The following is primarily for new believers who need some simple directions on how to grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ - Col. 1:9, 10. But at the same time it is a refresher for those who have been saved for some time but just need some gentle reminders of the basics.
Nothing should be as precious to the believer as the word of God. It tells him what God has done, what God is like, his salvation in Christ, and the things to come. It gives him hope, light, comfort, and instruction. There should be no other book like the Bible to the believer. He should love no other book better.
The Bible should be read every day. Just as the physical body needs food daily, our souls need spiritual food daily. What we ate yesterday cannot fill us today; what we read in the Bible yesterday cannot satisfy us today. We can and should read other books, but only the Bible can feed the new man inside us. How can God speak to us if we do not read his word?
One important practice in reading the Bible is to read the Bible through each year from Genesis to Revelation. There are many different ways to do this; even some Bibles include a Bible-reading plan in them. One simple way is to read about three chapters in the Old Testament and one chapter in the New Testament every day. Another plan is to read one chapter every day except Sunday beginning in Genesis, Job, and Matthew, continuing through to the other books; on Sunday read three psalms. This will take you through the Bible in a year, though the last two sections (Job to Malachi, and Matthew to Revelation) will not take the whole year and the first section (Genesis to Esther) would take longer than a year. Reading the Bible through every year will allow us to see the "whole picture" in God's plan and to see the Bible's unique unity. It is a very good practice any time we read the scriptures to keep a paper and pen near us to record what the Lord teaches us in the reading.
We should also read smaller portions of the Bible (preferably in the morning if possible) every day. In this time we are reading the Bible to let God speak to our hearts in a more personal way. We should start this time with prayer; the Spirit has to teach us his word and show us our duty or failure and give us the will to obey it. It is good to read the New Testament epistles in this time, taking perhaps 3-5 verses at a time. After we pray and read the portion for the day, we should prayerfully think about the portion and see how it applies to us. Does it have a promise for us to claim, a command we need to obey, a sin we need to forsake, an example we need to follow? This leads us naturally to the next Christian essential....
After God has spoken to us through his word (and he will speak if we will ask him), then we need to talk to him about what he has said. Prayer is like breath to the Christian. Just as a baby cries to tell his parents his needs, the believer must cry to his God. Prayer, in a general sense, is just asking a favor of someone with earnestness; to the Christian it is asking God for our needs and the needs of others with sincerity and earnestness. "Casting all your care upon him; for he careth for you." (II Peter 5:6) "The only way to be really happy in such a world as this, is to be ever casting all our cares on God." (J. C. Ryle)
Prayer can be done anytime and anywhere. We should in fact, "pray without ceasing." This does not mean that we should be all the time engaged exclusively in prayer, to the neglect of everything else. But what this does mean is that we should maintain such a prayerful frame, that the moment our minds are freed up, our hearts will rise up to God. All through the day we can send up from our hearts short, silent petitions. (These are sometimes called "Nehemiah prayers" from Nehemiah 2:4.) We can fill up the small spaces of free time we have during the day with praying for others.
We should pray before we do anything, before we go anywhere, before we talk to others. Pray about everything because we always need God's direction, his help, and his blessing on whatever we do. "In all thy ways acknowledge him and he shall direct thy paths." We can pray while we are doing other activities, such as waiting on the phone, sitting in traffic, or cleaning the house, if these activities do not require a full concentration.
However, all the prayers we may pray throughout the day do not take the place of a quiet time that we should have with God at the beginning of the day. Before we start our day and before we have any interaction with the world, we should have some time with our God. In this time it is good to seek a private, quiet place where we can pray without interruption or distraction. We may have to get up very early to do this. It is good to pray at night at the end of the day, to thank him for what he has done, acknowledge our failures and sins to him, to ask for grace to overcome these things, and to ask him to keep us through the night. It is good to take some time at lunch time, if possible, to pray to ask for grace for the rest of the day.
Prayer, in its fullest sense, consists of several parts. From studying prayers that are recorded in the Bible, one can see that prayer consists of several parts. We will cover these parts in a certain order though the order is not as important as having the parts. There are many ways and order of prayer prayed by the saints over the years. What we are presenting here is what we've learned to be a simple approach to prayer.
First we find an adoration of God.
Here we are expressing our sense of God's majesty, glory, and character. This fixes our hearts and minds on who we are praying to, the great God who loves us and wants us to come to him, the one who is almighty and the only one who can answer our prayers. This is so important. We have to know God and have faith in him if we are going to pray to him, believing he will hear us and answer us. Singing or quoting the Doxology or other praise hymns can help to get our hearts in tune. After a rich prayer of adoration to God then the next part of prayer will naturally come.
Secondly, we see a confession of our sins and ignorances to God. After spending time confessing and coming clean before our Saviour then you can see why the next part of our approach to prayer is what it is.
Thirdly, we present thanksgivings to God for His goodness to the children of men. We can thank him for our salvation in Christ, for his mercies, for his answers to our past prayers, for his blessings, our families, our church, and even our problems and trials. After all has been done then we find we can finally move to what we most often think as prayer.
Fourthly, we make our requests known unto God. We should pray for ourselves and others: our family, our preacher, church members and friends, our neighbors, other churches and preachers, missionaries we know of, our civil leaders, our nation, and other nations of the world. Pray for more laborers to be sent out to witness to others. Pray continually for the Holy Spirit's enabling for yourself and others. Pray for an outpouring of God's Holy Spirit on the church today. Pray daily for God to keep us clothed with the whole armor of God. There is so much to pray for. The souls of people are at stake; we must pray. It is good to make up a prayer list of the people in our lives that we want to pray for. Divide them up by the days of the week. Some we will want to pray for daily. Some things we will want to pray for every day (provision, protection from temptation and evil, the life of Christ to live through us, opportunities for witnessing and service, etc.). Write these down. Also make a list of immediate, temporary, specific problems and concerns. Pray about these and write down the date God answers our prayer. This encourages us to pray more and to give God thanks for what he has done. If we don't thank him, why should he do more? In mercy he will, but we should always thank him!
Do you want peace and comfort in your Christian life? Look at the following verses on prayer and especially the promise of verse 7:
Phil 4:6 Be careful for nothing; but in every thing by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known unto God.
Phil 4:7 And the peace of God, which passeth all understanding, shall keep your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus.
Quotes on prayer from the revised edition of Andrew Murray's The Believer's School of Prayer
"Jesus teaches us that although we seek God's gifts, God wants to give us himself first."
"Faith in God begets faith in the promise of an answer to prayer."
"Ordinary Christians imagine that all that is not positively forbidden and sinful is lawful to them, and they seek to retain as much as possible of this world, its properties, its literature, and its enjoyments. In contrast, the truly consecrated soul is like the soldier who carries only what he needs for battle. Laying aside every weight and the sin that easily trips him up, afraid of entangling himself with the affairs of this life, he seeks to lead a life as one especially set apart for the Lord and His service. Without such voluntary separation-even from what is lawful-no one will attain full power in prayer."
"Not the feeling I muster up in prayer but the tone of my life during the day is God's criterion of what I really am and desire. My prayer is measured not according to what I try to be when I am praying but by what I am when I am not praying."
"Right relations, both with God and with those around me, are conditions of effective prayer."
"We sometimes work for Christ out of zeal for his cause or for our own spiritual health without giving ourselves in self-sacrificing love for those whose souls we seek."
"God rules the world by the prayers of His saints; that prayer is the power by which Satan is conquered; by prayer the church on earth has at its disposal the powers of the heavenly world."
"Live as a child of God, and you may pray as a child with complete certainty of an answer."
"We must seek for grace to pray in such a way that the answer comes. It is far easier for the flesh to submit without the answer than to yield itself to be searched and purified by the Spirit until it has learned to pray the prayer of faith."
"I say these things to encourage you to gather all Christ's teaching about prayer and to believe the truth that when prayer is what it should be, when we are what we should be, the answer should be expected."
"Only when the whole life, in all its parts, is surrendered to God's glory can we really pray to His glory."
The word of God is precious to our souls and much needed. Jesus said in Mat 4:4 It is written, Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God. We have seen above that reading the word of God is important in the growth of the new believer and it should be with us everywhere we go. But we just can't carry our Bibles around with us and be able to read it everywhere we go so what is the solution? We must commit the scriptures to memory. Why commit scripture to memory? First, for ourselves - as we store up the word of God in our hearts then we can draw upon those verses when needed for our own strength, comfort and edification at a moment's notice. For example, when sin tempts us the word is hid in our hearts to keep us from that sin - Psa 119:11 Thy word have I hid in mine heart, that I might not sin against thee. Also, we man we need peace so up comes - Isa 26:3 Thou wilt keep him in perfect peace, whose mind is stayed on thee: because he trusteth in thee. Another example - we might need to remind ourselves of our focus, Col 3:2 Set your affection on things above, not on things on the earth. Do you see what we mean here? We, as saints walk through this vile world and we need god's word available to us at all times for we should walk by faith and not by sight and Rom. 10:17 says, So then faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the word of God. So, we need God's word for our faith to remain strong.
The second reason we need to commit the scriptures to memory is for others. Peter tells us, "be ready always to give an answer to every man that asketh you a reason of the hope that is in you with meekness and fear:" According to Heb. 4;14, the word of God is quick and power so we must be ready to speak the word of truth to others to help them. If we want to be able to tell others about salvation then quoting the word of God is the best way to tell others since it is the word of god that worketh effectually - I Thess. 2:13.
So, we need to commit the word of God to memory for our own spiritual growth and for the helping of others.
How does one memorize scripture? It is easy - there are many methods and scripture memorization programs available bur for now try this: Write out some categories that you think will help you and others such as: Comfort, salvation, heaven, etc. Then pick two or three verses that fit those categories. Write them out on 3x5 index cards. Then choose two a week and read and pray over them every day for a week. As you learn them weekly find time to review each week your previous week's verses. And then after each month go over your previous months'. The next thing you know you will have At the end of the month you will have learned 96-118 verses by the end of the year. That is a lot of verses!
Now, you can take the sword of the Spirit everywhere you go and be prepared! You will truly be blessed for having learned so many verses. Remember, there are many memorization programs and this is only one. Find one that you feel comfortable with and start memorizing today - God will bless you for it!
God desires worship from his children. We have seen thus far that Bible-reading and prayer time are two means God has given us to worship Him and to know Him better. Private worship and devotions are important but more is needed for the saint to really be what God desires him to be. One of God means of aiding in that growth is attending a local, Bible-believing, church for the purpose of corporate worship. God uses the coming together of saints of like faith to worship Him corporately. God never intended us to stand on or own. There is too much against the saint today for the saint to be on his own. Gathering with other saints to sing, pray, hear scripture read and preached is one of the most important practices a saint can do. God uses the preaching of the word by the local preacher in a very special way. It is at corporate worship that the saint enters into fellowship with other saints.
Most of Paul's letters are written to local churches so for one to say they are not in the Bible is inaccurate. God places an emphasis on the local church. Here the saint can worship God and grow with other saints. A group of believers joined together can do more for the cause of Christ than one. God's blessing flow from Him down to the local church and out to the individual and then others.
Make it a habit to never miss corporate worship service. Church attendance is vital to your soul and others. It is in the local church that the saint becomes a blessing to others by giving his time, resources, and prayers for the furtherance of the gospel.
Establish the habit of faithful attendance to a local church and never miss unless God providentially keeps you away. "No person who neglects public worship upon the Sabbath, when it is in his power to attend, can expect a blessing upon his soul." (Harvey Newcomb)
Do you remember how you became a Christian? You may have heard the gospel in a church service or possibly while reading the Bible God showed your sins and after reading the gospel you believed on the Lord Jesus Christ. But most likely someone told you the wonderful plan of salvation. Remember how wonderful you felt after you trusted Christ as your saviour? Wouldn't you like to be able to see somebody come to know Christ as their saviour and feel like you did? This is part of our duty as believers to tell others about the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ. God desires for people to be saved. God uses people to get His message out to others whom he desires to save. Telling the lost about Christ is what we call witnessing. We are witnessing to the fact that Christ came to seek and save them that are lost and that by trusting Christ they can be saved from their sins. God has called those who are saved to be ambassadors. Ambassadors represent a government to people of a foreign land. We are ambassadors for Christ who go to the people of a foreign land, this world, and give people the message of reconciliation.
What is our message? We are to tell people that they are sinners - Rom. 3:23. And because of their sins they will die and spend eternity in hell because sin cannot enter into heaven to spend eternity with God. They must know that they cannot pay for their sins themselves - Tit. 3:5. The good news is that Christ took their place at Calvary by dying in their place and that God would accept what Christ did for them. Basically we are to preach the gospel which is found in:
1 Cor 15:1 Moreover, brethren, I declare unto you the gospel which I preached unto you, which also ye have received, and wherein ye stand;
1 Cor 15:2 By which also ye are saved, if ye keep in memory what I preached unto you, unless ye have believed in vain.
1 Cor 15:3 For I delivered unto you first of all that which I also received, how that Christ died for our sins according to the scriptures;
1 Cor 15:4 And that he was buried, and that he rose again the third day according to the scriptures:
Why should we go and preach the gospel? Because God called us to be ambassadors. The world is white unto harvest and people need the opportunity to hear the glorious gospel - Rom 10:15 And how shall they preach, except they be sent? as it is written, How beautiful are the feet of them that preach the gospel of peace, and bring glad tidings of good things! We are certainly bringing glad tidings to the lost. If you had cancer and you know someone out there had the cure wouldn't you want to know the cure? Well, we have the cure for man's sin. Are we to keep it to ourselves? No, of course not - we should take our cure everywhere we go.
Will, everybody listen? Not everyone will but not everyone listened to Jesus when he went to preach either. This should not stop us - we are to go in the power of the Spirit seeking those whose hearts God has prepared for us.
When and where can we witness? We can witness anytime. Some people plan to go out specifically just to witness. They pick a time to go and even a place. You can witness to people as you sit waiting in a dentist's office or in the grocery line. The world is there just waiting for you. Witnessing can be spontaneous or you can pick a special time to go just for the sake of witnessing.
What can I do to prepare myself to go? First spend time in pray asking God to prepared hearts and lead you to where He would have you to go. Take your Bible with you with pages marked so you can quickly refer to them to show the people the word of God for faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the word of God. Try to always go with a partner who can assist in pray and for encouragement.
What if they don't want to listen or they don't get saved? We are not to be discouraged for they are not rejecting us but God. Our duty is to go and water the crop - God's duty is to bare the fruit. We are to witness in the power of the Holy Spirit and leave the results to God.
Witnessing for the Lord can be the most thrilling and rewarding event one can do. There is nothing else like - especially when you see someone come to know Christ as their Saviour because God used you to give them the gospel of Jesus Christ.
Do not neglect this important and exciting duty. Learn to present the gospel in a clear and simple manner. In reality, all you are really doing is telling people what happened to you! Jesus said the fields are white unto the harvest - all that t is needed are willing laborers of the gospel. Are you willing to go? God will do the equipping - He just needs some willing and faithful saints to deliver His message.
We trust the above five articles will aid you in your Christian walk.
May God bless!!!