Prayer XIII

In the first article, I wrote on definitions on prayer, when prayer starts and some of the components of prayer. While in the second article I finished my brief exegesis on components of prayer. The third article is centered on those who should pray. The fourth is on some of the reasons why talk (pray) to our heavenly father. The fifth article is on places of prayer while the sixth and seventh centered on occasions that move men to pray unto God. The eight article is on period (time) that men can pray. The ninth article focuses on how we should be praying. In the tenth article I write on a type of prayer, which is the prayer of thanksgiving.

While in the eleventh article I talked about three types of prayers which are, prayer of praise, prayer of worship and prayer of dedication (consecration).

In the twelfth article I have talked about the following types of prayer: prayer of supplication, prayer of agreement, corporate prayer, prayer of commitment and prayer of imprecation.

As I continue with different types of prayer that we have in Christianity here.

Believers like the people of the ancient times are living in the world with some people who are wicked. In fact, there are people who profess to be Christians who are also wicked, for such people, prophet Jeremiah says,

“For among my people are found wicked men: they lay wait, as he that setteth snares; they set a trap, they catch men.” (Jer 5:26)

Those wicked people do terrible things in wickedness to the believers and those who are morally standing. Thus, when they are being faced with something like this like the people of old had faced them, they cannot but which to pray that God would avenge them of such people.

This is similar to the story Jesus shared with respect to prayers to his followers and everyone who have believed in his name that there was a woman, who has been cheated and he cried unto the judge of the land to avenge her of those who have cheated her. Jesus said, because the judge has so many things, he was abinitio attending to, he did not answer the woman’s prayers but the woman did not relent in putting the king in remembrance that he should do something about her case.

And after long disturbance, after persistent asking, the king decided to wade in, into her matter, set up panel to examine if what she was saying was true and on finding that her case was genuine he avenged her of her enemies.

Jesus would now add that, we are like this, and God is ready to avenge us of our enemies because we are his children.

“And he spake a parable unto them to this end, that men ought always to pray, and not to faint;

“Saying, there was in a city a judge, which feared not God, neither regarded man:

“And there was a widow in that city; and she came unto him, saying, Avenge me of mine adversary.

“And he would not for a while: but afterward he said within himself, Though I fear not God, nor regard man;

“Yet because this widow troubleth me, I will avenge her, lest by her continual coming she weary me.

“And the Lord said, Hear what the unjust judge saith.

“And shall not God avenge his own elect, which cry day and night unto him, though he bear long with them?

“I tell you that he will avenge them speedily.” (Luk 18:1-8a)

When we are being cheated, when we are passing something akin to what this woman passed through we have assurances of the father through Jesus Christ that when we call unto him he would avenge us of those who have cheated us at the right time. The avenging may not be according to what we view, may not happen at our own time, for the woman hoped the King would immediately stand to fight her cause at the first time she gets to him only to discover that the king did not answer. But when she continued what she was hoping for happened. (Ps. 35, 109)

Sometimes we lose valuable thing in our lives, either to the hands of enemies, or to armed bandits and so on. On another occasion, when the wicked people have attacked us and they are having upper hand, the bible says they can have the upper hand for a season. In the meanwhile, when they are having such upper hand, we would have lost some times, and the people say, out of the thing that we cannot buy back it is time. The time lost humanly speaking we cannot get it back, but our God can restore those waste years back unto us alongside restoring those things that we have lost.

“And I will restore to you the years that the locust hath eaten, the cankerworm, and the caterpiller, and the palmerworm, my great army which I sent among you.” (Joe 2:25)

And when we know we have lose some valuables, some important things in our lives, and we want God to restore them back unto us, it is God alone that we can call unto, not anyone. The rich Shunammite woman prayed this prayer and his possessions were restored unto her. (2 Kings 8: 1-6; Ps. 71:20-21)

Sometimes we veered off the faith terrain like children who have done what their parents asked that they shouldn’t do. When this happens, we should be assured that we have a God who would pardon us our iniquities and bring us back unto himself as parents would embrace their children after punishing them for the sins they have committed. Albeit, this requires our absolute repentance and promising that we shall not go back into such sins again. (Ps. 32; 51)

When a believer mistakenly sinned, he should pray this kind of prayer with all sincerity of mind.

The first man was created a whole man, holy and complete man. But sin entered the life of the first man through the first woman and as from then sins have been naturally passed on to all of us in the world.

Think about this, have you seen anyone teaching a child to lie before lying? I have not seen this happen and it is because of the gene of sin that all of us have inherited through the first parents. Therefore, the apostle says, we have all sinned and come short of the glory of God.

“For all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God;” (Rom 3:23)

It is because we have all sinned and come short of God’s glory that is why Jesus was sent into the world to save us from those sins, the adamic sins inside of us so that we shall be up to the standard of God’s glory inside his son, Jesus Christ.

Before a person would pray this prayer, one would have to repent of his sins, confess those wrongful ways to God through Jesus Christ and promising God never to return into such ways of life again.

The people of Nineveh after they heard of their ways of life that God was angry with them, they repented and pray this kind of prayer in faith and they were forgiven. (Jon. 3:5-10)

If you are yet to be saved, this is the kind of prayer that you are required to pray. Pray it sincerely and you will have peace of mind after the prayer you prayed to God in Jesus name.

This is kind of prayer that originates inside the heart of a man. Anything could propel this in our hearts. The striking thing about this is that no one would know we are praying, communing and talking with God inside of us.

The scripture is awash of those who have prayed this kind of prayer and whom God has answered them physically. We should not allow the devil to lie to us that when we are praying this kind of prayer, God does not see us, neither would he hear us. Sometimes the devil would want us to think along that line such that we shall abandon our prayer and started thinking on what we ought not to think about. (1 Sam. 1:16; Mt. 6:6; Gen. 24: 15 & 45)

Let us fill our hearts and minds with an attitude of prayer like this such that when we are walking along the streets, while alone in the room, when we have spare time at our places of work and so on we shall be communing with God in our hearts, and the Lord who sees what we are discussing with him in the secret will answer us openly.

Having seen in this article, about four other types of prayer we should know by this that we have a God who is ready to us, a God who is ready to hear us commune with him anyhow we feel like and he will hear and answer us.

I will continue with other types of prayer in the next article.