How you doing? I'm Miles McPherson and welcome to the First Mile.
Show me a relationship where two people claim to love each other but hardly talk,
or more than talk, lack intimate communication and I'll show you a
relationship that won't last long. In the 36 years I've known my wife,
I can look back on all our drama and we've had some drama and directly
connect it back to a disruption in the level of our intimate communication, when
we stopped being transparently honest with each other. In the end, it all comes
down to good clear heart to heart communication and never letting our busy
lives or attitudes create disconnect between our hearts. After 36 years we've
known each other, we are still learning how to understand one another and
improve our communication.
It's an ongoing process. You cannot develop a strong relationship with God
unless you have consistent clear two-way intimate communication with God.
Prayer is two-way intimate communication with God.
Prayer is simply you sharing your heart with God and more importantly Him
sharing His heart and intimate thoughts with you.
The Bible says in the book of Jeremiah chapter 33 verse 3
God says, "Call to Me and I will answer you and show you great and mighty things
you do not know." I'm sure you have lots to say to God, things you want, things to
complain about, things to ask about, but let me tell you, God has great and mighty
things to tell you.
He wants to reveal truths about your past, your present, your future.
He wants to reveal how He has designed you, your purpose in life, where to work,
who to marry. As important as your request to God are,
I think that what God has to say to you is even more important. Prayer is the one
place God can communicate His intimate thoughts and feelings and ideas to you.
I want to share with you a guide on how to pray.
This is a guide, not a formula. In other words, there's no magic in following
this format.
There's no one way to pray, so allow this guide to help you get started in
learning how to communicate with God but don't become a slave to it.
Also, keep in mind that learning to communicate with God is a lifelong
process, so you must commit to keep practicing.
Now one of the keys to powerful prayer is praying one topic at a time.
This guide will direct you to spend one minute praying in one topic and then one
minute listening for God's response. I'm gonna give you five topics and a form to
help guide you. Remember, this is only a guide so you can add topics, themes and
Bible verses to pray, but this is designed to get you started.
The challenge will be to pray 12 minutes total per day, two minutes in each topic
and during your listening time,
write down something you hear God saying to you. Even if you're not sure, write it
down.
This is very little time to commit to communicating with the God of the
heavens and the earth but if you do this faithfully you will soon find yourself
spending so much more than 12 minutes a day with God and more importantly
developing a stronger and stronger relationship with Him.
Using the Lord's prayers a guide, I developed an acronym, AWCIPA, where
each letter represents a topic. Here are the topics:
First, the letter A, admire or thank God. Spend one minute
thanking God for things your life. Matthew 6:9 says, "Our Father in Heaven,
Hallowed or Holy is your Name.
Thank God for anything in your life for one minute and then listen for one
minute.
The next topic is asked for God's will to be done in your life. Matthew 6:10, "Thy
will be done on earth as it is in Heaven."
You want to ask God to and give God permission for Him to do whatever He
wants to do in your life and then listen for one minute.
Letter C is confess something that's wrong. Matthew 6:11 and 12, "Give us this
day, our daily bread and forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors."
Confess your junk to God for one minute. Just focus on all the stuff you
want Him to forgive you of and then listen for a minute.
The I is intercede or pray for someone else.
Give us this day our daily bread and forgive us our debts as we forgive our
debtors. For one minute, pray for other people and then one minute, listen to
what He says.
The next topic is petition. Pray for yourself. Matthew 6:13, "Do not lead me, us
into temptation, but deliver us from evil." This is where you spend a minute
asking for everything you want for you
for one minute and then listen for a minute. Finally A, admire and thank God.
Again, you want to start by spending a minute thanking God and at the end of
your prayer time, you want to thank God again for a minute. Tell Him how great He
is,
how gracious He's been to you, how generous He has been to you and how much
you love Him and then listen for a minute.
Again, today's challenge is to spend 12 minutes a day praying to God one topic
at a time.
If you do this 21-days straight, you will form a habit of prayer and what a powerful
habit to have. If you are willing to accept this challenge, please let us know by following
the instructions at the end of this video.
If you want to listen to a whole sermon on prayer, check out the resource
section.
God bless you and I'll be praying for you as you're praying to God.