How to read your Biblle and pray

We open our time of devotion with a short prayer to firstly ask God for forgiveness for our sins and to purify our hearts so that they may be open to receive the Holy Spirit.

We ask that the Holy Spirit will guide us while we read the Word of God and that we may receive the message God has in store for us.

I find the Living Bible an easy read, although I read Psalm 23 from the Revised Standard – it is just so beautifully written. We have a lovely 4-in-1 Bible with the King James, Modern Language, Living Bible and Revised Standard translation.

When we first started reading the Bible, we started with Psalm 23 to open up our time of devotion daily. We would then read another Psalm, working systematically from the beginning of Psalms, to the end. We also read a daily Proverb – there is so much wisdom and practical lessons in Proverbs.

We then close in prayer again, this time with a much longer prayer, covering various aspects, in this order:

Thanks – we thank God for His forgiveness and grace, for the message we received in the Word of God and anything else we are thankful for.

Intercession – we pray for our family and friends or anyone else who needs prayer that we know of.

Personal – we pray for any issues in our lives.

Praise – we praise God. A great man of God said something very true on television the other day: “When the praise goes up, the blessing have got to come down!”

Your prayers will evolve as you grow up in the spirit and you will start finding more to say to Him and plenty to praise Him for.