One of the questions that plague the average believer is how to develop a consistent prayer life. Many believers who are concerned about their prayer lives always wonder why they are unable to pray consistently.
The task of developing a consistent prayer life is important for everyone of us. This is because prayer is a vital part of our lives as believers.
Prayer is the lifestyle of believers but we are often unable to engage prayers as we want to. When you study God's word, you will discover one emphasis, prayer! It is very evident that prayer must be part of our lives but how can we pray consistently?
Before we talk about how to develop a consistent prayer life, I need to show you something about our frailty as humans.
Humans Can Not Be Consistent
Humans can not be consistent. Performing an action consistently is not in the character of humans. Especially when that activity is a spiritual one. Prayer is a spiritual activity and no one operating in the flesh can prosecute prayer consistently.
In our prayer enterprise, you must reckon with the fact that you can not pray with consistency on your own. Your flesh will always want to choose something contrary to the demands of the Spirit.
In the garden of Gethsemane, Jesus made it clear to His disciples that the Spirit will want pray but the flesh will want do something contrary.
Watch and pray, that ye enter not into temptation: the spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak. - Matthew 26:41
Even when the Spirit wants to pray, the flesh because it is frail will not want to pray. It is this frailty that makes it almost impossible for a man to develop a consistent prayer life.
Apostle Paul further explains this concept of the flesh being contrary to the Spirit in Galatians 5:17
For the flesh lusteth against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh: and these are contrary the one to the other: so that ye cannot do the things that ye would.
The Spirit and the flesh can never work together because they are contrary to each other. This explains the reason why in the flesh we can not develop a consistent prayer life.
Having highlighted the frailty of man and its effect on the inconsistency we suffer when we try to pray in the flesh what do we do to pray consistently? You will get the answer in a bit.
Develop A Consistent Prayer Life By Partnering With The Holy Spirit
This is the foremost means to develop a consistent prayer - partnership with the Holy Spirit. Developing a consistent prayer life is only possible when we partner with the Spirit of God.
Trying to perform a spiritual activity is impossible in the flesh. The flesh is not strong enough to carry out spiritual activity.
Spirits control the action and activities of men. And it is true regardless of the action whether in the occult world or in Christendom.
Every second we are constantly interacting with spirits. The contention is not necessarily about the action but the spirit that engineers the action.
A man may be preaching or moving in the "anointing" but he is acting on the strength of an evil spirit. Many persons parading as ministers of the gospel are under the influences of demons.
The extinction of sound doctrine and men of order in the Body of Christ has made these anomalies to go on unhindered.
Nevertheless, prayer can only be carried out by the engineering and support of the Holy Spirit. Outside the help and support from the Spirit of God, men will be unable to pray as they ought to.
Jesus made the emphasis on prayer in Luke 18 highlighting that men ought always to pray and not to faint. Sadly, we faint rather than pray and it is because our nature as humans is fainting.
This is why David prayed in Psalms 80:18 saying:
So will not we go back from thee: quicken us, and we will call upon thy name.
It is part of our nature to not want to stay in the place of prayer. The flesh will always look for better options rather than prayer. It will always rebel against staying in prayer
The Spirit of God Quickens
It is the spirit that quickeneth; the flesh profiteth nothing: the words that I speak unto you, they are spirit, and they are life. - John 6:63
Clearly, we see that it is the Spirit of God that quickens us to carry out the activities which we must as believers. The life of a Christian should be powered by the Holy Spirit and none of the flesh.
Christianity would be witchcraft in the absence of the Spirit of God. Our lives as believers is spiritual and only by partnership with the Spirit of God that we can live properly.
To develop a consistent prayer life, we must be quickened by the Spirit of God. Job said "there is a Spirit in man and the inspiration of the Almighty gives them understanding" - Job 32:8
God's Spirit in partnership with our spirit makes us to pray effectively. We need quickening in order to pray and we can only be quickened by the Spirit of God. Prayer will be religion except the Spirit of God is involved in our prayer enterprise.
If you want to pray better, develop a consistent prayer life and pray effectively, we must receive the quickening that comes only from the Holy Spirit.
The Spirit of God Helps Us To Develop A Consistent Prayer Life
And the Holy Spirit helps us in our weakness. For example, we don’t know what God wants us to pray for. But the Holy Spirit prays for us with groanings that cannot be expressed in words. - Romans 8:26 (NLT)
I can not overemphasize this truth - prayer can only be done consistently and with great effectiveness when we pray in partnership with the Holy Spirit.
This is because as humans we do not know what we should pray for and we can not pray as we want to pray. It is the Spirit of God that provides the needed support and powering for consistent, effective praying.
What must be on our priority check list when we pray?
Help from the Spirit of God. Only the Spirit of God can help us develop a consistent prayer life and we must engage him like David did in Psalms 80:18 for quickening in order to pray.
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