Ingredients of Effective Prayer (10)

This is the 14th post in a series on Praying Effectively. We talked about what effective prayers are and in the most recent post we learned that praying in agreement with the Spirit of God and with other believers makes our prayers powerful.
Today's post is about Abiding in Christ, the last ingredient of effective prayer that we will be looking at. In the next post in this series we will continue to explore other factors related to Praying Effectively.
If you are just joining me, please see the end for a special note before continuing!


(10). Abide in Christ.

The discipleship relationship is the most important thing. It is about knowing God and walking with Him in life - above and beyond instances of praise, petition, supplication and intercession.

John 15:4, MKJV
Abide in Me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself unless it remains in the vine, so neither can you unless you abide in Me.

John 15:7, ESV
If you abide in me, and my words abide in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be done for you.

abide - menō [Greek]
men'-o
A primary verb; to stay (in a given place, state, relation or expectancy): - abide, continue, dwell, endure, be present, remain, stand, tarry (for)

Abiding in Christ has a lot to do with carefully nurturing our relationship with Him by purposefully drawing near to Him and safeguarding time with Him. Abiding in Christ necessarily includes prayer, but this prayer is first devotional and personal. Without these times with God, endeavoring to pray effectively in other areas (for example, intercession for others) will doubtless become a duty without joy and increasingly difficult to sustain.

The favour of God the Father is guaranteed to those who establish their lives upon Christ His Son and are diligent to obey Him - proof of love for Him.




[This is the 14th post in a series on the subject of prayer. In the previous installment we looked at the importance of praying in unity with the Spirit of God and other believers.
These posts are interspersed among other blog topics so for the easy identification of related posts, look for the label 'praying effectively - series' in the sidebar. If you are just now joining in I recommend that you read the first post where I shared my reason for doing this series. I hope to share practical keys and insight into praying effectively, in bite-size blog posts which you can easily follow.]