DOES YHVH ALWAYS ANSWER PRAYER?
James 5:13-18: "Confess your sins to each other and pray for each other so that you may be healed. The earnest prayer of a righteous person has great power and wonderful results." 1 John 5:14-15: "We can be confident that He will listen to us whenever we ask Him for anything in line with His will." --- We can be confident of YHVH’s response to our prayer when we submit first to His will. 2 Corinthians 12:7-10: "Three different times I begged the Lord to take it away. Each time he said '... My power works best in your weakness.'” --- Sometimes like Paul, we will find that YHVH answers prayer by giving us not what we ask for but something better. Exodus 14:15: "Then the Lord said to Moses, 'Why are you crying out to Me? Tell the people to get moving!'” --- Our prayer must be accompanied by a willingness to obey with our actions.

HOW DO I LEARN TO TALK TO YHVH?
Isaiah 1:16-20: "Wash yourselves and be clean!" --- All our communication with YHVH must begin with confession. Philippians 4:6-7: "Don’t worry about anything; instead, pray about everything." --- yhvh invites us to bring all our needs to him in prayer.

DOES THE BIBLE TEACH A “RIGHT WAY” TO PRAY?
Nehemiah 1:4-11: "For days I mourned, fasted and prayed to the God of heaven." --- Throughout the Bible effective prayer includes elements of adoration, confession and commitment, as well as requests. Matthew 6:5-13: "Pray like this" --- Yeshua taught His disciples that prayer is an intimate relationship with the Father that includes a dependency for daily needs, commitment to obedience and forgiveness of sin. Luke 18:1-8: "One day Jesus told His disciples a story to illustrate their need for constant prayer and to show them that they must never give up." --- Prayer is to be consistent and persistent. Nehemiah 2:4: "With a prayer to the God of heaven." --- Prayer can be spontaneous.

WHAT IS PRAYER?
2 Chronicles 7:14: "Then if My people who are called by My Name will humble themselves and pray and seek My Face and turn from their wicked ways, I will hear from heaven." --- Prayer is an act of humble worship in which we seek YHVH with all our heart. Psalm 38:15-18: "I confess my sins; I am deeply sorry for what I have done." 1 John 1:9: "If we confess our sins to Him, He is faithful and just to forgive us and to cleanse us from every wrong." --- Prayer often begins with a confession of sin. 1 Samuel 14:36-45: "The priest said, 'Let’s ask God first.'” 2 Samuel 5:17-19: "David asked the Lord, 'Should I go out to fight the Philistines?'” --- Prayer is asking YHVH for guidance and waiting for His direction and leading. Mark 1:35: "The next morning Jesus awoke long before daybreak and went out alone into the wilderness to pray." --- Prayer is an expression of an intimate relationship with our heavenly Father, who makes His own love and resources available to us. Psalm 9:1-2: "I will thank You, Lord, with all my heart... I will sing praises to Your Name, O Most High." --- Through prayer we praise our Mighty Creator.

The most universally practiced yet least understood of human experiences, prayer is one of the great mysteries of the Messianic / Christian faith. Its simplest definition is communication with YHVH. Yet so often we approach prayer like a one-way telephone conversation, forgetting that YHVH also wants to speak to us. And how do we pray-on our knees or standing; silently or out loud; alone or with others; by rote or spontaneously? And does prayer really induce our Father to manipulate events or otherwise act on our behalf? Although the Bible does not take up these and other questions directly, prayer appears on nearly every page as the very essence of a faith relationship with the living Creator. Simple enough for a child to understand and yet so profound we spend a lifetime plumbing its depths, prayer assumes that it is possible for us to have an intimate relationship with a Great God who hears, cares and is able to act.

Praying Psalm 15

May I worship in Your sanctuary, Adonai? May I enter Your presence on Your Holy Hill? I am trying to lead a blameless live and do what is right in Your sight, speaking the truth from a sincere heart. I refuse to gossip or harm my neighbours or speak evil of my friends. I despise flagrant sinners and honour the faithful followers of You my Adonai and I try to keep my promises even when it hurts. I lend money without charging interest and I cannot be bribed to lie about the innocent. Let me stand firm forever in Your Name, amein.