Holding to Truth

holding to truth in love for the building up of the Body of Christ

3 Vital Practices to Uplift Your Prayer Life

3 Vital Practices to Uplift Your Prayer Life - Thanksgiving, Praise and Worship

Have you ever noticed your prayer life becoming routine or stale? I know I have.

Praying routine prayers, without having a fresh touch with the Lord Jesus, can cause you to lose interest in prayer and possibly neglect it entirely. What a loss!

But what can you do to vitalize and uplift your prayer life? …

Fill your prayer life with thanksgiving, praise, and worship!

Psalm 100:4  says,

“Enter His gates with thanksgiving, / His courts with praise; / Give thanks to Him; bless His name.”

From this verse, I was impressed with a marvelous progression—beginning with thanksgiving, continuing with praise and consummating with blessing, or worship.

First, thank God for His grace and for all things.

It’s really good to enter the Lord’s presence with thanksgiving. This is especially true at the beginning of each day.

In Ephesians 5:18-20, Paul speaks of being filled in spirit and continues with various kinds of speaking, including singing, psalming, and giving thanks.  Verse 20 says,

Giving thanks at all times for all things in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ to our God and Father.”

From my own experience, I can confirm that giving thanks is not just an outflow of being filled in our spirit with the Lord Jesus. It’s also a way to be filled with Him. (See note 1 on verse 19 in the Recovery Version).

A note on this  verse goes on to say that,

“We should give thanks to God the Father not only in good times but at all times, and not only for good things but for all things. Even in bad times we should give thanks to God our Father for the bad things.”(Holy Bible Recovery Version, Eph. 5:20, note 1)

We should simply thank God for whatever we can…for a new day to live, for air to breathe and for food to eat. Even in our suffering situations, God’s grace—God in Christ as our enjoyment—is available to us.  The situations may be difficult, but hidden behind them is a sweet visitation of God’s grace. We just need to begin to thank God regardless of our outward situation.

Just take a moment right now to thank the Lord for anything that comes up in your heart. You may want to pray,

Father, thank you for all that You have done for me. Thank you for giving me my life and a heart to seek You. Thank you for revealing Your Son, Jesus Christ, to me so that I could believe into Him. Thank you for saving me—for forgiving me of all my sins and for giving me Your divine life so that I could become Your child. Thank you for giving me this new day to love You, to know You more, and to grow up in Your life.”

Second, praise the Lord for His acts.

After entering the Lord’s gates with thanksgiving, we need to go on “to enter into His courts with praise.” Giving thanks is basic. Offering praise requires a deeper appreciation.

Practicing to thank God—for food, clothes, and family, etc.—is something even the youngest children should be helped to do. Giving thanks is a real preservation to them—as well as to us. But we need to go further—to progress from thanks to praise. This requires that we see God’s acts from His Word, to know what He has done and is doing.

In Lessons for New Believers, Witness Lee says,

“The emphasis in giving thanks is to thank God for His grace, and the emphasis in praising is to praise God for His acts. Through prayer, we not only touch God’s grace but also witness God’s acts. God’s grace requires thanksgiving, and His acts require praises. We can praise by saying, “Lord, I praise You. You are the wonderful Lord who does wonderful things. Even as I tell You of my difficulties, I sense that You have already taken care of this matter. Your promise is sufficient for me. Praise You!” With respect to the grace of God, we need to give thanks, and with respect to the acts of God, we need to offer praises.” (Lessons for New Believers, Lesson 7, pp. 103-104)

 Third, worship the Lord for Who He is.

Finally, we need to take our prayer life higher to simply worship God for Himself—for who He is and even that He is.

Psalm 29:2  says,

“Ascribe to Jehovah the glory of His name;  Worship Jehovah in holy splendor.

Here it is not only a matter of thanking God for His grace or praising Him for what He does.  Now it is a matter of worshipping God Himself.

Opening our mouth to thank and praise the Lord uplifts us out of our earthly concerns, and enables us to set our mind on the things which are above where Christ is (Col 3:1-2). Such speaking ushers us into our deepest part—our spirit.

Then— in our spirit—we can offer God the true worship that He is seeking. John 4:24 says,

 “God is Spirit and those who worship Him must worship in spirit…

In How to Enjoy God and How to Practice the Enjoyment of God, Witness Lee says,

 “As we touch Him, remain in Him, behold His loveliness, converse with Him, inquire of Him, wait on Him, and muse upon Him, we should worship Him. We should worship Him in our spirit and with our whole being. We should attune our entire being to His holy splendor and worship Him in holy splendor (Psa. 29:2). We should prostrate ourselves before Him and offer Him our worship.” (p. 64)

We can worship God Himself by saying,

“Father, we worship You for Who You are.  You’re the eternal One and the source of eternal life. You are love and You are light. You’re the transcendent One. You’re ever new and fresh. You’re faithful. You’re righteous and You’re holy. You’re the only wise God. We give all our worship to You.”

Ultimately, why is such vital, God-contacting prayer so important?  It’s crucial because it affords God a way to impart Himself into us and to thoroughly mingle Himself with us so that we can become one with Him and so that He can be expressed through us personally and corporately. May the Lord bring us more deeply into such an uplifted prayer life.

If you enjoyed this post, I hope you’d take a moment to confirm with a short comment and then check out the other related posts on the Prayer Life page.

Further Resources:

Photo Credit: Muffet

About Tom Smith

Hi. My name is Tom Smith. I'm the writer behind Holding to Truth in Love, and I love the Lord Jesus and His life-giving Word. Please feel free to send me an e-mail through the contact page if you have any questions. I hope you'd take a moment to subscribe to the Holding to Truth blog. Then you'll be sure not to miss a post. Thanks!

9 Replies

  1. Pelita

    So very rich truth! I am very much exposed the fact that my prayer often times is a kind of routine. As far as the 3 vital practices are concerned, most of the time thanking is always present. I realize my prayer is lacking in recognizing the Lord’s acts—that is to praise Him and further more in opening my mouth to worship Him. May the Lord continue to work within me/us that our prayers will be uplifted!

    1. Tom Smith

      By routine, our prayers tend to focus on ourselves and our needs. But genuine prayer is actually to meet God’s need and should be focused on Him. When our prayers enter into God’s heart, God is satisfied and our need is met. A good way to elevate our prayers into God’s desire and heart is to thank Him, praise Him and worship Him. In this way we see the Lord. When we see Him, we gain Him and He grows in us. This is the real answer that we need. Thank you for your confirming comment.

  2. Timmy

    I’m really amazed by this post for it opened my eyes.I was one of the individuals who went before God with worries and troubles witthout even thinking of praising and thanking God .Thank you

    1. Tom Smith

      It is wonderful that the Lord opened your eyes! Like you, I often find myself just bringing my concerns to the Lord, while neglecting to thank Him, praise Him and worship Him. Such a view keeps us on the earthly level. But when we thank the Lord, praise Him and worship Him, we’re elevated out of our situation. As we appreciate the Lord in this way, He infuses us with Himself and we gain Him as the real answer we need. Thank you for your confirming comment.

  3. This post reminded me of my recent reading of the Song of Songs. There, the lover and the Beloved spend much time appraising one another until the lover becomes one with the Beloved. I realized from this post that the lover’s answer to the question from the daughter’s of Jerusalem (“what is your Beloved more than some others’ beloved?”) was her worshiping of Him. I would really like to enter into this realm of prayer! Thank you very much for the helpful post. I will practice thanking, praising, and blessing!

    1. Tom Smith

      So true. Song of Songs shows us both the lover appraising her beloved and her beloved appraising her. May our prayers advance to this realm where we go beyond merely asking the Lord for things to thanking, praising and blessing or worshiping Him. The more we appreciate Him—praising Him for who He is and what He does, the more we are transformed to His image. As we behold Him and praise Him, His Spirit transfuses us with what He is (2 Cor. 3:18). Thanks for the confirming comment.

  4. Koit

    Praise the Lord!
    I am thankful to the Lord that we can contact Him and be one with Him so that He is really lived out of us!
    By giving thanks to the Father, praising Him and worshipin Him for what He is, we set our mind on the spirit!
    Hallelujah!

    1. Tom Smith

      Koit,

      Amen. Our giving thanks, praise and worship to the Lord bring us into contact with Him so that He can be lived out of us. So true that in this way we set our mind on the spirit, enjoy life and peace, enable the law of life to freely operate in us so that we can grow up in Christ more quickly to the full stature of Christ.

  5. Ana Lara

    Amen. Being thankful is recognizing that God is and we are not. Praise Him for He is the sovereign God of the Universe!

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