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First, let me say that I believe prayer is the greatest untapped resource that Christians have at their disposal. If we would get serious about prayer and the power we possess through prayer, there is absolutely no limit to what God would do on this earth through His Church. He wants us to bring our petitions before Him and expect Him to act on our behalf and for those around us.
But prayer is also one of life’s greatest mysteries. How do we do it, when do we do it, what do we say and how do we say it? Just as we wonder about these questions today, Jesus’ disciples also questioned the proper way to pray, and Jesus gave them the model prayer that we commonly call “The Lord’s Prayer”.
As to how to pray, Jesus had much to say about the subject of prayer. He instructed the disciples, “And whatever you ask in My name, that I will do, that the Father may be glorified in the Son. If you ask anything in My name, I will do it.” (John 14:13-14) So we know that it is the authority of the Name of Jesus that gives us access to the throne of grace in the first place, and He told us to use His name when we pray. I look at the name of Jesus as sort of like the key that opens the throne room of Heaven, so that we can boldly approach the Father and have fellowship with Him.
And to Whom do we pray? According to scripture, we are to pray to the Father, we see examples of praying to Jesus, and since the Holy Spirit is also a part of the Trinity, it is safe to say that we can also pray to the Holy Spirit.
So how do we know what to pray for? I John 5:14-15 is pretty explicit in it’s instructions, “Now this is the confidence that we have in Him, that if we ask anything according to His will, He hears us. And if we know that He hears us, whatever we ask, we know that we have the petitions that we ask of Him.” So we can be confident that if we will seek out God’s will through prayer, through His Word and through confirmation from other mature believers, we can know that whatever we ask, He will hear our requests. But anything we ask for MUST line up with God’s will as outlined in His Word. God and His Word are one and the same. God will never lead us to act apart from His Word. As a word of encouragement, scripture plainly tells us that the very purpose of the death, burial and resurrection of Jesus Christ was for the forgiveness of sins, so that we might have eternal salvation. Therefore, when we pray for the salvation of another, we can be confident that we are praying according to the will of God. And once we find out what His will is, we need to stand in faith knowing that if we are praying according to His will, He will grant what we have requested. Matthew 21:22 tells us, “And whatever things you ask in prayer, believing, you will receive.” We must pray with confidence that God will hear us and act on our behalf. Sometimes by faith we must wait upon the Lord for the answer, and trust Him to bring about the desired results according to His purpose and His time.
How do we know when the best time to pray is? Some people feel that the best time to get with God is in the morning at the start of their day. Prayer gives them a fresh start and sends them into their day empowered and ready for whatever may come their way. That’s a great time to meet with God. Others enjoy finishing their day with a conversation with God and they use the later hours to meet with Him. I believe both of these times are great, but my own personal favorite time is all day long. As I am going through my day, I talk to the Lord about the situations in my life. I start my morning with a shorter prayer to ask blessings and safety for my family and talk to Him about others that He has laid on my heart for salvation or for special needs that I am aware of. Then, as I go throughout my day, I try to remember to include God in the things I am doing and concerns I encounter. Then at night, before I go to bed, that’s when I can get into the Word and spend quality time talking with God about personal concerns and decisions that I need to make. But a really important aspect of prayer whenever you do it is to remember that it is a two-way conversation. We need to not only talk to Him, but we also need to listen for Him to talk to us too. I’ve found that one of the best tools to use in my prayer time is a journal so that I can write the concerns of my heart and the things I believe the Holy Spirit is speaking to my heart. Often I go back and read previous entries in my journal and it reminds me of what He has done and is doing in my life. Also, journaling keeps me going in the right direction because I can see where God has been leading me in the past and that will keep me from getting sidetracked and headed in the wrong direction.
I believe the best way to talk to Him is just like you would to your dearest friend. He is, you know! I really get frustrated when people try to tell me how I should pray or what I should say to God. He’s my Father, and I’ve been talking with Him for a long time. It’s my personal relationship with Him that dictates how I pray. The relationship is the most important aspect of prayer. He wants us to pray in order to build a relationship with Him. It’s as simple as building a relationship with your husband or wife or your children. It means you have to spend time with Him. The more time you spend with God and the more honest you are in your conversations with Him, the more intimate your relationship will be with Him.
Let’s examine some different types of prayer:
* The first type of prayer I want to look at is what I will call an Immediate Need Prayer. This is the kind of prayer we offer up when we find ourselves or someone else in a severe situation and we need help right now. The story in Matthew 14:24-33 is a very familiar one. The disciples were in their boat when a terrible storm came up. They were in the middle of the sea when they saw Jesus walking on the water. You remember how Peter got out of the boat, and by faith, he was walking on the water toward Jesus, when he lost his confidence and began to sink. The Bible records that when he began to sink, he cried out, “Lord, save me!” And the scripture says, “...immediately Jesus stretched out His hand and caught him”.
We’ve all heard testimonies about how the Holy Spirit has wakened a person in the middle of the night with an urgency to pray for a loved one, a co-worker, a missionary, or another person. Sometimes it has been years later when somehow that person found out about the dire need of the person the Lord had placed on their heart to pray for, and in some circumstances, there have been life or death situations taking place. We need to be obedient to the urgency of the prayer burden that He places on our hearts.
I was driving home from another town about 35 or 40 miles away this particular day, and as I often do when I’m driving alone, I was talking with the Lord. A light rain came, and I was driving carefully, but as I started to move into the inside lane to avoid the water on the edge of the road, my car started to hydro-slide, and I knew that I had absolutely no control over the car. As I felt the car start to turn to the left, I cried out “Jesus! Jesus!” The car seemed to turn in slow motion about three quarters of a turn around and slid into a steep ditch in the median and came to a complete stop. The man in the truck behind me had seen the whole thing, and he stopped his truck and came running to my car, asking if I was okay. I calmly got out of my car, looked at the right rear wheel and said, “I think I’m stuck.” He responded, “Lady, I don’t know what kept that car from turning over!” I did! Angels know how to drive too. He got my car out of the ditch and I drove it the rest of the way home, totally calm. Normally I would have been in a panic all the way home, but God had given me perfect peace. The next morning when I started to leave for work, the same tire that had been stuck the day before was now flat. God had not only kept me from a horrendous accident, but He also kept my tire inflated long enough to get me another 20 or so miles down the road to my home.
When a person asks us to pray for them in the grocery store or the post office, or even on our lunch break at work, we can stop what we are doing right then and take that need to our Father in prayer. This type of prayer is also very effective when we see an accident on the road, or when we hear an ambulance or fire truck going by. People everywhere need our prayers, and often they need it now! What a powerful thing “Immediate Need Prayer” can be in our lives and the lives of those we are praying for.
* The second type of prayer that I can think of is a Prayer of Praise and Worship. In Luke 1:46-55, we find a beautiful example of a prayer of worship. The angel had announced that Mary was going to give birth to the Savior, and she went to visit her cousin Elizabeth. In these verses scripture records one of the most worshipful songs of prayer of all time…
“And Mary said:
‘My soul magnifies the Lord,
And my spirit has rejoiced in God my Savior.
For He has regarded the lowly state of His maidservant;
For behold, henceforth all generations will call me blessed.
For He who is mighty has done great things for me,
And holy is His name.
And His mercy is on those who fear Him
From generation to generation.
He has shown strength with His arm;
He has scattered the proud in the imagination of their hearts.
He has put down the mighty from their thrones,
And exalted the lowly.
He has filled the hungry with good things,
And the rich He has sent away empty.
He has helped His servant Israel,
In remembrance of His mercy,
As He spoke to our fathers,
To Abraham and to his seed forever.”
What a powerful prayer! As we exalt the Lord this way, we move our attention from our own problems and burdens, and as we magnify the Lord in our own hearts, faith begins to rise. We can also quote the Old Testament names for God as we lift Him up in praise.
As we quote what the Bible says about God we realize that He is bigger than any problems we may have, and greater than any need we may encounter. When we worship Him, everything else seems small in comparison to Who He is. The heaviness leaves and God takes center stage in our lives, which is where He belongs in the first place. The Bible tells us that God “inhabits” the praises of His people. In other words, He lives in; He dwells in our praises. He is worthy to be praised, and worshipping Him in spirit and in truth brings glory and honor to His name, and it is beneficial to our lives too.
* The third type of prayer is a Prayer of Petition. We need to know in the depths of our heart that He is “able to do exceedingly abundantly above that we ask or think” (Ephesians 3:20) In Luke 11:9-13, we are told to ask, seek and knock. In verse 11, Jesus said, “If a son asks for bread from any father among you, will he give him a stone? Or if he asks for a fish, will he give him a serpent instead of a fish, or if he asks for an egg, will he offer him a scorpion? If you then, being evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask Him!” Sometimes we hesitate to ask for our needs because in our hearts, we feel like we don’t deserve for God to give us what we need. We think somehow that we are not worthy. That’s very true. None of us are worthy of God’s provision, but in reality, our Father delights in providing for His children. We often don’t receive because we don’t ask, and when we do ask, often it’s with a greedy attitude, or an attitude that somehow God owes it to us. My greatest weakness in the prayer of petition is that I get in a bigger hurry than He is and when I don’t see the answer I want in the time that I want it, I begin to take things into my own hands and make them happen my way. Does anyone else have that problem? He will hear us when we come to Him with a humble heart and a true need, and He will meet that need in the way and the time that He thinks is appropriate. We need to learn to ask, and when we are sure God has heard us, we need to learn how to wait and depend upon Him to meet our needs. It’s called “child-like faith”.
* The fourth type of prayer I will mention is the Prayer for the Needs of Others. The most beautiful prayer I have ever seen is found in the 17th chapter of John just before Jesus was arrested. Verses 1-5, He is offering Himself up to His Father, as He knew His time was near. In verses 6-19, He prayed for His disciples, and in verses 20-26, He prayed for us as believers in the Lord Jesus Christ. Listen to how our Savior prayed for you and for me…
“I do not pray for these alone, but also for those who will believe in Me through their word; that they all may be one, as You, Father, are in Me, and I in You; that they also may be one in Us, that the world may believe that You sent Me. And the glory which You gave Me I have given them, that they may be one just as We are one: I in them, and You in Me; that they may be made perfect in one, and that the world may know that You have sent Me, and have loved them as You have loved Me. Father, I desire that they also whom You gave Me may be with Me where I am, that they may behold My glory which You have given Me; for You loved Me before the foundation of the world. O righteous Father! The world has not known You, but I have known You; and these have known that You sent Me. And I have declared to them Your name, and will declare it, that the love with which You loved Me may be in them, and I in them.” (John 17:20-26)
As we see in these scriptures, Jesus was concerned about others. He was concerned that He fulfill the purpose of God in His life, He was concerned about those intimate relationships that God had given to Him to teach and to mentor. And also, He was concerned about us; you and me. He was concerned about our testimony and our relationship with each other as the Church that He was giving His life for. He wanted us to care about each other, and about the needs of those around us. I’m going to make a very bold statement here…we all look for the return of the Lord, and we guess at the signs that point to His coming. I honestly don’t believe that Jesus is coming back until this prayer that He prayed on our behalf is fulfilled. He wants a beautiful Bride! He is coming for a Church that has been unified, and is doing what He left us here to do. Jesus wants us, The Body of Christ, to fulfill the work that He began on this earth. While we choose to sit and wait for Him to take us away from all this, I believe He is waiting for us to fulfill this prayer. As Jesus walked on the earth, He cared for people, and He has equipped us to care for people just like He did.
Let me ask you, are you concerned about the lives of others? Do you long for your family members and friends to know Jesus as their Savior and Lord? They need your prayers. Do you know people who are going through difficulties right now? Maybe they have a terrible disease, or perhaps they have lost a dear loved one. As I write this chapter, I have three dear friends who have lost their husbands of many years, and they struggle to make it every day. I’ve had two friends who have died of cancer within the past several months. Unemployment has risen to staggering numbers. There are people all around you too who are in tremendous need. They need your prayers. There are many around you who are bound up in the grips of Satan, and they need you to go to battle for their lives. Don’t give up. Don’t ignore their needs. Let me ask you, do you personally know people who are bound by alcohol, drugs, pornography, gambling? Do you have family members who have never accepted Jesus Christ as their Savior? Do you work with people who take the name of God in vain, are involved in adulterous relationships, homosexuality, maybe even good people who reject you because you claim the name of Christ. Do you know people who are battling cancer, heart disease, other sickness and disease? Pray for them! People everywhere need your prayers. You have the power that they need in their lives. All you have to do is ask your Father, and He will gladly work in the lives of those whose names you bring before Him. If you stay faithful and persistent in prayer, you will see the chains of bondage broken, people will be set free. Though He may not always answer your prayers the way that you imagined, you can be sure that He will answer each one of them. And as you pray in secret, you will see the power of God go to work all around you, changing hearts, changing diseased bodies, changing lives. And don’t be surprised if He even changes you in the process.
Let me ask you, have you been praying for years for the salvation of someone you love, and it seems that you will never see the answer? Let me assure you of one thing, it is the will of God that your loved one be saved. That is the very reason that God sent Jesus to die on the cruel cross of Calvary. And Jesus taught that if we pray according to the will of the Father, we can be assured that we have that for which we pray. Just keep praying, be persistent, and believe God will do a mighty work if you will pray.
* And lastly, we are to Pray For Our Leaders. First Timothy 2:1-2 says, “Therefore I exhort first of all that supplications, prayers, intercessions, and giving of thanks be made for all men, for kings and all who are in authority, that we may lead a quiet and peaceable life in all godliness and reverence.” If you want to see things change at work…PRAY! If you want to see things change in your city…PRAY! If you want to see things change in your state…PRAY! If you want to see things change in your nation…PRAY! Christians are notorious for complaining, petitioning and boycotting. But what we need to be doing is praying. I can sign a thousand petitions about the things I don’t like about our government, but it won’t make any difference. What I need to do is bring those leaders before God in prayer. He can make the difference. Romans 13:1 tells us, “Let every soul be subject to the governing authorities. For there is no authority except from God, and the authorities that exist are appointed by God.” I am aware that many will disagree with me, but we need to realize, according to the Word of God, that if someone is in a position of authority, it’s because God put him or her there for whatever reason. We may not like them and we may not agree with their leadership abilities, but to fight against them is to fight against God’s Word. You wouldn’t believe comments I’ve heard and the e-mails I’ve gotten from well-meaning Christians putting down people in positions of leadership. That’s wrong! We need to be praying for our pastors, our supervisors, our managers, our mayors, our governors, our senators and representatives, our cabinet members, our president, and all those in authority over us. That’s how we see things change. And that is what God’s Word tells us to do. So instead of complaining, let’s pray harder.
Mostly, we pray to build a closer relationship with our Father in Heaven. More than anything else that we can ask for, we need to desire to develop an intimate relationship with Him. He loves you more than you can imagine, and He desires for you to include Him in every area of your life. And as you know Him more intimately, you will begin to take on the burdens of God’s heart. You will learn to love as He loves and to minister to those that He places in your life. If God has given you someone to pray for, do so with all your heart. Know that you have power to tear down the stronghold of the enemy over their lives, and you can bring a little bit more of Heaven to the earth through your prayers.
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