(RE)quipping: Grow as a Man of Prayer: 5 Time-Tested Tips – Equipping Men in Ten EP 1002

You struggle with blocking a consistent time to grow in your relationship with God. Would you like to learn some time tested and simple ways to grow in your relationship with Jesus? From yours truly, these are things I've done all my life. If you want to know about that stuff, stay tuned. It's not the critical counts. Not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles or where the dual of these could have done them better. The great of belongs to the man who was actually in the arena, whose face is marked by dust and sweat and blood. From men in the arena. It's equipping men in 10. Our conviction is to call you into the arena of manhood. Call you out of the faceless, nameless bleachers and call you up to be the best version of you because when a man gets it, everyone wins. Enjoy today's episode. - Men in the arena, army, I salute you. Hey guys, thank you for listening to another episode of The Men in the Arena podcast. I'm Jim Raymos. Your host of Spotify's number one podcast for Christian men. This is equipping men in 10. Hey guys, let's jump into me the podcast this afternoon or whenever you are listening. And I want to talk to you about how I grow in my relationship with Jesus Christ. You know, I came to Christ not because I'm afraid of going to hell, not because I want to go heaven. I came to Christ many, many years ago because I wanted to have a relationship with God. Very, very important to me. So here's how I do it. But before I go into that, I want to tell you this. I have been a vocational, minister my entire life, which means I'm paid and expected to read my Bible. I'm paid and expected to attend church. I'm paid and expected to pray, give, serve all these things. So when I'm talking about my relationship with Jesus, these are things I do beyond the context of my job. These are things that I do for my own personal devotional life and growing in my relationship with Jesus. So I'm just gonna unpack a few things and ways I personally practice prayer. The number one thing I want to tell you, number one out of this list is I have certain rules about prayer when it comes to people. And here it is. I do not pray for people. I pray with people. So when somebody comes to me with what I think is a prayer request, maybe it's a pain point, you know, maybe they've got somebody in their life who's struggling, I take the opportunity to pray with that person. I did that a couple times just last night at one of our men's gatherings. The second thing I would tell you is this, if you say you're gonna pray for somebody, do it. So if it's online, if it's a phone call, if it's a situation, maybe you can't pray with them in person and you tell them you're gonna pray with them, make sure you pray with them. If it's in person, pray with them, if it's not in person, pray for them. But if you're gonna say you're gonna pray, make sure you do it. So here is what I'm calling random. These are random rules about unceasing prayer. I know some people love the word unceasing prayer, you know, Paul in 1 Thessalonians 517, he said, "Pray without ceasing." And so if I were to take that phrase and try to unpack that theologically, I would say this, and this is the rule, I said, I pray for people, circumstances and opportunities when they pop in my brain. So when I'm driving or I'm in silence somewhere or I'm in the shower or wherever I am, if somebody's name pops in my brain, I pray for them. If a circumstance pops in my brain, I pray about it. If an idea comes to my brain, I jump out of the shower and I write it down on my phone, you know, my yellow note pad, literally, it's not a pretty sight, I do that. So when I hear the voice that I determine is God prompting something in me, I make sure I deal with it now. The third thing I wanna tell you is this, it's really important, find a war room. So yeah, it is important to be in a state of unceasing readiness or unceasing prayer. But Jesus throughout scripture, constantly, constantly, constantly went to pray. You know, Judas knew he would be in the garden of Gives Thamni 'cause that is where Jesus went to pray. That was his go-to place. So find a war room. So for me, the first thing I do when I come to my office in the morning because this is kind of my man cave, I feel comfortable in here. I can darken the room, I can darken the shades. I spend an hour in here, pry five to four to five days a week, just praying. And when I'm praying, I'm praying, I'm praying a couple of things and I'm gonna share those with you in a bit. But the most important thing is block a time where you will do this. For some of you, it's your car on the way to work. That's when you get your prayer time in. For others of you, maybe it's at your church, go into your church and pray. And some others, maybe in your house somewhere. I don't know where it is for you, but this is what I would recommend. And now, the next one is what I call the Pareto Principle on Prayer. This goes back to the Pareto Pareto, who is an Italian economist. And he had this 80/20 rule when it comes to economy. But what I wanna say is I have an 80/20 rule when it comes to prayer. And here it is. And I'm an extrovert. When I walk into my suck the auction out of the room, I like to talk, I like to socialize, I like to engage, but when I pray, I spend at least 80% of my time in silence and reflection and solitude and 20% of the time max in actually using words to pray. We have mistakenly told our culture that praying is talking to God. In fact, I just turned a sermon on this couple of weeks ago that praying is talking to God. And I don't think it is. I think praying is turning to God, the talking follows. So what are the mediums or what are the methods I use when I pray? When I pray, I use three methods or three outlines. And here they are. The first one is the Lord's Prayer. I believe that when Jesus gave us the Lord's Prayer, that is an outline. It is not meant to recite by memory. Now, if you wanna know what that means, you can check out episodes 585 and 587. I love praying the Lord's Prayer. And man, if you pray that right, it takes quite a while. It's just a beautiful, beautiful prayer. And it's the way that Jesus taught us disciples to pray. So I think if Jesus did it and if Jesus taught it, I think it's good enough for us. But to not get caught in monotony, I like to mix it up. One of the things I like to do is I like to reverse engineer Psalm 4610A. So Psalm 4610A says, "Be still and know that I am God." So I will reverse engineer that when I pray. And if you wanna know more about that, check out episodes 473 and 583. The last thing I like to pray in the mornings is I like to pray my personal vision statement. Now, I wrote my personal vision statement when I was 32 years old. I'm 57 years old, so you do the math. I've been praying this statement regularly, most of my adult life. And my personal vision is very simple. To glorify God of my spiritual shape, letting Him mold me through humility into His image, loving my family with honor, living each day to the fullest with courageous abandon, leading others with grace, and leaving the legacy through writing, speaking, and change lives. And that is a five-part prayer. And I will just work myself through that prayer, praying for the people I love, praying for the people that I work with, reflecting on where I'm at in my journey. And it's just a very, very rewarding time for me in prayer. So that is what I do for prayer. I hope that helps you guys to dial in the scope a little bit on your prayer life, because guys, this is not a religion. This is about a relationship with Jesus. And so if we're gonna have a relationship with God, we have to do more than read and learn about Him. Man, when I first discovered Shanna existed, her name was Shanna Haley. I asked everybody I knew about her, but it wasn't until we had a relationship, that that relationship blossomed. So guys, make sure you head on over to our website at manoran.org. Grab your free copy of my book, tell them what great fathers, tell their sons and daughters. Be on the lookout for my new book coming out. It's a free resource for you called ManLaws, 100 ways to have your man card revoked and rules to live by man. By the time we get that book out, it may be 105 ways. I keep getting ManLaws coming in. So, but check that out. You're gonna love that resource. And make sure you sign up to join one of our many virtual teams. Guys, that has got to be the next logical step that you invest in you. Get involved in the virtual team. We are hearing stories of life change. Man, we're having family trees change because of these virtual groups. You need to sign up and do it ASAP. Click the join our program button on our homepage. Until next time, fill the wet sound on the arena floor. Here the deafening or the crowd. Taste the sweetness of victory. Smell the stench about it. Get the game, get dirty, grind it out. Pray like crazy. Be a man.