Let us now look at you can stay in God: these are some guidelines for your Christian journey. As you continue in them you will be exposed to deeper revelations that will take you deeper in God. Take it step by step………….a day at a time with God.
- Always keep fellowship with God: This is achieved through consistent prayer and study of God’s word. Let us take them one after the other
Having an effective and consistent Word study lifestyle.
As a new born believer, God’s word must become part of your lifestyle. That is how you grow and become changed into who God wants you to be.
1 Peter 2:2
As newborn babes, desire the sincere milk of the word, that ye may grow thereby
2 Corinthians 3:18
But we all, with open face beholding as in a glass the glory of the Lord, are changed into the same image from glory to glory, even as by the Spirit of the Lord.
When you study the word of God, the Spirit of God changes you by the word you study to be like Christ. Why do we need God’s word to grow and be changed or to be in Christ?
- Because God’s word is what created this whole earth you see and spoke man (including you) into being before God used his hands to create all of us. All things align to God’s word because they trace their source to God as their foundation.
John 1:1-3
In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. The same was in the beginning with God. All things were made by him; and without him was not anything made that was made.
Hebrews 1:3
Who being the brightness of his glory, and the express image of his person, and upholding all things by the word of his power, when he had by himself purged our sins, sat down on the right hand of the Majesty on high:
- Because we are God’s building and therefore the only blocks that make us God’s building indeed is His word.
1 Peter 2:5
….you also, as living stones, are being built up a spiritual house, a holy priesthood, to offer up spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ.
Without the word of God you cannot live and have good success in what you do. You can depend on God’s word to answer every question of life and to also get solution to any problem in life. God’s integrity is fully behind His word, forever settled in heaven and will stand forever.
Jeremiah 1:12
Then the Lord said to me, “You have seen well, for I am ready to perform My word.”
Psalms 119:89
For ever, O Lord, thy word is settled in heaven.
John 10:35
If he called them gods, unto whom the word of God came, and the scripture cannot be broken;
When you study God’s word it does these things and more to you:
- It reveals Jesus Christ to you
John 5:39
Search the scriptures; for in them ye think ye have eternal life: and they are they which testify of me.
- It makes you wise unto salvation
2 Timothy 3:15
….and that from childhood you have known the Holy Scriptures, which are able to make you wise for salvation through faith which is in Christ Jesus.
- It produces faith in you
Romans 10:17
So then faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the word of God.
Hebrews 11:6
But without faith it is impossible to please him: for he that cometh to God must believe that he is, and that he is a rewarder of them that diligently seek him.
- It builds you up and gives you your inheritance in Christ
Acts 20:32
“So now, brethren, I commend you to God and to the word of His grace, which is able to build you up and give you an inheritance among all those who are sanctified.
- It produces profit in you
1 Timothy 4:15
Meditate upon these things; give thyself wholly to them; that thy profiting may appear to all.
- It makes you perfect
2 Timothy 3:16-17
All scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness: That the man of God may be perfect, thoroughly furnished unto all good works.
In order to benefit from the word you study, make every effort you can to get rid of worry about the cares of this world, offense against God or your fellow human, distractions and anything that could keep you from focusing on what God’s word says. If you do not guard against these, the enemy will use them to make you nor profit from the word of God.
Luke 8:4-9 & 11-14
“A sower went out to sow his seed. And as he sowed, some fell by the wayside; and it was trampled down, and the birds of the air devoured it. Some fell on rock; and as soon as it sprang up, it withered away because it lacked moisture. And some fell among thorns, and the thorns sprang up with it and choked it. But others fell on good ground, sprang up, and yielded a crop a hundredfold.” When He had said these things He cried, “He who has ears to hear, let him hear!” Then His disciples asked Him, saying, “What does this parable mean?”…… “Now the parable is this: The seed is the word of God. Those by the wayside are the ones who hear; then the devil comes and takes away the word out of their hearts, lest they should believe and be saved. But the ones on the rock are those who, when they hear, receive the word with joy; and these have no root, who believe for a while and in time of temptation fall away. Now the ones that fell among thorns are those who, when they have heard, go out and are choked with cares, riches, and pleasures of life, and bring no fruit to maturity.
How to effectively and consistently study the word of God
- Decide on a specific time and duration to study the word of God (maybe at 5am for 30minutes or 20 minutes or 1 hour). It is important that the word of God is the first food you eat before you start your day. Make an effort to start you day with prayer first and the study God’s word before you proceed. This may require that you wake up a little earlier than your regular waking time. It is worth it so work at and may God grant you grace in Jesus name.
- Get a Bible. There are different translations of the Bible with the first translation being the King James Version. Check for which version make it easy for you to understand and stick to it. If you can, get different translations to make you study even more interesting and exciting. You will love it
- Get a notebook and pen to note down important point that strike you in your study. You can easily make reference to them at any time.
- Get a dictionary to find meanings of words you do not understand. It is not advisable to use your phone because there are so many things like whatsapp, etc that can distract you (remember you need to eliminate distractions)
- Overtime, you can get a concordance and commentaries when you get deeper in your word study. Your Pastor or youth leader or mentor can help you out on how to use that when needed.
Having positioned yourself to study the word of God,
- Read the word quietly and aloud over and over
- Think about what you read and see how you understand it and not it down as well as any striking points.
- Memorize portions of the word that strike you throughout the time and even when your word study time is over
- MAKE IT PERSONAL. Relate it to yourself, ask questions where needed, speak it out when you have understood how it means to you personally and pray with it.
When you do these thing and many more that the Spirit of God will lead you to do gradually in you walk, you will that your thinking patterns will change, your actions are changing, anytime a situation occurs and there is a word for it you know it will come up in your mind, many wonderful things will happen and you will see your life get better to the glory of God.
Having and effective and consistent prayer lifestyle
Prayer is communication with God which does not have a defined place to engage it, does not have a specific length so it can be either long or short, and involve speaking to God and God also speaking to you. It also does not have a specific time, in fact, we must pray always.
1 Timothy 2:8
I will therefore that men pray everywhere, lifting up holy hands, without wrath and doubting.
1 Thessalonians 5:17
Pray without ceasing.
Psalms 55:17
Evening and morning and at noon I will pray, and cry aloud, and He shall hear my voice.
Jeremiah 33:3
Call to Me, and I will answer you, and show you great and mighty things, which you do not know.’
Prayer is asking and receiving, requesting God to step into a situation to change it for good and it is also laying hold on God’s willingness and ability to get what He has already promised in his word.
Jeremiah 29:11-12
For I know the thoughts that I think toward you, says the Lord, thoughts of peace and not of evil, to give you a future and a hope. Then you will call upon Me and go and pray to Me, and I will listen to you.
Matthew 7:7-8
Ask, and it shall be given you; seek, and ye shall find; knock, and it shall be opened unto you: For every one that asketh receiveth; and he that seeketh findeth; and to him that knocketh it shall be opened.
Prayer is not:
- A monologue where you just say what u like to God and walk away
- Complaining and just telling God your problems
- Begging God
- A way to change God or to overcome His reluctance. Prayer doesn’t change God but it moves God to change situations
- A means to display your emotions.
When you wish to pray, observe and do the following:
- Come before God with a heart of obedience to align yourself with what God desires for your life.
- Come before God in humility (meekness). The more meek you are, the more of God you experience.
Psalm 25:9
The meek will he guide in judgment: and the meek will he teach his way.
Matthew 5:5
Blessed are the meek: for they shall inherit the earth.
- Remove unforgiveness from your heart and let go any grudges. If not it has stop God from answering your prayer.
Mark 11:25
“And whenever you stand praying, if you have anything against anyone, forgive him, that your Father in heaven may also forgive you your trespasses.
- Believe in God and trust God to answer your prayer. Also be patient and wait for God to answer.
Hebrews 11:6
But without faith it is impossible to please him: for he that cometh to God must believe that he is, and that he is a rewarder of them that diligently seek him.
- Come before God in humility (meekness). The more meek you are, the more of God you experience.
Psalm 25:9
The meek will he guide in judgment: and the meek will he teach his way.
Matthew 5:5
Blessed are the meek: for they shall inherit the earth.
- Possess a strong desire that generate into earnest and fervent prayer.
Psalms 37:4
Delight thyself also in the LORD; and he shall give thee the desires of thine heart.
Psalms 21:2
Thou hast given him his heart’s desire, and hast not withholden the request of his lips.
James 5:16b
The effectual fervent prayer of a righteous man availeth much.
- Always pray in the Name of Jesus. That is the access code to heaven and to have an audience with God.
Acts 4:12
Nor is there salvation in any other, for there is no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved.”
Romans 10:13
For whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved.
- Cultivate the habit of praying in tongues. When you are baptized, the Holy Spirit comes upon you and you receive tongues of fire. It is a spiritual language that allows the Spirit of God to speak for you before in line with God’s will that you may not even know.
Acts 2:3-4
And there appeared unto them cloven tongues like as of fire, and it sat upon each of them. And they were all filled with the Holy Ghost, and began to speak with other tongues, as the Spirit gave them utterance.
Romans 8:26
Likewise the Spirit also helps in our weaknesses. For we do not know what we should pray for as we ought, but the Spirit Himself makes intercession for us with groanings which cannot be uttered.
How then do we pray?
Jesus gave us a pattern of prayer and that is what we must follow each time we desire to pray. Let us look at it.
Matthew 6:9-13
Our Father in heaven
Our prayer as believers is to God our Father. He is our Father because Jesus reconciled us back to God when He died on the cross. By Jesus’ finished work, we have the privilege of calling God our Father just like Jesus did. When you intend to pray, know that you are talking to your Father who loves you and wants all things to be well with you. Come boldly and like a child to ask his or her able Daddy for something.
Romans 8:14-16
For as many as are led by the Spirit of God, they are the sons of God. For ye have not received the spirit of bondage again to fear; but ye have received the Spirit of adoption, whereby we cry, Abba, Father. The Spirit itself beareth witness with our spirit, that we are the children of God:
Hallowed be Your name.
When we come before God, we must first thank Him and praise Him. The Psalmist showed this to us in Psalms 100. Praising God ahead of your request shows your trust in Him to be able to resolve what you are about to pray about. Praise can be in song, words or even tongues. Note: God does His best in an atmosphere of praise and thanksgiving.
Psalms 100:4
Enter into His gates with thanksgiving, and into His courts with praise. Be thankful to Him, and bless His name.
Your kingdom come.
God desires that everyone will come to know Him and be reconciled to Him and also that those in Him will be preserved. Someone prayed for you to be saved so you must spend some time in prayer for lost souls, Pastors, the Church and other colleagues in the Lord. Certain needs of yours will be met without any struggle from you when you prayer concerning the Kingdom. It is the number one thing on God’s heart and anyone who does this immediately catches God’s attention.
Matthew 6:33
But seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things shall be added to you.
Your will be done on earth as it is in heaven.
Whenever you pray, it must be in line with God’s will. That is when God hears us. What then is God’s will? It is His word. Nothing God does goes against what He has said in his word so you need to always have a clear understanding of what Go’s word has said about what you are about to pray about and present it to Him at this point in prayer. That way you hold God to His word which we saw above that, it holds with it His integrity. See what the scriptures below say about praying according to God’s will.
James 4:3
Ye ask, and receive not, because ye ask amiss, that ye may consume it upon your lusts.
1 John 5:14
And this is the confidence that we have in him, that, if we ask any thing according to his will, he heareth us
Give us this day our daily bread.
God has blessings for us each and every day and they include all the things you want to ask for in prayer. See it in His word below
Psalm 68:19
Blessed be the Lord, who daily loadeth us with benefits, even the God of our salvation
Therefore, present your requests to God at this point in faith that once you have asked you have received. Observe the following when making your requests known to God.
- Be specific. Say exactly what you want and how you want it. Go straight to the point like the blind man asking to receive his sight.
Matthew 6:11 – Give us this day our daily bread
Mark 10:47 & 51-52
And when he heard that it was Jesus of Nazareth, he began to cry out, and say, Jesus, thou son of David, have mercy on me. And Jesus answered and said unto him, What wilt thou that I should do unto thee? The blind man said unto him, Lord, that I might receive my sight. And Jesus said unto him, Go thy way; thy faith hath made thee whole. And immediately he received his sight, and followed Jesus in the way.
- Ask in faith because faith is what triggers answers to prayer.
James 1:6-8
But let him ask in faith, nothing wavering. For he that wavereth is like a wave of the sea driven with the wind and tossed. For let not that man think that he shall receive any thing of the Lord. A double minded man is unstable in all his ways.
- Finally, be earnest in your prayer. Pour your request from the depths of your soul. Be sincere about how you feel about it and how much it means to you, making sure to keep referencing God’s word as your reason to have that request.
James 5:16b
The effectual fervent prayer of a righteous man availeth much.
1 Samuel 1:5 & 9-10
But to Hannah he would give a double portion, for he loved Hannah, although the Lord had closed her womb (she couldn’t give birth)
So Hannah arose after they had finished eating and drinking in Shiloh. Now Eli the priest was sitting on the seat by the doorpost of the tabernacle of the Lord. And she was in bitterness of soul, and prayed to the Lord and wept in anguish. Then she made a vow and said, “O Lord of hosts, if You will indeed look on the affliction of Your maidservant and remember me, and not forget Your maidservant, but will give Your maidservant a male child, then I will give him to the Lord all the days of his life, and no razor shall come upon his head.”
Hannah expressed her desire from the depths of her heart and even made a vow to God showing how much it mattered to her. Whichever way the prayer request matters to you, let it be evident in your prayer to God.
And forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors.
Mark 11:25
And whenever you stand praying, if you have anything against anyone, forgive him, that your Father in heaven may also forgive you your trespasses.
Do well, in your Christian walk not to hold grudges. If you do and not forgive people, God will also not forgive you any wrong you may have done and that will hinder your prayer for receiving answers from God. Now knowing you hold no grudges in your heart against anyone, ask the Lord to forgive you of your wrongs. When you ask God to forgive you from a genuine repentant heart, he does immediately and does not hold it against you again so the next you should do is forgive yourself and never go into self-condemnation because you have wronged God. If you do not forgive yourself, the enemy will speak wrong words into your mind that will diminish your faith. Without faith you won’t receive answers to your prayer. So ask for forgiveness from God and be assured that you are forgiven no matter what the devil says into your mind.
And do not lead us into temptation, but deliver us from the evil one.
At this point ask that the Lord protects and guides you in all you do that no temptation from the devil or trap will get to you. God will make a way for you to come out of every situation that seeks to shake your foundation in God.
1 Corinthians 10:13
There hath no temptation taken you but such as is common to man: but God is faithful, who will not suffer you to be tempted above that ye are able; but will with the temptation also make a way to escape, that ye may be able to bear it.
For Yours is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever.
Pray one more time concerning Kingdom affairs, especially thanking God about them and making further supplication as done before.
Amen.
This is the closing of the prayer where you affirm your faith that all you have asked has been granted. Amen means “Let it be so”, you therefore seal all you have said in prayer that let all of them be done.
By following this pattern of prayer, you will see that according to God’s will, thing will begin to change in your life. As said earlier, prayer can be long or short so do not let the long explanation make you feel like it’s a whole day’s prayer. Just be sincere in your heart and let the Spirit of God lead you to pray with this pattern each time regardless of the length of time. Be blessed as you take up a lifestyle of prayer.
- Always be in the company of genuine believers
Finally, being in the company of genuine believers means that you must surround yourself with friends and acquaintances who believe in the true word of God. Why? Iron sharpens iron. If you stay with wrong people your thoughts will be corrupted, your words and actions will be ungodly and your character will not be like God and that puts you back in the sinful state that Jesus wants you to be out of.
Proverbs 27:17
Iron sharpeneth iron; so a man sharpeneth the countenance of his friend.
1 Corinthians 15:33-34
Be not deceived: evil communications corrupt good manners. Awake to righteousness, and sin not; for some have not the knowledge of God: I speak this to your shame.
What then must you do?, always be present in the house of God where you are nourished in the word and fellowship with people of the same faith. You would see that you are growing gradually into that perfect person Jesus wants to come and take to heaven.
Hebrews 10:24-25
And let us consider one another in order to stir up love and good works, not forsaking the assembling of ourselves together, as is the manner of some, but exhorting one another, and so much the more as you see the Day approaching.
Psalms 84:7
They go from strength to strength, every one of them in Zion appeareth before God.
Therefore, keep going to church where you receive strength and grace to keep up the faith, fellowshipping with fiends in the faith who challenge you to be a better believer and watch your life soar.