Developing a Consistent Bible Study and Prayer Life - Part 2

Solving the Priority problem/Interest problem: Of course, the flesh is against the spirit, the spirit is against the flesh. Understand that it’s a fight of faith, a fight against the pleasures the flesh want. So be ready to battle these as a soldier. Prayer does not start “being sweet” o. It does not.

So firstly, you must see that prayer is important to your spiritual health as resting, exercise and feeding is important to your health. - Luke 18:1, Romans 12:11-13, 1thess 5:17, Col 4:1-2. Jude 1:20.

You won’t be built up in the faith without prayer. So, drag yourself to pray. James 5:17, tells you prayer is releasing God’s power, the power you received in Christ is wasting the longer you delay having a prayer life. Prayer is communicating with God. Prayer and bible study goes hand in hand.

See it this way – In prayer, you are talking to God, in studying the word, God is talking back to you. In Matthew 6, Jesus started prayers with, "Our Father." Prayer is using your faith (Mark 11:23-24).

You must pray! These few points ought to inspire you to pray.

Solving the boredom problem: A solid prayer life is fueled by the word. So, once you get on the word of God consistently, and you start feeding regularly, you will see your heart can relate better in prayer, and your mind can be more focused because now it focuses on the word.

Other hacks to solve boredom problem:

• Pray more in tongues

• Pray with an audio pray-list or stirring music underground. Do not get addicted to this though, you want to learn to pray by faith not always by emotions.
  

PRAYER REQUIRES DISCIPLINE

I learned to pray long by deciding how long I want to pray for and intermittently checking the time (or you could use timers) to know when I have hit my target. Many will argue that it would make prayers like a burden if I had to check the time. But, picture this: a busy father, who has no time for his children, after a while, he discovers he is losing his children, so to get in the groove, he gives himself a target, “I will make out 30 minutes for them daily”, then he tries to make out time, and though his phone rings to call him in for work again, he checks the time to ensure he hits his 30minutes target. Or maybe because he has been away for long, and the time together is a bit boring, he ensures he spends 30 minutes knowing that with time, when the bond is formed again, it will be easier.

I, for example, have spent at different times, 12 hours, 15 hours, and even once 24 hours, just praying. Now I did not pray like that because the discussion was “flowing” well (smiles), I did, because I set a target to spend that long in fellowship. Now, praying this long is not ideal, so don’t get unnecessarily freaked out. It is once in a while because there is your normal day-to-day schedule to attend to.

So this is what I will counsel on discipline in prayers:

• Pick a period of the day that works and you can have that time to spend in prayer

• Start with a reasonable goal. 30 minutes daily or 1 hour daily or 2 hours daily (I practice 2 – 3 hours daily/regularly). I said regularly because there are days I am unable to do that long. But 2-3 hours is my goal.

• I will also suggest early hours of the day or evenings. We have scriptural patterns for this. God visited Adam in the cool of the day. Mark 1:35, Luke 6:12.

• Find days that you are absolutely free in a month, and have a personal stretched prayer time/retreat, to “reap the benefits” of long extended praying.

• Use a one-hour pray-list or playlist to keep track of time.

• Have an accountability partner.
  

Other prayer hacks for busy schedules:

• We cannot absolutely talk about consistency in prayer without talking about praying in tongues - 1 Corinthians 14:11-15.

• Let's say you do house chores, and it takes you one hour, as you do this, you could play a one-hour teaching tape or an audio bible and pray in tongues along with it. It may not be as effective as when it's done in quiet time without other activities, but within your busy schedule, you have yet been able to keep fellowship with the Father. And even allowed God’s word in your heart while at it.

• When you are driving to work in your car, you could pray in tongues along, or walking to work, etc. This shouldn’t be the only way you work it out though, but they can help to keep your heart and mouth talking to God during the day if you could not wake up early.

• Use alarms if you have to. I use alarms, I plan to wake up between 3 am and 4 am in the morning to pray. So, I set my alarm to start ringing by 3:15 am, and I set 10-15 minute intervals for it to keep ringing until I get up. It will disrupt my sleep till I eventually get up. Eventually, your body adjusts to your regular hours of sleep. And it gets easier. But even now, there are days, it is still the alarm that does the job, not the adjustment of my body. Prayer is discipline first.

Take Advantage of the Power of Corporate Prayers:

• Joining an assembly that is given to much prayers will help you stretch your prayer life

• The early disciples learned to pray mostly by corporate prayers. Acts 2:42-47, Acts 3:1-2, Acts 4:23-31, Acts 12:1-5, Acts 13:1-3, Acts 16:25, Acts 20:36, etc.

• Take advantage of your church’s praying time, if you have a church that has a daily prayer schedule, use it, when they are done, take an extra 30 minutes or more. If their prayer is 30 minutes, just settle it in your mind that it is one hour, then use the remaining 30 minutes for yourself.

PRODUCTIVITY

The things said above are a lot of ways to also make you productive. So here, I will just add a few more things.

For a more productive Bible study, here are a few guides:

• If your church has a study focus for a month or two study around that subject during that period as well; and add your church notes to your personal study.

• Have a study bible: It contains some references (this helps you run references across a verse to have other places where the word, thought or statement applies), concordance, short historical/cultural background notes (this helps you relate with the setting in which some portions were written and broadens your view), some even have Greek/Hebrew lexicon (these are fantastic materials for bible study since the bible was not written in our days and with our language, language has evolved over the years, Greek/Hebrew lexicon help you take your study further).
  Each of these other materials attached to a study bible exists in their own separate compilations, you can get them as well. Commentaries and word study materials too. However, there are apps today that give you all these materials and different authorship in just one installation. E.g., e-sword, mysword, powerbible, etc.

• You can do either a topical study, a book study, or a character study. Some people do verse study (but I personally do not recommend this, to be done alone, because it gives room to take scriptures out of context or to blindside other portions that should enrich that verse, you therefore can run off with an incomplete thought. The Bible was originally compiled without verses and chapters, so no chapter today has a life of its own), however when done within a topical, book, or character study, it can be fantastic.
  A topical study means you want to learn what the bible says about a subject e.g., righteousness by faith. Character study means you want to study a particular character through the bible and learn about them e.g Abraham. A book study means you want to study through a book. I always say it is fantastic to study along with your church or a group or use already available study material from a trusted author to enrich your study, together with your bible. No believer is called to grow alone, we need the help of others’ labor.

• Always study with writing materials to write down what you are learning, have sticky notes, or be willing to write on your bible instead. I write in my bible and I mark my bible. Mark your Bible when you have to, it is yours, and no one will be angry.

• Finally, always learn to meditate on the word, this is where you allow yourself to think on what you have learned, mutter it to yourself over and over, till you see how you will practice it in your mind. Joshua 1:8. Practice the word, all learning and no practice is futility. Go over things studied and learned in the past. You do not drop any subject because you once studied it. The vitality and vibes of us practicing whatever we have learned in God’s word stick because we keep learning them again and again.

For a productive prayer life, here a few guides.

• Keep your mind from perpetual distraction. One way to do that is by filling your mind with God’s word and putting that word in your mind and intermittently in your mouth as you pray. It allows you to focus on those words you are praying about.

• Have pen and a paper, whenever you are praying, everything you want to do will start flooding your mind, write them down so you do not keep thinking about them, after a while “satan” will get tired and let you be. Haha. Always pray with writing material around you, so you can write down inspired words and thoughts that the spirit puts in your mind as you pray. Especially when your prayer is about making inquiries from God.

• Pray more concerning spiritual things, they are proof of maturity in prayer, not just praying for things. Pray for other saints, pray for your spiritual leaders, pray for friends and family, pray for your nation, and pray for your local church.

• You need the track record of God answering your prayers, so write the things you are praying about down, when you get answers, tick them out, they are your trophies in prayer.

• Be persistent, do not give up praying till you see results.

• Whenever anything you are praying for requires steps on your path, always take those steps. Zechariah/Elizabeth, Peter in Acts 12.

Ibukun is a Christian, a Pastor, a Certified faith-based counselor, and a worship leader. He currently serves as a Young Adults & Youth church pastor with the Redeemed Christian Church of God and is domiciled in Akure, Ondo state, Nigeria. He is passionate about teaching the Word, thereby helping believers grow spiritually. He holds several meetings via his local church which are focused on sessions of teaching the word, flowing in the Holy Ghost, and healing meetings. You can listen to Pastor Ibukun's sermons here. Check out more of his posts here.

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