How to Develop a Deeper Prayer Life: Biblical Steps That Actually Work
“Men always ought to pray and not lose heart.”
— Luke 18:1
How do you develop a deeper prayer life?
To develop a deeper prayer life, the Bible reveals a progression every believer can follow:
- Set an unmoveable daily appointment with God — same time, same place, same posture
- Pray Scripture — turning the Word back to God deepens prayer immediately
- Use the ACTS framework — Adoration, Confession, Thanksgiving, Supplication
- Pray in the Spirit — let the Holy Spirit help where words fail (Romans 8:26-27)
- Persevere — Jesus said always pray and never lose heart (Luke 18:1)
- Keep a prayer journal — written prayers become written testimonies
Key Scripture: Luke 18:1 — “Men always ought to pray and not lose heart.”
“Then He spoke a parable to them, that men always ought to pray and not lose heart.”
— Luke 18:1 (NKJV)A Word from Sanmi Dawodu
If you're searching for how to develop a deeper prayer life, you're not alone. Many Christians want to pray more but feel stuck — and the Bible gives a step-by-step pathway to a prayer life that will not quit.
Prayer is the most fundamental activity of the Christian life — and the most neglected. Every spiritual leader who has ever made a significant impact on their generation has been, first and foremost, a person of prayer. Martin Luther — despite (or because of) his impossibly full schedule — reportedly said: 'I have so much to do that I shall spend the first three hours in prayer.' John Wesley prayed two hours daily. David Brainerd, whose prayer journals influenced more missionaries than perhaps any other document in church history, wrote: 'I love to be alone in my cottage where I can spend much time in prayer.' The history of revival is the history of praying men and women.
Yet most believers confess that their prayer life is the weakest dimension of their spiritual existence. It is the first discipline abandoned when time is short and the last recovered when life is busy. We end Week Two — the week of Spiritual Renewal — with the most comprehensive and practical teaching on prayer, because all the fire, hunger, revival, infilling, sensitivity, and new beginnings we have received this week must be sustained and deepened by one practice above all others: a consistent, deepening, Spirit-empowered prayer life.
Why a Deeper Prayer Life Is Possible for Every Believer
A deeper prayer life is not reserved for monks or pastors. Hebrews 4:16 invites every believer to come boldly to the throne of grace. Jesus, the Son of God, modeled what a deep prayer life looks like — and called us to follow Him in it.
Week 2 closes today. Week 1 took us through cleansing; Week 2 took us through renewal — fire, hunger, revival, infilling, sensitivity, new beginning. All of it is sustained by prayer. Continue your daily walk through the 40 Days of Prayer series — Week 3 opens with even deeper assignments.
What Prayer Actually Is (Beyond the Religious Performance)
Prayer is not primarily a religious discipline or a spiritual technique. It is a conversation — the most important conversation available to a human being. It is the means by which the finite creature communes with the infinite Creator, by which the creature's need and desire is laid before the Creator's power and wisdom, and by which the purposes of heaven are drawn down into the circumstances of earth. 'Your kingdom come, Your will be done on earth as it is in heaven' (Matthew 6:10) — prayer is the mechanism by which what exists in heaven is established on earth.
Andrew Murray, the great South African prayer theologian, wrote: 'Prayer is not monologue, but dialogue; God's voice in response to mine is its most essential part.' This reframes prayer entirely. It is not a recitation of requests, not a performance of piety, not a religious obligation to be discharged. It is a two-way conversation with a Person — the Person most worth knowing, most worth listening to, and most able to act on what is spoken.
Why Jesus Prayed: The Son of God's Prayer Life
The prayer life of Jesus is the most compelling argument for the necessity of deep prayer in the believer's life. Jesus — who was fully God, who had access to infinite wisdom and omnipotent power — prayed. Constantly. Persistently. Prioritally. Mark 1:35: 'In the early morning, while it was still dark, Jesus got up, left the house, and went away to a secluded place, and was praying there.' Luke 6:12: 'Now it came to pass in those days that He went out to the mountain to pray, and continued all night in prayer to God.' Hebrews 5:7: 'who, in the days of His flesh, when He had offered up prayers and supplications, with vehement cries and tears to Him who was able to save Him from death.'
If the Son of God, who was the fullness of the Godhead dwelling bodily, found it necessary to spend entire nights in prayer, what does that say about the necessity of prayer for those of us who do not carry His fullness? Jesus did not pray because He was weak. He prayed because prayer was the practice of His relationship with the Father — and the source of everything His public ministry required.
“Therefore He is also able to save to the uttermost those who come to God through Him, since He always lives to make intercession for them.”
— Hebrews 7:25 (NKJV)The Anatomy of a Full Prayer Life: ACTS and Beyond
A deep prayer life is not simply spending more time saying more words to God. It is the development of multiple dimensions of prayer that, together, constitute the full range of Spirit-to-spirit communication between God and the believer. The early church's prayer (Acts 2:42) was 'devoted to prayer' — 'proskartereo' in Greek — to persist steadfastly in, to give constant attention to. The depth of their prayer was its sustained, multidimensional nature.
🙏 ADORATION: Beginning prayer not with requests but with worship — declaring who God is, magnifying His character, choosing Him above the circumstances. This is the posture of Revelation 4-5: the living creatures and elders worship before they do anything else.
😔 CONFESSION: The daily practice of genuine, specific confession that keeps the communication channel clean. Not a guilt-performance but an honest clearing of whatever has accumulated between the soul and God since the last prayer time.
🙌 THANKSGIVING: Deliberate, specific gratitude for answered prayer, for daily provision, for the gift of Christ, for the Holy Spirit, for the Word of God. Thanksgiving is both a discipline and a weapon — it defeats the spirit of ingratitude and complaining that opens the door to discouragement.
🎯 SUPPLICATION: The asking dimension of prayer — bringing specific needs, both personal and intercessory, before the God who is both willing and able to answer. Jesus commanded: 'Ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you' (Matthew 7:7). The believer who does not ask misses the provision that asking would have received.
The Spirit Helps Our Weakness: Romans 8:26-27 Explained
Romans 8:26-27 contains one of the most encouraging passages in the New Testament for anyone who has ever felt inadequate in prayer: 'The Spirit Himself makes intercession for us with groanings which cannot be uttered.' Paul begins with a profound acknowledgment of human inadequacy: 'we do not know what we should pray for as we ought.' The Greek is emphatic — 'ouk oidamen' — we absolutely do not know. This is not a spiritual failing. It is Paul's description of the universal condition of the believer praying in their own strength.
But the inadequacy is answered before it becomes an obstacle: 'the Spirit Himself intercedes.' When we do not know how to pray, the Holy Spirit prays through us — and His intercession is perfectly aligned with the will of God. This is the great liberation of the Spirit-empowered prayer life: we are not alone in the prayer closet. The infinite intercessor of God is praying in us, through us, and for us simultaneously. The prayer life that is opened to the Spirit's intercession becomes immeasurably deeper and more effective than anything the natural mind could generate.
Practical Architecture of a Deep Prayer Life
E.M. Bounds — whose series of books on prayer remain the most powerful practical theology of prayer ever written — stated: 'Prayer is not learned in a classroom but in the closet.' The deep prayer life is not built by studying prayer — it is built by praying. Here are the architectural principles:
THE PRAYER PLACE: Jesus taught His disciples to 'enter your room, close your door, and pray to your Father in secret' (Matthew 6:6). A specific, consistent, dedicated place for prayer is not legalism — it is wisdom. The place becomes associated with meeting God. Over time, entering that space signals both body and spirit that it is time to pray.
THE PRAYER TIME: Daniel prayed three times daily at specific times (Daniel 6:10). David cried to God 'morning, evening, and at noon' (Psalm 55:17). The early church observed prayer hours. A scheduled, non-negotiable prayer time establishes prayer as a priority rather than an afterthought — something fitted in when everything else allows, which means almost never.
THE PRAYER PLAN: Praying without a plan tends to produce the same territory covered in the same way daily, which gradually produces the monotony that kills the prayer life. A prayer plan — dividing intercessory territory across the week, using Scripture as prayer fuel, incorporating different dimensions of prayer on different days — sustains depth over time.
THE PRAYER JOURNAL: Writing prayers and recording answers creates a living testimony of God's faithfulness that fuels faith for future prayer. The journal also disciplines the mind — a wandering mind is less likely to wander when the hand is writing.
Perseverance: The Discipline of Not Losing Heart (Luke 18:1)
Luke 18:1 gives us Jesus's stated purpose for the parable of the persistent widow: 'that men always ought to pray and not lose heart.' The Greek word for 'lose heart' is 'enkakeo' — to grow weary, to become faint, to give up. Jesus specifically designed this parable to address the most common reason believers stop praying: discouragement at the apparent silence or delay of God's response.
The widow's strategy was simple and relentless: she kept coming. She did not refine her argument. She did not try a different approach. She did not consult others about whether her request was reasonable. She simply kept returning, kept asking, kept standing before the judge until the judge responded. And Jesus's application is explicit: 'Shall God not avenge His own elect who cry out day and night to Him?' (Luke 18:7). The God who is infinitely more just and more willing than the unjust judge will respond to the persistent prayer of His people. The only strategy is: keep coming.
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Altar Call: Building a Prayer Life That Will Not Quit
Day 14 of Week 2 calls you forward — not into intellectual agreement with what you have read, but into actual surrender. Going Deeper is not a topic to study; it is an invitation to receive.
Week 2 ends here, but the prayer life it built is just beginning. The full 40 Days & 40 Nights of Prayer series continues with Week 3 and beyond — keep going deeper.
Receive what God has been speaking to you today. Pray the prayer below from your heart.
A Prayer for Going Deeper
Father, teach me to pray. Not perform — pray. Not perform religion — actually meet with You.
Build in me a prayer life that will not quit. When I do not feel like it, give me discipline. When I do not know what to say, fill in the gap with the Spirit's intercession. When the answer delays, give me Luke 18 perseverance.
I want to know You. Take me deeper today. In the name of Jesus, Amen.
Frequently Asked Questions
What does Luke 18:1 mean?
What does Romans 8:26-27 mean?
What is the ACTS prayer model?
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What does "pray without ceasing" mean (1 Thessalonians 5:17)?
Always pray. Never lose heart. Today is the day to go deeper.
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