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The Book and its Topic
Lord, Teach Me to Pray in 28 Days! This is the anxious cry of many disciples of Christ.
Bad news! This book will not teach you to pray in 28 days. Only God can do that. If you read the book, follow its very practical guidelines and work on your relationship with God, you will be setting the stage for the Holy Spirit to teach you to pray.
The 12 disciples of Jesus Christ once asked Him to teach them how to pray. Jesus replied with the well-known “Our Father in Heaven” prayer of Matthew 9-13. I do not think Jesus was only speaking to them when He taught this. That is the way we should pray!
Sounds simple, right? Every morning we get up and we quickly recite the “Our Father” and we are good to go... Wrong! Author Kay Arthur illustrates how we need to use this prayer as a model for our prayers. Our prayers should be our own, and should be in our own words and with our own concerns. But as Kay illustrates the outline for our prayers should be based on Matthew 6:9-13.
Lord, Teach Me to Pray in 28 Days is written in a format true to its title. It is like a little 28 day course in prayer. Every day you will pray, and move closer to being that prayer warrior you always wanted to be.
There is also some focus on listening to what God wants to say. This might be the most useful part of the book. Many Christian no longer believe that God speaks to them personally, and Kay tends to differ. God does still speak to us today; we must just learn to listen.
This book claims “Knowing How to Pray Can Change Your Life”. It is true, and I am speaking from experience. Experience obtained from this little book.
So, how does it read?
This book is an easy read. As I have said, it is written in the format of a 28 day course. For 28 days, after doing personal Bible study in the morning, just spend an extra 20 minutes or so to read that day’s section and follow the instructions.
Can it be simpler? In one sense I regret that it is not a book for normal reading, because you would be able to read it in an afternoon (or two). But the implementation of the teachings over a four week period is very good for habit forming and growth in prayer.
And, the Holy Spirit must have some time. You might be in really bad prayer shape when you pick up this book...
The book has 145 pages, and concludes with questions for group discussion. It lends itself excellently to a group course.
You will enjoy reading it, and most-probably sometimes catch yourself wanting the daily sections a tad longer...
What did this book mean to me personally?
At the time of reading this book, I had a few doubts about my own prayer life. Uncertainty can lead to problems. My biggest uncertainty was whether I was praying in a way that was acceptable to God.
Then I stumbled across Lord, Teach Me to Pray in 28 Days. This book did more than just reassure me. It helped me improve my relationship with God. Now my relationship with my creator is a two-way relationship. I speak, and I listen. Then, I obey what I have heard.
Is there any more sure-fire way to be certain that you are inside God’s perfect will for your life than receiving daily instructions?
In will most probably be praying and growing in the way that this simple little book teaches for the rest of my life. Thanks for your obedience Kay!
Conclusion
Our relationship with God is very important. In fact, you were created for a love relationship with your heavenly Father. Lord, Teach Me to Pray in 28 Days is an excellent tool to teach you more about this relationship and how to grow it.
See, a relationship goes both ways. You speak and then you listen. Then you speak again, and so on... Lord, Teach Me to Pray in 28 Days will help you learn from your Lord concerning prayer and this two way relationship.
This book is practical. I am a practical person. It will show you very practically how to pray, what to pray and what to expect when you pray. I believe this is what sets it apart from the other books on prayer out there. It was about time someone gave us some practical advice...
At the time of writing this review, this was the highest rated book on BookDisciple.com and for good reason. If you are in any way not happy with your prayer life, this is the book for you! We all need to learn from our Lord on prayer.
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