Welcome to the For the Gospel Podcast, where we're all about sound doctrine for everyday people. I'm your host, Costi Hinn, and I want to kick off a four-episode series on spiritual disciplines here on the podcast to help get you jump started this year. We're looking at how to get the most out of your prayer life in this episode, and then how to read and retain the Bible in the next episode. And then Reagan Rose is going to join me after that to help you address laziness and how to thrive in your spiritual disciplines. And then I'll finish things off later in this month by talking about how to find balance with bodily fitness, taking care of your temple. This series of episodes is really going to bless you. So let's jump right in and talk about how to get the most out of your prayer life. First and foremost, there is no point in talking about actions to take until we talk about your affections for Christ. You could be a Navy SEAL when it comes to discipline and routine, but without a burning love for Jesus, all of your discipline and all of your routines are little more than religious ritual and even worse than that, nothing more than a shallow creek bed of human achievement. Anyone following any religious system can muster up the willpower if they have enough motivation. Mormons do many good works with great discipline. Many Roman Catholics do the same thing. Many mystics who ascribe to all sorts of religion in today's world make pilgrimages of all kinds that push the human body past its limits. None of this pleases God, none of it appeases God. It is all the pitiful effort of man-centered religion. What separates Christianity and the Christian prayer life from all other so-called religions is deep and loving affection for Jesus Christ. We love him in response to his great love for us. He is the crown jewel of the Christian faith. He's the center of the Christian faith. He's the anchor to our soul. And the true Christian believes what Samuel Rutherford said when he said heaven would be hell without Jesus. So if we're talking about prayer and getting motivated to pray or establishing the discipline of prayer, start by examining your affections for Christ this year. Think about that statement. Heaven would be hell without Jesus. Do you really want to go to heaven for all of the good things you can get and all of the peace and enjoyment if Jesus wasn't there? No, because Jesus is the center of our faith. He is the eternal reward. Do you want to have peace today from doing some yoga practice or some mystical thing that you do to try to find your peace or your rhythms? Is a is a workout going to help you feel a little better? Sure. Is uh going and eating better today gonna help you feel better? Sure. But in all of those things, if you had all the money in the world and the best mental mindset in the world and you had the best body in the world, but you didn't have Christ, who cares? Do you love Jesus? Is he everything to you? Do you enjoy him? Are spiritual disciplines for you about checking off a box because the dopamine hit you get when you cross something off your to-do list? Or do you long to spend time with him? Is he a task for you? Are you dependent on him because he's your source? Would you have a bad day if you got a raise, business blew up in a good way, your kids were A students and on the honor roll, you had an awesome marriage, your husband or wife fawned over you, and you had a gorgeous house, and all of your dreams came true in a temporal, earthly sense. Would it still be a bad day because you didn't spend time with Jesus in prayer? Are you empty without prayer because you're empty without Him? Jonathan Edwards wrote, God is the highest good of the reasonable creature. The enjoyment of Him is the only happiness with which our souls can be satisfied. To go to heaven fully to enjoy God is infinitely better than the most pleasant accommodations here, better than fathers and mothers, husbands, wives, or children, or the company of any or all earthly friends. These are but shadows, but the enjoyment of God is the substance. These are but scattered beams, but God is the sun. These are but streams, but God is the fountain. These are but drops, but God is the ocean. To have a thriving prayer life, to get the most out of prayer. You and I must first examine our hearts and ask the Holy Spirit to help us love Christ and bring glory to Christ and make much of Christ. Then and only then will you benefit from practicals like the ones that I'll lay out for you now. Start with your affections before you move to actions. When we're talking about practical steps here, first set a consistent time and place. If you're looking to get a more established prayer life, treat it like the appointment you can't miss. And this plays off of your affections for Christ anyway. So even though it's practical, it's still very much affection driven. I'm personally convicted by this thought time and time again that if I needed to meet an important person, I would make the time. If a famous athlete that I like or my favorite preacher that I look up to called me and said, I want to meet you tomorrow at 6 a.m., I'd be there at 5 45 a.m. I'd probably be there at 5 30 a.m. because I wouldn't want to be late. If I have a doctor's appointment or a special meeting or a date night with my wife, you got a game for your kid, or if I have a sermon to preach, I am there consistently, and the time and the place is preset in the calendar. And so the question then becomes if we plan out so much of our lives and we're so diligent with time and we're very, very particular about being certain places for certain people, shouldn't prayer and time with the Lord be treated the same way? Begin to see prayer as a time you set aside to be with Jesus. Go to that place and that particular place at that time daily. It could be the edge of your bed, could be a desk, could be the kitchen table, maybe your car, somewhere else, but make it your spot and think of it as a reservation that you just can't stand to miss. Number two, make prayer lists. We go to meetings with an agenda set, right? The best meetings are the ones that have an agenda. It keeps the meeting flowing and it keeps you anchored when you get off track. We go to school with homework done if you're in school, either in grade school or in college or university, you're getting your master's, whatever. You go with your homework done. You know the syllabus and what to do. We go to games with our tickets. You go to the grocery store, you make a list beforehand, otherwise, you're just going to impulse by the whole time. Don't go to Costco without a list, or you will impulse by things you don't need. I've got several extension cords for that exact reason, although I would argue I need the extension cords, although my wife would say I have enough extension cords, but make a list, and you won't impulse by. We do a host of activities where we actively lay out what we want, what we need, and what we require to do that thing successfully. And yet with prayer, we might sound like this. And I'm not making any fun of anyone here. Just hear me on this. This is what a prayer sounds like at times. You may have prayed like this, maybe you do pray like this. I I can look back on times in my life and think, and I think I prayed like that. You know, God, I just come to you and people will say, and I just they say the word just. These are filler phrases because we don't know what to say because we're not prepared to pray. Lord, I just want to say, Lord, how much I just thank you for just being God and and like Lord, I just need you and I ask you, Lord, to be with me, Lord, and and just go before me this day and just bless it. And I just thank you, Lord, and and just thank you. Amen. That's a that's a prayer that you might hear prayed, or maybe you pray that way. Again, I'm not making fun of anyone who doesn't know how to pray. If that's you, well, you need to learn how to pray. And the best thing to do is go to Scripture and look at the way Jesus prays in the Lord's Prayer when the disciples say, Matthew 6, Lord, teach us to pray. Okay, so go to what Jesus says. I've done episodes in the past on how to pray. We've got blog articles on how to become a prayer warrior and how to pray. We have videos on prayer on the Further Gospel YouTube channel. So when it comes to prayer, we got you. And a quick scroll will get you any resource you need for free. So do that if you want to learn how to pray. But what's the deal when we're rambling on? Well, we don't come to prayer prepared. We get awkward. We don't know what to say because we haven't given deep thought as to what to say. Name another conversation or another situation where you and I say the word just thirty times in in one minute. Name another conversation where we say uh someone's name, like when people are praying and they fill the prayers with Lord and and Lord God and God Lord, and they just over and over and over, look, I think we should definitely address the Lord that way. Curios, the word Lord is a term of authority and acknowledgement. But oftentimes, you know and I know, we're just sort of filling up that prayer because we don't know what to say and we're not prepared. Do you talk to your spouse or a friend, if they're let's say their name was Mark, you say, Hey Mark, I just Mark, I want to just ask you a question, Mark. I've been thinking a lot, Mark, and and I really appreciate you, Mark, and I had a few thoughts for you, Mark. No, we would just say their name and get on with it and begin to have the conversation or begin to share our heart with Mark. Well, we go on and on in prayer because we haven't made a list or thought about what we are going to pray. When Jesus tells his disciples how to pray, he there's a structure there. He begins by saying, Hallowed be your name. Lord, hallowed be your name, Father in heaven. So when they say, Lord, teach us to pray, he then immediately, the Lord does, Jesus, then immediately begins to lay out a clear structure for praying in the Lord's prayer. I think it's wise for all of us to have a prayer list somewhere. I do this on legal pads or in prayer journals, sometimes on scrap pieces of paper. The more I write out prayers, I tend to get a little deeper and deeper because once you write something down, like please save my child or provide this for my needs, the prayers get deeper because you start thinking of things that are just beyond, you know, today. You start thinking of people that have asked you to pray for them. You start thinking about heart issues or sin. Things can get so deep. My prayer lists will have my wife on there, my kids, our church, for the gospel, this ministry, maybe some of your prayer requests, broader circles of ministry friends, the lost, extended family, burdens, and more. Listing these things out gives me consistent talking points in my prayer life. And then I pray for these things repeatedly. There may be something I'm praying for one of my children or my wife or our home or our church ongoing. And I'll get to talking about answered prayer in a few more points, but listing things out helps us not ramble. It gives us a roadmap. When we make a list, the mind, when it does wander, because you're going to have that challenge, everybody does, you can go back to something. Filler phrases abound in the prayer life of the one who has not been thinking about things to pray about. If you want a great way to just keep this handy, put it on your phone. You'll always have it with you. But again, be careful with the phone because those can be distractions during prayer. But make a list. Third, pray immediately for needs as they come to you. You want to get the most out of your prayer life, then don't wait to pray for things. Prayer is always available to you. So use it. When someone shares a need, say, hey, can I pray for you right now? And then do it. When you get a text or a call or an email about a need, pray in the moment. Based on whatever you're facing right now, in this moment, you may want to just hit pause on my voice and go to the Lord in prayer for your situation. Don't wait to pray. Pray. Number four, be on guard against hurry. Maybe this one is just me, but I'll share honestly. Sometimes I feel pressure to pray fast. Sometimes it's with people. We feel like they're just waiting for us to kind of get done with it. And when we pray, we sort of rush through it because, you know, no one wants to sit there while we're praying and pausing and thinking and getting all deep with the Lord, and we just sort of rush through it, and we think, well, we usually pray to open or pray to close. So you pray to open, it's like, well, pray and get on with it. You pray to close, it's like, okay, you know, pray real quick, let's be done with it and get on with it. There can be so much hurry with prayer. We pray in the morning and there's much to be done, so we've got to hurry up. We pray at night and we've got to get to bed, so hurry up. Well, if prayer must hurry up and be done, because there's always something to go and do, I fear we've missed the whole point of communing with God in prayer. So try to notice this one in yourself. I'll do the same. When we pray, let's purposely slow down. Let's be in no hurry at all. The world can wait when it's time to pray. Number five, document your answered prayers. Do that this year. 2023 could be a fantastic year of looking back on all that God did, and then also persevering in prayer for things that you're still waiting on the Lord for. Faith surges when we see God answered prayers, though. And I'm not talking about saving faith. I'm talking about faith as in trusting in the Lord. You know, sometimes people will get bitter or forgetful or they'll doubt and they'll get anxiety over something, thinking, well, I don't know what God's gonna do, or will he come through? All you have to do is look back on what he's done and you know the Lord has come through time and time again. I'm gonna trust him in this situation. He's never early, he's never late, he's always on time. His timing is perfect. In Joshua chapter four, the children of Israel raise up memorial stones, some call these stones of remembrance, where God did amazing things in a certain place at a certain time. And so they raise up these memorial stones as a way to establish locations that tell of God's great work. So when their children or their grandchildren go walking by those stones, you might say, What is that? And someone would then say, Those stones are where, or this is where God did that great thing. And then that gives hope and excitement and faith and trust to a whole new generation that understands, okay, God comes through, and he's come through from my mom, my dad, my grandparents, and documenting answered prayers helps us go back and remember what he's done, knowing that he can do it again. Number six, uh posture can equal perspective. Here's what I mean by that. There's no rule that says you have to drop to your knees or close your eyes or go into a literal prayer closet. But if you want to get the most out of your prayer life, consider where you pray or how you pray from a posture standpoint. I'm not getting weird on you here. Stick with me. If you're too proud to bow your knees in prayer or you've never done that, you should. If you get distracted by having your eyes opened, close them. If you can't find a place where you know nobody interrupts you, and or you're not tempted to grab your phone or something else, maybe having a quote unquote prayer closet is a great idea. Sometimes people think that's weird, or you know, what's a prayer closet? What are you doing in there? Look, a prayer closet might be for you a literal closet. You go into a closet in your house where no one can find you or get you, your phone's not in there with you, it's quiet, and you pray. Posture can equal perspective. If you want perspective in prayer, don't pray in the in the middle of, don't try to have like a deep prayer meeting in the middle of rush hour traffic. You're gonna be stressed, you're gonna need to signal, you're gonna need to look around. You might need to pray so you don't sin in rush hour traffic, but have times where you just get alone with God. And why I say the comment about dropping to your knees if you've never done that before is there's something about simply bowing before him. The heart takes a posture of adoration, of lowliness. In the Old Testament, they would prostrate themselves. The Greek word in the New Testament, proskeneo, literally means to kind of throw yourself down at someone. Your nose on the ground, you're prone. Why? Because it was a symbol or a sign, a visual posture of total surrender. Get away from your phone during times of prayer. That's a posture. It is so tempting. Our phones are attached to us and they can be great tools. You're probably listening to this on a phone, maybe. Get away from it when it's time to pray. Sometimes our children at the dinner table will be sure to remind me, maybe it's my older ones, that the Bible doesn't say we have to close our eyes during prayer. I love it. Very literal take, and I appreciate it. One of my kids in particular will be a little more literal than the others with that. And I always agree with them. Yes, you are right. The Bible does not say that we have to close our eyes and fold our hands or sit on our hands, but we are distracted people. We open our eyes, our hands get busy, and so we close our eyes, we rest our hands, we contain ourselves because our posture can help us have a more focused perspective in prayer. Lastly, don't give up. Paul Washer once said, pray until you can pray, and then pray until you have prayed. I think we give up too soon sometimes when we don't feel like praying or uh we aren't full of energy. But prayer is a spiritual discipline because it takes discipline. You don't always work out or eat right because of how it feels in the moment. You do it because you know it's going to feel good either during or after. So pray anyways. Don't give up. Don't let your feelings hinder your endurance in prayer. Pray until you can pray and pray until you have prayed. We need people who linger long in the prayer closet, so to speak, people who petition God into the night, people who rise early to seek the Lord for his power to be at work in the lives of his people. Lastly, that concludes our list. But if you're a parent like me, where you've got young kids, and and maybe you're not in that life stage, and you can put some of these things into practice right away, but if you're a parent like me and you you say, Costi, I want to put these things into practice, but I don't, I can't hide anywhere. I just can't get away from my kids. Something that my wife and I did when we had littles real early on, and we were adjusting to new systems and new schedules, was we alternated. And we used our our bedroom closet, actually. It was a literal brear closet because it was the only place in the house to hide from the children. They're like, you know, the ultimate Sherlock Holmes detectives. They just find you everywhere. And so my wife and I would alternate, and one of us would go and and make sure the kids weren't disturbing and coming in the master bedroom and doing whatever. And so we'd help and we'd alternate, and the other one would get to go into our bedroom closet and take some time to pray. You know, come up with strategies with your husband, with your wife, help each other out. Maybe that comes in a different form. Let's say your kids are out of the house or uh you don't have kids yet. That's going to be a little easier as far as trying to keep the littles under control. However, you can help your husband or your wife by encouraging them. Maybe uh it's it's easier because you don't have children that are always interrupting you or or invading your space. And so you take that type of freedom for granted, and next thing you know, you're scrolling your phone, you're sitting there, and you're saying, I'll get to it, I'll get to it, you know, because there's no rush, you have no desperation because there's no bedtime coming and no one's going to ask you to change their diaper. And so help out your husband, help out your wife by maybe scheduling time to pray together, putting the phones away regardless, turning off Netflix, having reserved time where you seek the Lord together, you put away distractions, and you help each other and encourage one another in your spiritual discipline of prayer. I hope this episode has been helpful and that you get more out of your prayer life than ever before in 2023. Don't forget, if you're insecure or you're worried about your prayer life, or you feel like you don't know how to pray, go use some of our free resources on prayer. Go to forthegospel.org and go to the blog and read articles on prayer or check out our YouTube channel and look up some of the videos we have on prayer. We'll have more resources for you this year on that as well. Thank you for listening and for your support. Be sure to drop us a review on Apple or Spotify if you haven't already, and the podcast has been a blessing. I'll be back next Monday with another episode. For now, keep on living for the gospel.