the nature of prayer and how to do it effectively.  Reading the Word of God is fine, but beyond that effective verbal communication with God is essential to understand the truths that are defined in scripture.  Without a commitment to a meaningful prayer life no one can hope to have a meaningful relationship with God.

This brings us to the first point of this article and that is to reassure you that God does indeed want to have a personal relationship with you.  To do less would be to deny his own nature.  All you have to do is look back at the story of Adam and Eve to understand how badly God wants a personal relationship with you.  After Adam and Eve disobeyed, the Bible says that God came down into the Garden of Eden to "...walk among the trees."  What was he doing there?  He was seeking communion with Adam and Eve, the crown of his creation.  And of course we know the rest of the story and how his holiness prevented him from allowing them to stay in this paradise because of their disobedience.  As a result sin entered the world and we've been fighting its effects ever since.

Which brings us back to today.  Even though we are sinful and struggle with our sinful natures, God still wants to have an intimate relationship with us.  Hence, the invention of prayer.  This allows us to continue to seek the divine personal relationship we all long for.  But, how do we do that?  What makes prayer effective?  How can we know the will of God?

For that answer let's go to the most famous prayer in the entire Bible.  It's called the Lord's Prayer because it was demonstrated by our Lord to his disciples in the Book of Matthew chapter 6, verses 9 through 13.  I'm using the New Revised Standard Version of the Bible because it is the most accurate version available regarding the original languages.

Verses 5 and 6 give the preliminary to prayer.  That means it is essential to have the correct attitude before you even begin to pray.  Here is what verse 5 and 6 says:  "And whenever you pray, do not be like the hypocrites; for they love to stand and pray in the synagogues and at the street corners, so that they may be seen by others.  Truly I tell you, they have received their reward.  6  But whenever you pray, go into your room and shut the door

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