Making a Deal with the Lord About our Prayer Life and Setting Definite Times of Prayer

Making a Deal with the Lord About our Prayer Life and Setting Definite Times of Prayer [In the picture: Lord, keep me in the spirit of prayer]

Our experience as Christians confirms that there is a fierce battle in this universe between God and Satan, and particularly when we want to pray there are so many things and people and situations that rise up to not let us pray.

As lovers of Christ we want to pray, we desire to pray, and we even set some time aside just to pray, but every time we do this Satan comes in and bothers us, distracts us, and wants to steal our time of prayer away.

As we see this happening, we need to make a vow to the Lord concerning our prayer life, opening to Him and asking Him to help us, remind us, and strengthen us to have a healthy habit of prayer.

To have a life of prayer actually is to have a habit of living Christ. We need to tell the Lord that we fully depend on Him to bear the responsibility for our prayer life, so we want to cooperate with Him and be reminded by Him to pray. We trust in the Lord, depend on Him, embrace Him, rely on Him, cling to Him, and cleave to Him to remind us about our prayer life.

Then, we need to take some practical steps to build up a habit of prayer by setting some definite times aside to pray, and fight for these times!

Just as Daniel had the habit of serving the living God through his habitual 3-times a day prayer (Dan. 6:10), so we as New Testament believers need to set at least three times a day to spend with the Lord in prayer.

Making a Deal with the Lord about Our Prayer Life

If you didn’t realize yet that you can’t do it in yourself and with your own strength, then you will still try to have times of prayer and fail. We need to first of all come to the Lord and make a deal with Him concerning our prayer life.

Open to Him about this, and pray to Him in a definite way. Here’s a prayer that we all can pray,

Lord, I mean business with You about this matter of prayer. I call heaven and earth to witness that from this time forth I will have a life of prayer. I will not be a prayerless person. Rather, I will be a praying person.

We really mean business with the Lord in this matter! We want to even make a vow to Him, in which we don’t “promise Him we pray all day long” but we ask Him desperately to help us in our prayer life. Why not pray like this,

Lord, I am desperate about this. I offer myself to You so that I may have a prayer life. Lord, keep me in the spirit of prayer. If I forget this or neglect this, I know that You will not forget it. Remind me again and again about prayer.

We may even forget about this kind of a prayer, but the Lord will not. As long as we open to Him and give Him ground in our being, He will come in and remind us to pray.

We hand over the responsibility to God, abandoning ourselves in His hands, and asking Him to not let us go but remind us and embolden us to pray.

Concerning persevering in prayer, I wish to say once again that we need to be willing to make a deal with the Lord, even to make a vow to Him, that we shall be a praying people. If all the saints in all the churches make such a deal with the Lord, the recovery will be greatly enriched and uplifted. Furthermore, the saints will enjoy the Lord, His presence, and His instant and constant anointing. All day long, they will enjoy the smile on the Lord's face. As we persevere in prayer, the living person of Christ becomes our experience and enjoyment (Life-Study of Colossians, p. 584).

Concerning persevering in prayer, I wish to say once again that we need to be willing to make a deal with the Lord, even to make a vow to Him, that we shall be a praying people. If all the saints in all the churches make such a deal with the Lord, the recovery will be greatly enriched and uplifted. Furthermore, the saints will enjoy the Lord, His presence, and His instant and constant anointing. All-day long, they will enjoy the smile on the Lord’s face. As we persevere in prayer, the living person of Christ becomes our experience and enjoyment (Life-Study of Colossians, p. 584).

If we don’t make a vow to the Lord concerning our prayer life, if we don’t pray in this way to the Lord, there’s a very little chance that we will have a prayer life at all!

Setting Aside Definite Times of Prayer

After we make such a vow to the Lord concerning prayer, we need to set aside some definite times of prayer.

We shouldn’t be on the extreme, either trying really hard to have a life of prayer yet without making a vow to the Lord, or making a vow to the Lord yet without taking practical steps to have a prayer life.

Rather, after making a deal with the Lord concerning our prayer life, we need to set aside some periods of time during the day for prayer.

It is good to set aside at least 10 minutes in the morning, before all things, to pray. In this time of prayer, our top priority should be prayer. We need to be serious about this and have the attitude that prayer is the most important business for us, and nothing should be allowed to interfere with it.

Set aside 10 minutes in the morning, 10 minutes around lunchtime, and at least 10 minutes in the evening. You know your schedule, and you know that there are some slots of time that can be set aside for prayer.

Dedicate at least 30 minutes per day to prayer, spreading it throughout the day so that you would learn to stop everything and pray. Regarding our prayer times, we need to be strong, serious, and persevering.

We should not delay our time of prayer, nor should we neglect or skip it. Rather, as we vowed before the Lord, we need to pray ourselves into God and persevere in prayer!

Redeem the Time, for the Days are Evil!

It is such a mercy that we can be at such a place and in such a time in the history of the church, where we can pray for the building up of the Body of Christ, the preparation of the Bride, and for the Lord to return soon.

But we need to see that today we have to redeem the time, for the days are evil (Eph. 5:16). Every day is an evil day, full of pernicious things that cause our time to be used ineffectively, to be wasted, reduced, or carried away (note 1).

Many times at the end of the day we realize that we had to take care of this and of that, and we didn’t pray much but rather many things were our priority.

We should make no excuse for ourselves saying, I don’t have time to pray! We do have time to gossip, chat with our friends, be on Facebook and check stuff our friends post, tweet, watch YouTube videos, check the news, etc. All these things take up so much of our time, and we need to redeem the time by paying the price to pray!

Also, there are so many distractions that rise up when we want to pray! This is why prayer is a battle, a fight, a struggle, something that we fail at as we do our best to keep our prayer times with the Lord.

But we need to persevere in prayer, watching in it with thanksgiving (Col. 4:2). We need to make a vow to the Lord concerning our prayer life, and then take some practical steps to set up definite times of prayer during the day.

Lord, strengthen our prayer life. Make us praying persons with a prayer life and definite times of prayer. Lord, save us from prayerlessness. We want to be serious with You concerning our daily prayer life. Lord, may we have at least 30 minutes daily to spend personal time with You in prayer. We give ourselves to You, Lord, to persevere in prayer. Remind us to pray!

References and Further Reading
  • Sharing inspired from brother Ed Marks’ sharing in the message and portions in, Life-study of Colossians (msg. 65), as quoted in the Holy Word for Morning Revival on Prayer and the Lord’s Move, week 4 (entitled, Persevering in Prayer).
  • Hymns on this topic:
    # Teach me to pray, Lord, teach me to pray; / This is my heart-cry day unto day; / I long to know Thy will and Thy way; / Teach me to pray, Lord, teach me to pray.
    # Lord, teach me each day in Thy presence to live, / From morning to evening my one world Thou art.
    # The day approaches; Jesus soon is coming. / Redeem the time; it must not slip away. / Lord, make us ready for the cry: “Behold Him!” / By using every moment of each day.
  • Pictures source: with permission via, Inspiration Unlimited (Prayer and the Lord’s Move set).
About aGodMan

A God-man is a normal believer in Christ; the author of this article is one who is learning to be a normal Christian, a daily enjoyer of Christ, a living and functioning member in the Body of Christ. Amen, Lord, make us such ones for the building up of the Body of Christ!

Subscribe
Notify of
guest

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.

13 Comments
Oldest
Newest Most Voted
Inline Feedbacks
View all comments
Debbie Friedman
11 years ago

Yes.Amen.

agodman.com blog - E
11 years ago

What I have been sharing about prayer is not mere doctrine. It comes from years of experience. As far as prayer is concerned, I must admit that I have had much failure. I do not boast of great success in my prayer life. Rather, I have suffered many failures because of the opposition of the enemy, the distractions around me, and even the hindrances within me. I have surely learned that prayer is a battle. Because it is a battle, a fight, we must persevere in it. (Life-study of Colossians, pp. 580-581)

Natalie
Natalie
11 years ago

Prayer is a battle, therefore we need to persevere in prayer. Before trying to persevere in prayer we must first make a vow to the Lord concerning our prayer life. From the very beginning we offer ourselves to Him for prayer and give the responsibility of reminding us to pray to Him. Tell Him we mean business with Him and ask Him to remind us when we forget or neglect our vow of prayer. After we make a vow, we must set aside some time each day (starting with as little as 5-10 minutes) for prayer. During this time, prayer must have the top priority and nothing must interfere with it. We must stop ourselves and all outward activity. Throughout the day we also must persevere in redeeming the time, for the days are evil. This is to preserve a praying spirit and atmosphere of prayer. Hold on to His presence and cling onto Him, do not let Him out of our sight. Call on His name, exercise our spirit, regurgitate His Word. Press on saints, stay in the mingled spirt!

David-Anthony Gordon
David-Anthony Gordon
11 years ago
Reply to  Natalie

We must persevere in prayer and avoid all distractions. Our prayer time with The Lord is so important that we must focus fully on Him so that we can prayer specific kingdom prayers which He can use for His move

daleneinchrist
daleneinchrist
11 years ago

Oh Lord Jesus, I really and truly desire a committed prayer life and today Lord, I mean business with You about this matter of prayer. I call heaven and earth to witness that from this time forth I will have a life of prayer. I will not be a prayerless person. Rather, I will be a praying person. Thank You Lord that You will daily remind me of my commitment and vow to have a prayer life. Amen

Annie Ting
Annie Ting
11 years ago

We need to make a vow to the Lord concerning our prayer life so that He can remind us when we forget. We need to set aside definite time to pray and need to redeem our time so that so can pray because prayer is a battle. Lord make us men of prayers with a life of prayer.

Katherine Ko
Katherine Ko
11 years ago

How to persevere in prayer?

First, we MUST make a vow to the Lord and pray, “Lord, I will not be a prayerless person. Rather, I will be a praying person” When we mean business with the Lord, and offer ourselves to Him, handing over the responsibility to Him, expecting Him to do it in us. He will do it, because He is faithful, even though we are not faithful.

Then we MUST set up a definite time or times of the day and the length of our praying time. And we ask the Lord to remind us and to preserve that time for us. Daily, we take time to eat, to go to school, to work, now we must take time to redeem it for prayer.

Concerning the matter of prayer, many are like on-call Christians because they pray only when crises come. We MUST have a SET TIME or times for prayer or we won’t have a prayer life. We redeem the time by setting the prayer time. And we should pray overtime in the time of needs. O Lord, gain us mercy and grace to be those persevere in prayer.

Margaret Cheung
Margaret Cheung
11 years ago

O..Lord, Jesus, redeem our time from the days of evil, We should make no excuse for ourselves saying, I don’t have time to pray! we need to redeem the time by paying the price to pray!

Lee Joanna
10 years ago

Amen, prayer is the way of life. Nothing can be as powerful as being in the spirit one with HIM in our prayer in His divine mystical realm. There we can touch Him, feel His presence & love and defeat the enemy.