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The podcast discusses the importance of prayer and Bible study for young adults seeking Jesus in today's society. It emphasizes the need to set aside specific time for prayer to focus solely on God and deepen the conversation. Journaling is recommended to express emotions and track spiritual growth. The HEAR method is introduced for Bible study, highlighting, explaining, applying, and responding to a chosen verse. Participating in group prayer and Bible study is encouraged for learning from others and discussing different perspectives. Hello and welcome to the First Ever Delivered podcast, a podcast where we talk about how to live as young adults seeking Jesus in today's society. I'm Hunter McAllister. In today's episode, we're going to talk about the importance of prayer and Bible study and how these two things can truly set us up for success as believers in a non-believer world. As we get into today's episode, I first want to address how this podcast, even though it's titled for young adults, it isn't specifically just made for the young adult audience. Anyone is free to listen. I hope that anybody can get a good message out of this and it can help them prepare to be a Christian in today's world. As we talk about the importance of prayer and Bible study, I just got a few key points I want to go over, as these two things are so crucial in setting you up on the right path for whenever troubles come or whenever trials come, or especially whenever you're out in the world, you're at your job, you're at school, you're in the locker room, you're on the field, you're on the court, and you're around people who don't necessarily believe in you and they may want to alter your belief. They want to try to challenge you and argue with you and how these two things, and if you're really honing in on these two things, you can truly be set up for success. First key point is setting aside specific time to pray. If you're setting aside specific time to pray, not only are you just going to truly become making that a routine to you, you don't have to be at the same time every single day, but as long as at one point or another throughout the day, you're setting aside a certain amount of time, whether it's early in the morning, whether it's late at night, whether that changes here and there, setting a specific time will make it a routine and make it an importance to you. The reason we need to set aside a specific time to pray is because in that time, if we make it an importance to set that aside a time, then we will be solely focused on God and your time with Him. You'll be solely focused on your prayer and talking with Him, and you'll be able to get a lot more out of it than you would if you were just having your casual talk with God, which is great. Not hating on that at all. That is really good. I think we should be talking to God throughout our day continuously, but just having that set aside time for prayer is really going to help you focus on your conversation and what you're truly wanting out of that day or focus on what you're truly going through at that time and how God can help you get through that. Journaling is also really, really, really key, and it really helped me in my spiritual life when it goes with both prayer and Bible study. For me, writing down my prayers and thoughts have proven to really help me express my emotions more when I can actually write them out and see them on a piece of paper. It just shows me how much more I'm actually going through, and I'm actually reading what I'm feeling. It makes me really understand it more, and then it helps me take that to God in a different way than I do when I'm just sitting there talking. Journaling has also really helped me reflect on things of my past that God has done for me and how we're dealing with or how to approach God with those issues. It also really helps you track your spiritual growth. You can see at the beginning when you first started jotting your prayers and your notes down from your Bible studies that it wasn't very much, or it was just a little bit here and there. But then as you get further along down the road, it just really shows you how much you've grown, because now you go from in the beginning when you're studying John, you've got two verses here, and it's John 3.16, and it explains how much God loved the world by sending down Jesus. Today you're going over late John, and you're writing a whole paragraph. It's awesome to see the growth that you've made in your spiritual life. One recommendation I would recommend to not just new believers, but anyone who studies the Bible, because we all should study God's Word. It was left here for us as a tool, and we should use it. One of my buddies when I went to college for basketball for a little bit, his name's Caleb Anderson. He runs God's Time Podcast. Definitely go give him a watch and give him a listen. He does some really good stuff on there. Love listening to him. But while I was watching one of Caleb's podcasts one time, he showed this thing called the HEAR method. Basically, the HEAR method, when you break it down, H is for highlight, E is for explain, A is for apply, and R is for respond. So the point of the HEAR method is when you're doing your Bible study, whatever you're reading, pick out one verse that really just stands out to you, one verse that you really connect with while you're reading. Take that verse and highlight it on a sheet of paper. Explain the verse. Explain what's going on. Explain the background of the verse. Explain what is going on in this current time in the Bible. Next for the A, you're going to write down on a sheet of paper, the same sheet of paper, how you can apply this verse to your life. What can you take from this verse and apply to your day-to-day life? R is for respond. On that same sheet of paper, you're now going to write out your prayer to God, and you're going to respond to that verse. You're going to respond to it. Whatever you feel in that moment, you're just talking with God, but you're writing it down on a piece of paper so that way you can track and truly see your methods. The next one is definitely going to be participating in a group, is our next point, with both prayer and Bible study. I'll never forget my first couple times being in fields of faith or part of SCA at school, and we would get to a group prayer, and you're just shaking, you're nervous, and you don't know what to say because you start going around in a circle, and it finally gets to you, and you just do this super, super short, simple prayer. That's okay. That's awesome. At least you're being a part of it. When you're part of a group prayer like that, not only are you getting to practice talking about God and to God in front of other people and showcasing your faith, you're also getting to hear other people pray. You're getting to hear other people speak to God. You're getting to kind of develop a hearing for how other people go about their talking with God because everybody prays differently. Nobody prays the same because we're just having a conversation with God, right? That's what praying is. You're getting to experience that with others, and you're getting to learn from others and how they go about things. With a Bible study, participating in a group Bible study, you're getting to study God's Word together. Often, that makes it, for me, a lot more fun. I definitely love my quiet soul time with God and my Word, just me and Him, but it definitely is a lot of fun to get with a group of other believers, sit down, read the Word together, talk about the Word, read a verse, and maybe one verse means something to you, but somebody else sees it completely differently, and you kind of get to talk about that, see how God's moving on in them, and maybe it's things you're going through in life that alters that. So I really just encourage you all to get together with a group of other believers, talk about that. I knew you were going to do it! I knew you were going to do it!