Pray-reading God's words

How can you have a good conversation with God?

One of the best ways is to start with what he wants to say to you.  That's the way you speak to good friends - you touch on the topics that are close to their hearts.

You can find out quickly what God wants to talk about by going to the Bible.  Let the Holy Spirit bring light to what you are reading - let him take the words and move your heart.

I talked about this before in an earlier blog post.  You can find it at: http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=3617534320094379788#editor/target=post;postID=3608998795564093691;onPublishedMenu=overviewstats;onClosedMenu=overviewstats;postNum=50;src=postname

This week I came across added insights into this way of praying in a teaching segment by Mike Bickle, head of the International House of Prayer in Kansas City.  Bickle founded the House of Prayer years ago to pray 24 hours a day, seven days a week for God's work around the world.

A couple of years ago, he talked about his own journey in prayer from the time he became a young believer as a teenager.  It's filled with practical advice but the thing that struck me most was his insights into praying the Word of God.

Bickle urges us to "[engage] in active conversation with God as we read His Word".

He points to Jesus' comments to the Pharisees in John 5:39-40 who read and memorized the scriptures and yet refused to believe in the Messiah even though these same scriptures were pointing to him.  They refused to come to him for life.

So, we must come to God for his enlightenment as we read.

Here are some of his suggestions on meditating on and praying back God's words:

• We thank God for a particular truth that he is impressing on our hearts;
• We ask God to reveal more to us of a particular truth that the Spirit highlights in our reading;
• If God is calling us to obey something, we commit ourselves to obedience in that area; and
• We ask him to give us the power to obey.

He also suggests jotting down in short phrases in a journal our love for God and our requests.

As we read, we ask the Spirit to let us see how he sees and feels about our lives.

Simple steps.  And enriching.

Here is a link to Mike Bickle's talk on prayer: http://mikebickle.org/resources/resource/2969?return_url=http%3A%2F%2Fmikebickle.org%2Fresources%2Fcategory%2Fprayer-fasting%2Fprayer-lists%2F