Being a Christian isn’t a skill you learn, like carpentry or flower arranging. Nor is it a lifestyle choice, like the kind of clothes you wear, or the people you choose to hang around with. It’s about having a living relationship with the living God through His Son, Jesus Christ. The Bible tells us that this relationship is like a marriage.
Where there is no communication, there is no relationship. When we read the Bible we hear God speaking to us, opening His mind to us on how He thinks, what He wants for us and what His plans are for the world. It’s not a manual. It’s a love letter addressed to you personally by the God who loves you and sent his Son to rescue you for a glorious future!
Prayer is the other side of the communication that makes for a living relationship with the Lord. But for many Christians, just the mention of the word “prayer” is enough to arouse feelings of guilt, failure and confusion. But at its heart, prayer is not a technique, a frame of mind, a feeling or an intellectual conundrum. It is just you talking to your heavenly Father. Sharing with Him the things that concern you, responding to the things you have heard Him say through the Bible, talking through your anxieties, hopes and dreams with Him, and expressing your gratitude and praise to Him for the gifts of grace He has showered on you in Christ.
But prayer is also work. We will never quite understand how, but the Lord has ordered things in this world so that our prayers really do matter! Jesus promised that our Father would “give good gifts to those who ask” (Matthew 7 v 11); and warned that we do not receive things because we fail to ask (James 4 v 2). So praying for your church, your friends or your family really does make a difference. Just as married couples will try to spend time together talking every day, many people put aside a specific time to read the Bible and pray each day.
– The Good Book Company