Study 1: Introduction to Prayer

Real prayer is communion with God, so that there will be common thoughts between His mind and ours.  What is needed is for Him to fill our hearts with His thoughts, and then His desires will become our desires flowing back to Him.

—Arthur W. Pink

New to prayer? 

Start with this video.

Head

Heart

1. Before you watched this video, how would you have defined prayer?

2. Do you see your prayers as conversations with God? Why or why not?

3. What are some of the barriers to your prayer?

4. How do you hope to grow in prayer during this series?

Hands

1. Make a list of activities that you could incorporate prayer into.

2. This week, whenever you are in the car by yourself, commit to praying for five minutes before turning the radio on.

3. Based on your answer to question four in the Heart section, pray that God will help you grow in those areas you listed.

Study 2: Praying With the Trinity

The word “Trinity” simply describes what the Bible says about the nature of God, that he is one God in three persons. The Trinity is the only way we can make sense of the statement, “God is love” (1 John 4:7). Love must have an object. Because God eternally exists as three persons in a perfectly loving relationship, we can say he is love–it’s essential to his nature. If God were only one person, he would have had to create something to love. Had he been a creator before he was a lover, then love could not be essential to his nature.

Prayer is Trinitarian in that each person of the Trinity (Father, Son and Spirit) are involved in our prayers.

14 For those who are led by the Spirit of God are the children of God. 15 The Spirit you received does not make you slaves, so that you live in fear again; rather, the Spirit you received brought about your adoption to sonship. And by him we cry, “Abba, Father.” 16 The Spirit himself testifies with our spirit that we are God’s children. 17 Now if we are children, then we are heirs—heirs of God and co-heirs with Christ, if indeed we share in his sufferings in order that we may also share in his glory.  – Romans 8:14-17

Head

1. What is a Christian’s relationship to God?

2. What do we get to call God?

3. Look at Romans 8:1-4. What has Jesus done for us to bring us into God’s family?

4. What does the Spirit do for us?

5. What does it mean to be an heir?

6. What does it mean that we are co-heirs with Christ?

7. Look at Romans 8:26-27. How does the Spirit help us now?

8. Look at Romans 8:34. What is Jesus doing for us now?

Heart

1. How does knowing God is a good father change how you speak to him? How is it different from speaking to a boss or a neighbor or a friend?

2. How do these passages say the three persons of the Trinity work together as you pray?

3. Does knowing the Father loves you, the Son intercedes for you, and the Spirit prays with you change how you think of prayer?

4. Hands Give a prayer of thanksgiving for how Father, Son and Spirit all work together when you pray.

Go Deeper

[In prayer,] we join in with the fellowship as the Father, Son and Spirit are already enjoying it. That is, the Son–who is already interceding for us with his Father – brings us to be with him before his Father. Think of the high priest going into the presence of the Lord in the holy of holies: just so the Son takes us before his Father – and there the Spirit helps us (Rom 8:26). And so the Spirit supports us, the Son brings us and the Father – who always delights to hear the prayers of his Son – hears us with joy. With the Son, secure in him, enabled as he is by the Spirit, we pray to our Father. Now, to pray like this –to pray “Abba” in Jesus’ name, empowered by the Spirit–isn’t just the flashy Christian’s way of showing off his theological virtuosity; it is to revel in the shape of God’s own fellowship and beauty. Think how different it would be if God were not like this: if the Spirit did not make us cry “Abba” because God is not really a Father and has no Beloved beside him. Could such a single-person God even hear us from all the way up there in his self-involved transcendence? Wouldn’t our bleating just be an interruption on his precious me-time? Yes, if God were not triune, it would probably be better to keep quiet and hope to avoid being heart. After all, he may not want the existence of anything else.

– Michael Reeves, Delighting in the Trinity (p. 98)

Study 3: Prayers of Worship & Thanksgiving

Read Psalm 65

Head

1. Go back through this Psalm and underline all the things that God has done.

2. Try to categorize the things David praises God for. What categories do you come up with?

Heart

1. Using the categories that you came up with in the previous section, make a list of things you can praise God for.

Hands

1. Now turn the list in the previous question into a prayer and pray through it.

Study 4: Prayers of Asking

Read Matthew 7:9–12 and Ephesians 6:18–20

Head

1. In the above passages what kinds of requests are made to God?

2. Look up the following passages and list what is prayed for in each one.

   • Deuteronomy 26:6-8

   • 2 Kings 20:1-11

   • Psalm 4:1

   • Psalm 17:8-9

   • Matthew 6:9-11

   • Matthew 26:39

   • Acts 13:2-3

   • Ephesians 3:14-19

   • Philippians 4:6

Heart

1. Do you pray for all the types of things that you see prayed for in Scripture?

2. What types of requests do you often make to God? Which ones do you rarely make? Why or why not?

3. What type of requests do you think you should make more often in your prayers?

Hands

Using the following categories list 2-3 requests in each category and then spend time praying for each item.

• For deliverance, safety & health

• For daily needs & provisions

• For others

• For the gospel to be spread

• For you to love God more

Shaun’s story of prayer