PRAYER - Is about living in Christ

Clearly prayer is something that Jesus 'did' and yet in praying there was an essence of God all around. David in the Psalms he wrote provides us with a view of this essence and how he related to God and with God. Jesus shows how to relate IN God, as in one with God.
Prayer shows up as something more than just words and emotions, and spiritual insight. I believe prayer has roots in the new life we have in God; in fact I believe prayer is an essential part of living the new life for us on this earth. Let's check it out.

Study of Prayer Life - David's Gift

David is shown to have a relationship with God that was so real that it brought him victory in the face of defeat and transformed his life. In fact from his choice to be IN relationship with God, we get a clear example of what the Prayer-Life (as I call it) is.

Communing 24/7 with our Abba/Daddy/God is possible ONLY in your new life in Him and He in you. Outside of this intimate communing, there is only the IF place. You know, IF it be your will, can you do this or that, please? It’s like talking to a stone wall and wishing your answer would appear, somehow.

Now, Prayer-Life is what God has always purposed for us, it is our new life in Him, taken to the next level of relationship, after new birth and milk time.

Like when you are ready to really learn and grow. God is always with us and never leaves us. He does give us the choice, each and every day 24/7, to commune with Him, as in talk with, shout with, laugh, with, cry with, sing with, stomp with, jump with, leap with, holler with, and just be still with, breathing in, breathing out.

Prayer is more than what we do at any specific time. Prayer is more than the words we use during this time, or the thoughts we think or the feelings we feel. Prayer is the life we now live in these earthen vessels; it is our spiritual breathing, our spiritual speaking, our spiritual laughing, crying, shouting, our spiritual being.

While we do pray, as in action of our heart and soul, mind and will, words and emotions, these are parts of our New Prayer-Life. As we learn of the liberty we now have in Christ, and about our ability to walk in God, with God, and through God, we can begin to see:
* the fullness of Prayer-Life,
* the connectedness of Prayer-Life to
** who we are and
** whose we are.

David may not have recognized that his psalms/songs were to be God’s example of both relationship with him and prayer-life. Then again, maybe he did, and that is why he had them written down.

Read Psalms 1–41 and be prayerfully submitted to receiving all that God has for you, through the Holy Spirit, in Jesus Christ.

David also was honest about where he was. He prayed always in the humbling of his soul, his heart before God, the Lord His Shepherd.

Let’s look at the Psalm he wrote after the whole scenario with Bathsheba and the loss of their son. After The Prophet Nathan came to him and the Lord forgave David.
Psalms 51 KJV

1 Have mercy upon me, O God, according to thy loving kindness:
according unto the multitude of thy tender mercies blot out my
transgressions.
2 Wash me thoroughly from mine iniquity, and cleanse me from my
sin.
3 For I acknowledge my transgressions: and my sin is ever before me.
4 Against thee, thee only, have I sinned, and done this evil in thy
sight: that thou mightest be justified when thou speakest, and be
clear when thou judgest.
5 Behold, I was shapened in iniquity; and in sin did my mother
conceive me.
6 Behold, thou desirest truth in the inward parts: and in the hidden
part thou shalt make me to know wisdom.
7 Purge me with hyssop, and I shall be clean: wash me, and I shall
be whiter than snow.
8 Make me to hear joy and gladness; that the bones which thou hast
broken may rejoice.
9 Hide thy face from my sins, and blot out all mine iniquities.
10 Create in me a clean heart, O God; and renew a right spirit within
me.
11 Cast me not away from thy presence; and take not thy holy spirit
from me.
12 Restore unto me the joy of thy salvation; and uphold me with thy
free spirit.
13 Then will I teach transgressors thy ways; and sinners shall be
converted unto thee.
14 Deliver me from blood guiltiness, O God, thou God of my
salvation: and my tongue shall sing aloud of thy righteousness.
15 O Lord, open thou my lips; and my mouth shall shew forth thy
praise.
16 For thou desirest not sacrifice; else would I give it: thou
delightest not in burnt offering.
17 The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit: a broken and a contrite
heart, O God, thou wilt not despise.
18 Do good in thy good pleasure unto Zion: build thou the walls of
Jerusalem.
19 Then shalt thou be pleased with the sacrifices of righteousness,
with burnt offering and whole burnt offering: then shall they offer
bullocks upon thine altar.

Let’s read this in another version: Psalm 51 The Message Copyright © 1993, 1994, 1995, 1996, 2000, 2001, 2002 by Eugene H. Peterson

1 -3 Generous in love—God, give grace! Huge in mercy—wipe out
my bad record. Scrub away my guilt, soak out my sins in your
laundry. I know how bad I've been; my sins are staring me
down.

4 -6 You're the One I've violated, and you've seen it all, seen the full
extent of my evil. You have all the facts before you; whatever
you decide about me is fair. I've been out of step with you for a
long time, in the wrong since before I was born.
What you're after is truth from the inside out. Enter me, then;
conceive A new, true life.

7 -15 Soak me in your laundry and I'll come out clean, scrub me and
I'll have a snow-white life. Tune me in to foot-tapping songs,
set these once-broken bones to dancing. Don't look too close
for blemishes, give me a clean bill of health. God, make a fresh
start in me, shape a Genesis week from the chaos of my life.
Don't throw me out with the trash, or fail to breathe holiness in
me. Bring me back from gray exile, put a fresh wind in my
sails!
Give me a job teaching rebels your ways so the lost can find their
way home. Commute my death sentence, God, my salvation God,
and I'll sing anthems to your life-giving ways. Unbutton my lips,
dear God; I'll let loose with your praise.

16 -17 Going through the motions doesn't please you, a flawless
performance is nothing to you. I learned God-worship when
my pride was shattered. Heart-shattered lives ready for love
don't for a moment escape God's notice.

18 -19 Make Zion the place you delight in, repair Jerusalem's broken-
down walls. Then you'll get real worship from us, acts of
worship small and large, Including all the bulls they can
heave onto your altar!
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David did not play any games with God. He didn’t ‘perform’ for God, trying to be good. No. David was honest, and this Psalm shows us how real his relationship with God was.

David didn’t ask for special treatment because he was a king, he didn’t try to excuse his actions or blame someone else for what he had chosen to do.

He faced all the good, the bad and the very ugly, and was brought to his knees as he realized that it all was about more than his ‘mis-deeds’ or sins – it was about being able to go to the One who was and is Merciful, full of grace, forgiveness – God, our Abba/Daddy and admit any and all shortcomings or failings or sins, and receive God's forgiveness through Jesus Christ, the blood of the Lamb.

The new life we have in Christ is real, and the relationship we now have with God in new life is real, and the Holy Spirit has been given as a gift to us (when we ask) to lead and guide us into all, All, ALL Truth! And the Truth (as in Jesus is the truth, the life and the way) will make us free, and set us free indeed. Prayer-life is awesome!