 Here is how you can guarantee yourself to have a better prayer life. A passage in the Bible that we tend to gloss over and not give a lot of thought to it is this passage where it says, pray without ceasing. In this passage it says, first, that's in 516. It says, and rejoice always, pray without ceasing. Well, how do you pray without ceasing? Well, before we deal with that, because I think that's the key, we need to first deal with what does it mean to pray? The word for pray is from two Greek words, pra, or pros, and echo. You'll have this Greek word, pros ecomai, which is, or pros eco. Pros is to, or near, echo is to have. And so if you look at the words and the meaning of it is, is to draw near, to have near, to hold near. Or you could say to hold too. What it really is is, yet it's a petition. It's you speaking with him, but it's how you do so. And guys, that is the most important thing. How you petition him, how you speak to him in the fashion that you do so matters. You bring him near, or you draw near to him. It is to hold near. That's what the two words mean. And this is one of those cases where the two words together conveys what you ought to do. So going back to the passage in 1 Thessalonians 516, that helps us to understand. So when he says to pray without ceasing, well, we do so in that fashion where we are near to him, where we bring ourselves and him near, we bring us both together. The truth is he's always about. It's never a point or time where we are out of his presence. The issue is, is he in our presence? That's the key. Yes, he's there, but how do we act? How do we treat? My suggestion is not to make prayer some big event. Now it's not to mean make it some sort of cheap thing, but make it common. And when I say don't make it uncommon, make it common, I'm not saying make it ordinary. What I'm saying is this is kind of what you do. This is what you're known by throughout the course of the day, meaning if you're walking to the refrigerator, if you are in the backyard, if you're just sitting on the couch, what have you? You should, it should be in your mind that I am still literally sitting here with God. I want to make sure that as far as I'm concerned, as far as I look at it, I look at it as God is with me and he is, but I remember that I act that way. I treat my conversation, my petition, or my prayer just like that. And when I say wherever you go yet, wherever you go to the front door, to the back porch, wherever it is that you're going in your car, you don't necessarily have to stop, pull over when you're driving and get on your knees and give this long drawn out prayer. No, just Lord, I thank you. You're awesome. You're amazing. Giving him thanksgiving. We're going to get into this prayer, how we ought to do so in just a little bit, but that's kind of the mindset that you want to be. Now, are there times that you want to get off to yourself and kind of go deeper into prayer? You might want to get on your knees. You might want to just get someplace where you're by yourself and just give a little bit more time. Amen. Absolutely. As a matter of fact, you should. As a matter of fact, you should because what can we do? We can get busy and we might forget that, hey, God is still here. Acknowledge him. It's okay to go ahead and set reminders, maybe once in the middle of the day or twice throughout the day, but just to remind yourself that you're not only praying for your food or when you go to bed, but just in general. Why? Because he's that important. That whole framework, that whole attitude is how you ought to pray. Keep it in mind this one thing. He is holy. He needs to be treated as holy. He needs to be viewed as holy. In Leviticus 10, verse 3, this is after Nadab and Abihu had approached God with this strange fire. We're not totally sure what that was, but they are literally burned up. Fire comes from heaven and consumes them. And then the rationale, the reason behind it is explained to Aaron, their father by Moses. This is what God says. He says, it is what the Lord spoke saying, by those who come near me, I will be treated as holy. Let me say it again. Those who come near me, I will be treated as holy. Well, what does prayer mean? What does the word mean? At least in the New Testament, what the word prayer means, it means to bring near. So if you're going to come near him, regard him, treat him as holy, view him as holy. I know we think that, but treat him that way. This is not just you having a conversation with your neighbor. This is not you having a conversation with someone on some sort of social media site. No, this is you and God reverence him that way. When you pray, be honest, be open. Sometimes we don't do that. Sometimes we think that, you know what, I don't want to cover certain things or maybe I'm too embarrassed to say certain things, or I think that maybe I shouldn't. He's your father. Let him know what he already knows. Acknowledge that he already knows. But the way you do so does matter. We don't really take the time to look at the prayer that Jesus gave, how we ought to pray when they ask. Lord, tell us, teach us how we ought to pray. He's giving us the blueprint, but I want to delve a little bit deeper into that and then just kind of explore what Jesus is trying to get across. He says in Matthew 6, when you pray, you are not to be like the hypocrites for they love to stand and pray in the center, guys. What does he say? When you do so, verse 6, he says to go into your inner room, close your door and pray to your father who was in secret. He's not necessarily saying that you need to go into a closet. His point is to get away. Do not make this an incident where you want to be seen or folks hear your words. No, this is you and God. This is you drawing or bringing near God. That's what this is supposed to be, not some sort of event to where people can see how wonderful you pray, how holy you pray. And sometimes, as others around, what we may have a tendency to do is to try to make sure our prayer sounds good because someone's hearing it. But God is not necessarily interested in the length of your words or the length of your prayer. He's after the sincerity of what you're saying. Again, remember, He knows your hearts. He knows your intents. He knows what you're up to. He knows what you've done and what you plan to do. And so, remember, regard Him as holy but also as someone who's holy who knows all about your unholy ways. And He says, when you are praying, do not use meaningless repetition. This is just somebody just kind of meandering and just maybe just saying words, just not necessarily incoherent but kind of in an incoherent fashion, saying a lot of things just for the sake of saying a lot of things. Know this vain repetition that some person may say where all it is, you're just trying to dress it up but it doesn't do anything for God. Being repetitious, no, let's not do that. Let's actually be genuine and honest and social. And so He says, don't do it like the Gentiles do for they suppose that they will be heard for their many words. Again, the more you speak, does not impress God. He knows what you sound like already. What He's after is your heart. You opening up your heart more so than opening up your mouth. Then He says, pray in this way. This is how you ought to pray. There's that word, that Greek word, Hutos, so this is the way that I want you to pray. Notice how He starts off. Our Father, so you are conveying already authority and then who He is in your life. Our Father who is in heaven. Very important, God knows what He says. How little be your name, how high is your name. This is the part that I think we need to remember. Again, these two boys who go before God with this strange fire, they didn't reverence Him as someone who's holy. How holy you are. It is okay, as a matter of fact, it's preferred and it's expected for you to give Him adoration, give Him reverence to adorn His name with praise. That's what you ought to do. How high, which is what the word how will mean, how high, how lofty, how amazing is your name. He says, your kingdom come, your will be done on earth as is in heaven. Well, the whole point of this is, Lord, help me to fulfill your will, be it in my life or however you want to use me. Lord, I'm yours to use. That's really the whole point. I want to be used the way you want me to be used. Now, does that mean that you only can do or serve Him and whatever your concerns are? They're immaterial? No, no, that's not the point. The point is though, your concerns take a back seat to His and I promise you, if you, as He says before in Psalms, if you delight yourself in Him, then He'll give you the desires of your heart. That possibly means that your desires might change, but why? Your desires should change as you bring Him near. Now, verse 11 is vitally important. He says, give us this day our daily bread. So whatever you need for today, that's what you're asking for. I'm not concerned about tomorrow. I'm not concerned about last week. Yes, I understand. Matter of fact, even today, some of your prayers for today might concern next week, but you're asking for strength today because there's other things that may come. This is where you get to show how much you trust God. This is where you get to put in action your trust for God. God, give me what I need for today. Remember what He says in Matthew 6 about us worrying and not to worry about tomorrow. Tomorrow, take care of itself. Give me, Lord, please what I need, the sustenance that I need for today. Remember how He fed the children of Israel? He gave them what they need for that day. Lord, I trust you that you'll get me through this day. And when you think about it, if you're only focused on this day, your burdens will be lightened, your heart will be more at ease, and you can focus more on Him. That will help in your prayer life. And in verse 12, He says, forgive us our debts as we have forgiven our debtors. Look now, it has to be that you have forgiven others. If you haven't forgiven others, well, then we've got a problem and then you're asking Him to forgive your debts. But so my prayer is, Lord, that I'm thankful that I'm forgiven by you. Help me if I have not to forgive others, but also help me to be forgiven because I understand that there are things throughout the course of my day, my week, my month, that I am going to do something to someone, especially things I'm not even aware of. Now, this next portion of it, we need to think about this. We need to go ahead and see really what He's saying. He's saying, and do not lead us into temptation. Well, it's not that He ever leads us. The point in saying it this way is that we want Him to lead us away from temptation, but deliver us from evil. We'll deal with that in a second. So there is necessarily something about God that leads us. I know this whole argument about does God speak to us? Now, I'm one that I believe He does. Do I believe that He necessarily speaks audibly? I don't think so. Now, if He does, amen, fine. I'm not going to fight that as long as what you say you hear does not go against Scripture. Well, then fine, fine. But the whole point here is that He does lead us, lead us in our being, in our heart. And the word heart, cardia, it can refer to the actual heart itself or our heart and our mind, just who we are. So lead us this way. So there might be some sort of impression by the Holy Spirit or guess what? He might use other people to kind of help guide you as well. And so He will not lead you into temptation, but you're asking, God help me to avoid taking away from temptation. And He makes it, and you make this prayer, but deliver us from the evil one. The Greek is from to Paneru. This is in the genitive, so it's referring to someone. You can take this as Satan, lead us away from him, deliver us from him, what he's trying to do, or deliver us from someone coming at us. Both of those are fine. Does this mean that we are to be delivered from sin itself? No. We're going to deal with sin, other sin, and even ours as well. Deliver us from sin, but that's not the prayer that's being offered up. The prayer is that you deliver us from this evil one, the one that wants to come against us. As a Christian, you will be bombarded from demonic sources. That's going to happen now. But because you bring him near, or what does James tell us? James tells us that if we draw near to him, then what will Satan do? What will the enemy do? He will flee. So this is all kind of working in concert with prayer. The truth is, all of us could probably say we don't pray enough, or at least many of us could say we don't pray enough. You want to be known as someone who communicates, who petitions, who brings near God. That's how you want to see yourself. If you don't see yourself, then I would suggest you do this. Pray just a little bit more. If praying is hard for you to do, pray a little bit more. Set timers, give yourself a little notice, either on your phone or some sort of calendar, some sort of date planner, and just remind yourself throughout the day just to pray. Even if it's five seconds, if it's 15 seconds, 20 seconds, whatever it is, pray, and then pray a little bit more. You can make this not be so burdensome because I don't know what to say. I don't know how to say it. He knows that. Tell him that. Pray and say, Lord, I don't know what to say. I don't know how to say it. But pray. Bring him near. Let your petitions be known. And how should you do so? As you grow, you want to do this the way he says so in 1 Thessalonians 5. Do it constantly without ceasing. Because like anything else, the more you do it, the easier to get, the more you look forward to doing, the more it just becomes out of a habit. Even if you've got to force yourself to do it, don't worry about it. If you feel uncomfortable by forcing yourself still, force yourself to do it. Make yourself pray. I promise you, you'll see the benefits. It becomes habit. It becomes a pattern. It becomes who you are. And then watch how much your prayer life increases and your interaction, your intimacy with God also decreases. Amen.