Lesson Twenty

HOW TO CONTACT THE LORD

BY PRAYER UNTO FELLOWSHIP

Burden to Impart:

As Christians we have the privilege of having fellowship with God through prayer. Such prayer should be without pretension or hiding. It should be completely open and sincere, uttered from an honest heart and a genuine spirit. Calling upon the Lord ushers us into fellowship with the Lord; prayer continues and deepens that fellowship with Him. We should practice prayer daily until we develop a habit of having fellowship with the Lord regularly.

Memory Verse: "... the Spirit also joins in to help us in our weakness; for we do not know for what we should pray as is fitting ...." (Romans 8:26a).

Facts to Teach:

  1. Prayer is to the Christian as vital as breathing. Prayer is the most basic means of receiving God's life. Just as we receive oxygen through breathing, we receive God's Spirit of life into our spirit when we pray. As our human life is constantly maintained and renewed breath by breath, so also prayer maintains our Christian life in a healthy and living condition.
  2. As we saw in the last lesson, calling upon the Lord's name is the most simple prayer we can utter to the Lord. We can call upon His name before we pray, as we pray, and even after we pray.
  3. However, sometimes we feel the need for something more than a short contact with the Lord. We may feel the desire to continue our contact with the Lord by fellowshipping with Him through prayer.
  4. When we begin to pray to the Lord we may find that we do not know what to say to Him. That is O.K. The Bible says that though we don't know how to pray as we should that His Spirit joins in with us as we pray and helps us (Rom. 8:26).
  5. When we pray and talk to God He does not require us to say everything right and perfect. He is actually listening to our "heart" (Rom. 8:27) more than our words. So then, we can speak freely and openly to the Lord. We can talk to Him with the confidence that He hears and understands our heart's prayer.
  6. Best of all, through the fellowship of prayer, we get to know God. Moses was a man of prayer to whom the Lord spoke "face to face, as a man speaks to his friend" (Exo. 33:11).
  7. In order to pray, worship, or fellowship with God we must use our spirit. To pray with our spirit we speak to God the most real and genuine thing that is within us. We should not pretend. We should not fake it. We should learn to be sincere and honest to God. We should learn to be completely open to Him, truly praying from our heart and our spirit. Although He already knows what is in our heart, we do not experience fellowship with Him until we express what is in our heart to Him.

[See Hymns, #784]