Christian prayer involves developing a relationship with God through Jesus Christ. It is communication with our heavenly Father, and is important because Jesus prayed and prayer changes both ourselves and situations. Prayer should be done privately and sincerely from the heart. God does not always answer prayer immediately, as factors like unconfessed sin, disobedience, and wrong motives can interfere. While God's reasons are not always clear, we should continue trusting in him even when we don't understand. The Bible recommends praying regularly through practices like adoration, confession, thanksgiving, and supplication.

1. Why and how do I pray ?

2. What is prayer? Developing a relationship with our Father

3. ‘ When you pray, go into your room, close the door and pray to your Father, who is unseen’ Matthew 6:6

4. ‘ Don’t keep babbling like pagans’ Matthew 6:7

5. Christian prayer is  ‘ to your Father’  through the ‘Son’  ‘ by one Spirit’

6. ‘ In the same way, the Spirit helps us in our weakness. We donot know what we ought to pray, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with groans that words cannot express. And he who searches our hearts knows the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for the saints in accordance with God’s will’ Romans 8:26-27

7. Why pray?  communication  Jesus prayed  it changes us and it changes situations

8. ‘ Ask and it will be given to you: seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives; everyone who seeks finds; and to everyone who knocks, the door will be openend’ Matthew 7:7-8

9. Does God always answer prayer?  unconfessed sin ‘ Surely the arm of the Lord is not too short to save, nor his ear too dull to hear. But your iniquities have separated you from God; your sins have hidden his face from you, so that he will not hear’ Isaiah 59:1-2

10.  disobedience ‘ Dear friends, if our hearts do not condemn us, we have confidence before God and receive from him anything we ask, because we obey his commands and do what pleases him’ 1 John 3:21-22

11.  our motivation ‘ You want something but don’t get it. You kill and covet, but you cannot have what you want. You quarrel and fight. You donot have because you do not ask God. When you ask, you donot receive, because you ask with wrong motives, that you may spend what you get on your pleasures.’ James 4:2-3

12. ‘ If we ask anything according to his will, he hears us’ 1 John 5:14

14. ‘ God has not always answered my prayers. If he had, I would have married the wrong man -several times’ Ruth Graham

15. ‘ I remember early the following morning -obviously I couldnot sleep I went out for a walk and said to the Lord, ‘I don’t understand why Mick died. He was such an amazing person, such a wonderful husband and father. I don’t understand...’ Then I realized I had a choice. I could say, I am going to stop believing’. The alternative was to say, ‘I am going to go on believing in spite of the fact that I don’t understand and I am going on to trust you, Lord, even though I don’t think I will ever understand -in this life- why it happened.’ Nicky Gumbel  Sometimes we don’t know

16. How should we pray?  A doration  C onfession  T hanksgiving  S upplication

17. ‘ Our Father in heaven Hallowed be your name Your Kingdom come Your will be done on earth as it is in heaven Give us today our daily bread Forgive our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors Lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from the evil one’

18. When should we pray? ‘ Pray without ceasing’ (1 Thessalonians 5:17) ‘ I tell you that if two of you on earth agree about anything you ask for, it will be done for you by my Father in heaven’ Matthew 18:19