Prayer is perhaps the single greatest activity in which the human soul can engage, for in prayer we come face-to-face with God. Prayer is our golden opportunity to give God the opportunity to manifest His power, majesty, love, and providence to His beloved children. Although prayer is one of the most vital aspects of the Christian life, most of us feel it is the area in which we are the weakest. The disciples of Christ obviously felt this way, too, which is why they asked Him to teach them to pray. Thus, He gave them instruction and guidance for proper, effective prayer in Matthew 6:7-15 (part of "The Sermon on the Mount"). First, Jesus spoke about the errors of ineffective prayer (vanity prayers, valueless prayers, and verbose prayers), before He then taught about the essentials for effect prayer (having right relationships, with God and others; having right responsibilities, and making right requests - which is discussed in Part II of this study).
