Why Pray the Word?

My kids used to ask me, "Dad, why do you pray so many bible verses outloud?"

It seems many people who consider praying the Word at some point wonder why they should do it. On one hand it seems kind of foolish, praying the words God wrote back to Him. Are we so dull that we cannot come up with meaningful prayers ourselves?

I told my kids at the time that when you pray alot you run out of your own words and since I want God's promises to come alive in our family I declare them outloud. The Bible is full of people praying that way, quoting other Scriptures.

By watching me they are learning how to pray the Word as well.

The other day I felt like the Lord let me in on a even better reason why praying the Word is so important. The revelation came through my son D.J. He's two years old now and learning to talk up a storm. How does he learn to talk? The same way we all did, by making the same sounds his dad and mom make. He learns to speak to us by saying the things we say. As he experiences the world around him he sees us communicating with stange sounds and he begins copying us, "truck, cars, mom, dada, more" etc. From one word spurts he began putting two and three words together into phrases. The closer he gets to intelligble words the more we understand and answer his requests. Things move especially fast when he really wants something so he is very motivated to learn how to say it so we understand and give it to him.

It's the same with us and God. The best way to learn to communicate with God is by saying things his way. He wants us to learn a new language. He wants to teach us a new way of thinking. So he gives us a whole vocabulary and new way of thinking in his words to us.

As we learn to declare his words appropriately, a new bond of communication between us and Him develops. The more we do it, the better it gets, and we sense our relationship with the Lord becoming stronger and more passionate .

We forget that we are really babes and one of the signs of growing up in spiritual maturity is how much we pray God's words.

So much of our bible teaching today looks at God's words as literature, or history. While all that is fine and good, it diffuses the true nature of God's word. Let us not forget that Jesus Christ literally is the Word.

Joh 1:1 IN THE beginning [before all time] was the Word (Christ), and the Word was with God, and the Word was God Himself. [Isa. 9:6.]

Joh 1:14 And the Word (Christ) became flesh (human, incarnate) and tabernacled (fixed His tent of flesh, lived awhile) among us; and we [actually] saw His glory (His honor, His majesty), such glory as an only begotten son receives from his father, full of grace (favor, loving-kindness) and truth. [Isa. 40:5.]

So praying the Word is praying Jesus Christ into our mind and into the atmosphere surrounding any situation.

My wife points out that children learn to say words before they really understand the meaning of them. It's the same with us in the Spirit realm. As we declare God's truth even before we fully understand it, his Word begins to take effect. It's as if the more we say it, the more we learn what it means.

So next time you pray... try turning a verse or two of meaningful scripture into your prayer to God.

DP