A Better Perspective on the Rules of Prayer

Relating Prayer to a Sport – Part 4

The Sport of Prayer – Part 2.4

Every sport has rules to how the game is played and if we think of prayer as a sport with games that are played what are its rules? This concept of a sport is simple. The game has rules. Like in the game of football, a team gets only 4 downs until the ball must be given to the opponent or you gain the necessary yardage to get a new set of downs. In football, you get only 4 downs. Prayer is similar in that there are rules to how it’s done. There are rules that aren’t always considered which limits an individual’s ability to play. Your knowledge of the rules directly correlates to the results you get when playing the game.

I am obviously not going to list all the rules there are and can be when it comes to prayer. My goal is to give you what you need to understand it, and figure out the rules you need to observe in order to take prayer to the next level in your life. You might be thinking that prayer has no rules. I often challenge people in this type of thinking. I explain how prayer is easy, but at the same time it’s not. For example, the scripture says pray about everything. Well, what’s everything? Have you ever tried to write down everything? Just as writing down everything can be challenging, surely praying about everything must present a challenge. Then again, writing down everything can be simple. Begin to write. Praying about everything can be that simple as well. Begin praying about everything. Therefore, a next-level pray-er (person who prays) never runs out of items to talk to God about. In other words, a next-level pray-er runs out of time before she or he runs out of stuff to talk about with God.

Sports have rules. Does prayer have rules?
I think it would do us well to ask ourselves this question. Does prayer have rules? We can all agree from previous lessons that we don’t know enough on the subject of prayer. Therefore, we don’t know how to answer this question easily. Allow me to clear up something here. I’m not about to give you the rules to prayer, but rather the tools to question the rules you find common in prayer. Allow me to ask the questions to show you what I mean:

  1. Do you have to bow your head and close your eyes when you pray?
  2. Do you have to end your prayers with Amen?
  3. Do you have to use your prayer voice when you pray?
  4. Do you have to pray at dinner?
  5. Is everything that’s present to us as prayer, really prayer?

I’ll stop there. When you get your guidance about prayer from a next-level pray-er, one can get beyond the simple myths about prayer and get to next-level prayer.

  1. Jesus never taught His disciples to bow their heads or close their eyes for prayer. Don’t hear what I’m not saying. I’m not saying you can’t; I’m saying don’t make this the only rule available in the game of prayer.
  2. Every prayer you pray doesn’t have to end in Amen. In fact, most prayers found in the Bible don’t end that way. Is this a rule you’re holding on to for dear life and keeping you from going to the next level? Again, don’t hear what I’m not saying. I like the fact that we have an ending that signals when one is done praying, Amen.
  3. If you are using a prayer voice or performing a routine when you pray, you are more than likely not praying. If you change your speech when you pray, you’re more than likely not speaking to God genuinely. Once again, don’t hear what I’m not saying. I’m a believer and as a believer I believe that a little prayer goes a long way. In the same way a little faith can move a mountain so can a little prayer when offered in faith.
  4. There’s no hard fashioned rule that says you should pray over any meal. In fact, I’d feel better if you had communion at each dinner rather than prayer. There’s more evidence that communion occurred at the evening meal than prayer. At any rate, praying at meal time is simply another opportunity to pray about everything. Use it as a meaningful time of prayer and not just a recitation of a memorized “prayer.” By the way, a memorized prayer isn’t really prayer. This is next level prayer!
  5. Not everything that’s presented to us as prayer is prayer. Not everyone who says they’ve prayed has prayed. For example, repeating declarations, confessions, affirmations and such isn’t prayer. In fact, if you want next-level, not even thanksgiving or worship qualifies as prayer. They are something totally different. Not to say you can’t worship, give thanks, declare some things, and pray in the same setting. We’re talking about taking prayer to the next level.

I hope those five questions and the responses to them have stretched your mind beyond normal. There are many more scenarios and I’m sorry I can’t hit them all. The point is this; get your rules about prayer from the only place that can offer such rules, the BIBLE.

A team & individual activity. Is prayer both individual and team driven?
Is prayer both an individual and team sport? I really like this question and the answer is yes. One can pray as an individual and yes, we can pray as a team. In either case prayer can be quite effective. Does that mean you need others to pray with you? The answer to that is no. You need no one else to pray with you. However, you could benefit when others pray together. The scripture says that one can put to flight 1000 and two can put to flight 10,000. [1] There are exponential results that occur when we partner together in anything including prayer.

I like to say it this way. As you’ve heard many times, we are the body of Christ and we are all fitted together in our appropriate place in the body. Each of us brings our uniqueness, our gifts, to the body. Because of this, it makes the body more complete, operable, and effective. When we pray together, the abilities of the person next to you add to the prayers one offers. Every time Pamela and I are in the prayer room with a team of pray-ers, I’m always amazed and learning. I love hearing the prayers of others because they don’t pray like me or make the requests that I would make. That means together we’re making more requests of God than I could on my own. It’s our goal to pray about everything and if we can, we want to wear God out in prayer. The more we sow in the field of prayer, the bigger the harvest we will reap as a result. If prayer is a sport like basketball, if we don’t ever shoot the ball, we don’t ever have to worry about scoring. The same is true in prayer, if you never pray, you don’t have to ever worry about God answering your prayers.

Like a sport that has rules, prayer has rules, but more than likely not the ones you’ve naturally been given. Therefore, if you want to understand this concept of prayer and take it to the next level, you’ll need to dig in more to what the Bible offers on the subject. Begin reviewing every character in the Bible to see how they prayed and learn from it. This is next-level prayer.

Question: what rules of prayer have you allowed to keep you from going to the next-level in prayer?

Reference #1: ‭‭Deuteronomy 32:30 NKJV‬‬‬‬‬‬, Bible.com, accessed February 28, 2022, https://www.bible.com/bible/114/DEU.32.30.NKJV

All Scripture references used by permission, see our Scripture copyrights.

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