It depends upon your individual translation of God’s Word but it seems to be around 600 times, give or take a few. Prayer is your lifeline to God Himself. It is not a channel that you can tune into just because you want to complain or because you want something. It is used in that manner much more than it should be though. If you consider Who it is that you are speaking to about your problems and your good days and your bad days you might decide that you need to thank Him that you are able to live another day.
God loves His creation and all of us are unique parts of that creation. Each of us is unique and there is nobody else on Earth like you. Someone may look a little like you but nobody else has your personality and your knowledge! Have you ever considered that? Most people, in my opinion, never seem to realize that fact. It seems that more people today want to be like someone else rather than being themselves. Mostly, they just want the fame and fortune that the person has but they never think about all of the problems that it would bring into their lives.
Prayer gives you a direct line of communication to the Creator and the Savior of your soul. There is no need of a direct line of sight because He can see you and, if you are a Christian, He is with you even now. The Holy Spirit came to live in your heart the moment that you repented and gave your life to Him. He communicates your needs and your life to the Father in ways which we can only imagine, even when we can’t speak or even know what to say. Prayer is that lifeline that never breaks and it is always available to you regardless of the distance you think you have moved away from God, He never moved away from you.
Jesus came to us, to the Earth, so that salvation and forgiveness could be possible for each of us. God reached down to us so that we could reach up to Him in repentance and humility and give Him our heart and our life because He gave His life for us first. Prayer keeps that relationship alive, reading God’s Word enforces His teachings in our mind and in our heart so that we can walk with Him each day assured of our salvation and our place in His Kingdom.
In our world today, many people think that because they believe in God and they pray to Him about things in their life that they are saved and they will go to heaven. Satan believes in God, as well as all of the demons of hell, but he is still condemned because of his pride and arrogance. Being a Christian is more than belief, it is submission to God’s leadership and His way of life. We are to put down our “old ways” and walk into a new life, forgiven and free from the sins which kept us from being fully alive in Christ. Through faith and prayer and submission to Him, we can be saved. But, if you have never felt the conviction of the Holy Spirit to bring you to that point…prayer only works when you ask Him for Jesus in your life and ask for His forgiveness of your sins.
Did people sin in the Bible? Yes, David was called “a man after My heart” by God but he committed murder and adultery against one of his best warriors. The reason for David’s place in God’s sight was that he knew what he had done and he asked forgiveness for it, again and again. There are many more examples of people in the Bible being human but God used them in His grand design anyway. God doesn’t give approval to our sins just because we don’t think they are bad. If your lifestyle or the way you live is against any of God’s commandments and you continue to live that way, even when you say that you are saved, you are only deceiving yourself.
