Heavenly Father, I praise You for being approachable. I praise You for creating a way for us to once again have the means to talk directly to You. I know that through Your Son, and with the Holy Spirit I can step into the throne room and bring my petitions before You. I also, know that I have responsibilities to take care of for this to occur. I must constantly forgive others, keep myself clean of sin through the blood of Christ and to walk within Your will and appeal within Your will.
“I believe in the name of the Son of God so that I may know that I have eternal life. This is the confidence I have in approaching God: that I ask anything according to His will, He will hear me—whatever I ask—I know that I have what I asked of Him.” [1 John 5:13-15] I also know that I am to seek Your will and to seek You through prayer and fasting. I also know that I am not to stop seeking but to continue to knock until the Spirit lets me know to stop and wait, to stop because no is the answer, or to stop and see what God is and will do.
I know in my life I have learned that prayer is not just asking for things to get or that it is some kind of quick route to making life the way we want it. Prayer is honesty, humility, before my Creator (the Father), My Redeemer (Jesus), and my Comforter (the Holy Spirit), seeking to become as Christlike as I can while living here. It is my way to commune through the Spirit to know that I am doing the will of God. I also know prayer is simply building my relationship with God who desires to have a relationship with me.
I have also learned that by praying scripture I can stay within the guard rails of Your will. Let my heart pray each day for You to cleanse me (Psalm 51), speak and meditate in a pleasing manner (Psalm 19:14), and to be the living sacrifice needed for the world to see You through me (Romans 12:1). Help me to learn to pray in a manner that not only asks, seeks and keeps knocking, but in a manner that will help me to be fervent for the salvation and help of others, to be grounded in sincere joy and to keep the hope that is within me of seeing Jesus someday.
For this reason, I kneel before the Father, from whom his whole family in heaven and on earth derives its name. I pray that out of his glorious riches he may strengthen me and you with power through his Spirit in our inner being, so that Christ may dwell in our hearts through faith. And I pray that we will be rooted and established in love, have power, together with all the saints, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, and to know this love that surpasses knowledge—that we may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God. So, for us who are able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to His power that is at work within us, to us will be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, forever and ever! Amen. Ephesians 3:14-21