Introduction to Effective Prayer
“The power of prayer has never been tried to its full capacity in any church. If we want to see mighty wonders of divine grace and power wrought in the place of weakness, failure, and disappointment, let the whole church answer God’s standing challenge: “Call unto me and I will answer thee, and show thee great and mighty things, which thou knowest not (Jeremiah 33:3)” – Hudson Taylor
“And it shall be that before they call I shall answer and while they are yet speaking I will hear” (Isaiah 65:24)
Section One: The Dynamics of Prayer
What is Prayer?
One of the greatest gifts, privileges, and responsibilities given by God to the believer is prayer. Prayer is a mystery, yet prayer is as simple as the exclamatory prayer “Lord, help me”, or “Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me”. Prayer is fellowship with God mediated through the Son, Jesus Christ. In prayer our hearts meet the heart of God in communion and connection. Prayer is conversation with God, the Creator of everything. Prayer is intended to be two-way. Andrew Murray said “Prayer is not monologue, but dialogue; God’s voice is its most essential part. Listening to God’s voice is the secret of the assurance that He will listen to mine”. Wherever we are spiritually, emotionally, or physically we have permission through the shed blood of Jesus to approach the Throne of Grace – “For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but we have one who has been tempted in every way, just as we are – yet was without sin. Let us approach the throne of grace with confidence, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need” (Hebrews 4: 15, 16).
Andrew Murray in ‘With Christ in the School of Prayer’ defines prayer as “fellowship with the Unseen and Most Holy One. The powers of the eternal world have been placed at its disposal. It is the very essence of true religion, the channel of all blessings, the secret of power and life…it is to prayer that God has given the right to take hold of Him and His strength” (pg. 1).
Watchman Nee in ‘Let Us Pray’ defines prayer as “none other than an act of the believer working together with God. Prayer is the union of the believer’s thought with the will of God” (pg. 3).
Suzette Caldwell, the wife of Kirby-John Caldwell and the founder of the Prayer Institute in Houston defines prayer as “the supernatural vehicle that transports us back and forth between the natural and supernatural realms in order to extract God’s plans for our lives and make them into earthly realities”.
Dallas Willard calls prayer “talking with God about what we (God and I) are doing together”. It is conferencing with God about our shared Mission.
John Calvin calls prayer an intimate conversation with God. He also writes: “For there is a communion of men with God by which, having entered the heavenly sanctuary, they appeal to him in person concerning his promises in order to experience, where necessity so demands, that what they believed was not vain, although he has promised it in word alone. Therefore we see that to us nothing is promised to be expected from the Lord, which we are not also bidden to ask of him in prayers…words fail to explain how necessary prayer is, and in how many ways the exercise of prayer is profitable”.
True prayer transforms us. God works in our hearts as we pray, changing us internally and then using us to release His power externally into the world. Henri Nouwen wrote: “Praying is no easy matter. It demands a relationship in which you allow someone other than yourself to enter into the very center of your person, to see there what you would rather leave in darkness, and to touch there what you would rather leave untouched.” That “someone other than yourself” is Jesus. Through prayer we open those dark, defiling places to the light of Christ. As we do this, healing of our broken hearts begin.
Through prayer we can be agents used by God to release the Kingdom of God into the kingdom of the world. Prayer is one of the most powerful ways for the plans of God to be accomplished.
Effective Prayer Requires the Presence of the Holy Spirit
Effective prayer always involves the Holy Spirit. Charles Spurgeon in his book ‘The Power in Prayer’ says this:
“True prayer is an approach of the soul by the Sprit of God to the throne of God. It is not the utterance of words; it is not alone the feeling of desires; but it is the advance of the desires to God, the spiritual approach of our nature toward the Lord our God. True prayer is neither a mere mental exercise or a vocal performance. It is far deeper than that. It is spiritual commerce with the Creator of heaven and earth. God… is unseen by mortal eye and only to be perceived by the inner man. Our spirit within us, begotten by the Holy Spirit at our regeneration, discerns God’s Spirit, communes with Him, sets before Him its request, and receives from Him answers of peace. It is a spiritual business from beginning to end. Its aim and objective end not with man, but they reach to God Himself. In order to offer such prayer, the work of the Holy Spirit Himself is needed. If prayer were of the lips alone, we would need only breath in our nostrils to pray…Without the Holy Spirit, true prayer will never be presented; the thing offered to God will wear the name and have the form, but the inner life of prayer will be far from it” (pgs. 113-114).
Prayer is Always an Encounter with God
Prayer is fellowship and communion with God. In prayer we encounter God, who inhabits the unseen world, in the natural world. In this sense, prayer is a bridge. Scripture demonstrates that when a natural person encounters God that person is changed or transformed by the encounter. This transformation can be spiritual, emotional, physical; or all three at the same time.
An Old Testament example of an encounter with God, and a great metaphor for prayer, is Jacob’s wrestling match with God by the Jabbok. In Genesis 32:26 Jacob wrestled with God in the form of a man throughout the night until daybreak. He would not let the man go until the man blessed him. Jacob persevered and received his blessing from God. In prayer we must often take hold of God and persevere until we have an answer. But something else happened that night by the Jabbok. God gave Jacob a new name and a new nature. No longer was he Jacob, the trickster, deceiver, and swindler. Because of his encounter with God his heart and character were changed. This is reflected in his new name given by God – Israel. While the precise meaning of the name Israel is uncertain, most commentators settle on one of the following: God Rules, Struggled with God, Overcomer, or He Will Rule as God (Strongs Concordance’s preference). Israel went on to become the father of the nation of Israel through his twelve sons and the patriarch to whom the lineage of Jesus is traced.
In prayer we are often called to wrestle with God, just as Jacob wrestled. No matter the outcome, through our encounter with God in true prayer, we will be changed. Maybe not given a new name, but transformed to some extent spiritually, emotionally, or physically.
Encounters with God occur in the New Testament through personal encounters with Jesus. A few that come to mind are the woman at the well (John 4:), Simon the Pharisee and the woman who was a ‘notorious sinner’ (Luke 7: 32-50), the thief on the cross (Luke 23: 40-43), the men on the road to Emmaus (Luke 24: 13-35), the blind man who was given sight by Jesus (John 9), Bartimaeus, who received his sight and then “followed Jesus along the road” (Mark 10) and Saul who became Paul on the road to Damascus. In each of these examples a personal encounter with Jesus resulted in spiritual, emotional, or physical transformation and healing. Undoubtedly, a true personal encounter with Jesus will always produce transformation, but these are particularly noteworthy examples.
The woman at the well is a wonderful example of the nature and scope of this transformation. In this example, we see how an encounter with Jesus transformed her and brought her to a spiritual place where she could be used by God to release the Kingdom of God into the kingdom of the world for His glory.
In John 4 Jesus meets the Samaritan woman at the well of Sychar. It is clear from the context of scripture and her own testimony that she is an outcast in her town. During her encounter with Jesus, He heals her and transforms her heart. She returns to the town, speaks to the Elders (which would have been unthinkable before her encounter with Jesus), and amazingly they follow her to have their own encounter with Him. As a result of her testimony, many believed. This woman, who earlier in the day was a social outcast and ‘notorious sinner’, was transformed into a powerful evangelist.
Encounters with Jesus in Scripture happened while Jesus was alive, while He was on the cross, after he had risen, and the encounter with Saul occurred after Jesus had ascended to heaven. Today we encounter the living, personal Jesus through prayer. He is not visible in the normal way but we encounter Him personally never-the-less, our spirit and His Spirit in open communion (1 Corinthians 2: 14-16). And through this encounter, we have the very real potential of being spiritually, emotionally, and physically healed.
Jesus is a Person and the Importance of the Supernatural in Prayer
Scripture is clear that when we pray we are not praying to nothing or no one. When we pray, we are praying to a person who hears and understands better than we do ourselves our needs, desires, and struggles. Jesus is a person existing in a real time-space dimension. When Saul had a personal encounter with Jesus on the road to Damascus that encounter happened in a particular place, on a particular date and time. Jesus the person spoke to Saul in “the Hebrew tongue” and they had a brief but impactful conversation. The voice of Jesus would have had a particular timbre and intonation, unique to Him. Jesus expressed emotion. “Saul, Saul why do you persecute me” like a person. That encounter was real judging by the impact that it had on Paul and human history. We know that historically Saul hated Christians; he was their high-profile, sworn enemy. It is an historical fact that Saul became Paul, who went on to become the greatest of the Christian apologeticist, the planter of churches, and author of the most profound Christian literature after the Gospels. According to Paul’s own account, this transformation occurred in a supernatural but real encounter with a personal Jesus.
In ‘True Spirituality’, Francis Schaeffer describes this encounter. “At noon, on the road to Damascus, Jesus appeared – the glorified Christ in history – speaking in a normal language, using normal words and normal grammar, to a man named Saul. With this, there is a complete denial of the twentieth-century projection of these things into a religiously ‘other’ world. Here we are in the realm of space, time, history, normal communication, and normal language” (pg. 31).
There are many other examples and descriptions of this other space-time reality. Jesus describing His Father’s house with many rooms, Jesus’ words to the thief on the cross “today you will be with me in paradise”, the physical, eating, talking, walking post-resurrection Jesus; Jesus appearing to Stephen, and John when he was on the island of Patmos. All of these events, and many more, occurred in a well-defined space and time reality; and in these events there was a real encounter between two real people.
This is one of the major themes of Scripture, the biblical view of truth. There are two streams, two strands of space-time reality. One is seen. It is all around us and is defined and described by naturalistic laws. The other is unseen, but just as real. This is the unseen real or as William James in his early Twentieth-century masterpiece on religion called it, unseen reality. It is in the unseen real, which is just as real as our present-day reality, that Jesus, God, the Holy Spirit, Satan and his demons, and the Power that moves and shapes our ‘real’ world resides. It is the place of heaven and is the world opened to John’s eyes in his revelation on Patmos; and it is in this unseen real that spiritual warfare has its headwaters.
Prayer is the chief way that believers tap into the unseen real to release power into this world. We are not praying to nothing. We are praying to a real person in a real unseen world releasing real power to accomplish God’s will in this world. Prayer is two-way communication with God. But this has no meaning at all unless we live in a personal universe in which there is a personal God who objectively exists.
The unseen real is all around us. It is a parallel universe that intersects at specific times and places with our reality. 2 Kings 6: 16,17 illustrates the closeness of the two realities. In these verses Elisha’s servant looked out and saw an army with horses and chariots surrounding the city of Dotham, greatly outnumbering the defenders. He turned to Elisha and said “Oh, my Lord, what shall we do?” Elisha answered “Don’t be afraid. Those who are with us are more than those who are with them”. The servant was confused. He knew how many were in the city and how many more were arrayed in the hills against them. Elisha prayed “Lord, open his eyes so he may see”. “Then the Lord opened the servants eyes, and he looked and saw the hills full of horses and chariots of fire all around Elisha”. The servant saw the unseen real all around him.
Our prayer for one another should be “Oh Lord, open our eyes and the eyes of our hearts so that we may see”.
Many Christians, if they think about the supernatural, reject it as ancient baggage that the modern Christian would do well to abandon in this naturalistic and rationalistic world. But effective, powerful prayer is rooted in the reality of the supernatural. Without the supernatural Christianity would be another ‘good philosophy’, psychology, or sociology; another dialectic that provides an ‘opiate for the masses’ but has no real meaning or power. Strip away the supernatural and Christianity falls flat on its face and prayer becomes a useless exercise in self-centeredness; mere words spoken out into an empty void ; prayer would be foolish and pointless. Most of the unbelieving world would say “Amen, that is exactly what prayer is”.
But believing prayer is not foolish or pointless. Every praying believer has witnessed answered prayer. Sometimes the answers are quick in coming. Sometimes they take years of persistent praying. Prayer warriors regularly see miraculous answers to prayer that cannot be explained by natural causes. The Christian’s faith is rooted in scripture bolstered by the tangible manifestation of the Spirit of Christ, the unseen real, at work around them in the natural world. Tell Christians in India, Africa, South America, or China that prayer has no meaning or power. They have witnessed the power of prayer more often than most of us in the West.
The natural world hates the supernatural. Atheists accept the historical Jesus. They can accept that he was a real man, perhaps a zealot. His philosophy of ‘love your neighbor’ is laudable. They believe that He died a brutal but ultimately pointless death. The stories of his resurrection were made up to give his followers credibility. The atheist Richard Dawkins has said that he has no problem with religion. It is the supernatural that he hates. This has been the focus of culture’s attack on Christianity for centuries. Remove the supernatural, and you have decimated the faith.
Why has culture, for centuries, been so adamantly hostile toward the supernatural in Christianity? Why have Christians been ridiculed for their beliefs in the miracles of Jesus, His atoning death on the cross, His resurrection, and life after death? There is probably no single answer to these questions. But, if there is a supernatural reality and power then man must acknowledge that he is not the center of the universe, that there is a power greater than himself to which he must submit, and that he is not in control of his own destiny. Fallen human nature bitterly resists and resents these ideas. This battle is even being fought in the Church today and is at the heart of heated debate between conservative and liberal Christians that extends back over a hundred years, beginning with the schisms in the Church over the Higher Criticism movement.
This is where the battle of truth is being fought around the world today. “But if we see this, then we have thrust upon us the necessity, the high calling and the duty, to live in the light of the existence of the two parts of the universe, the seen and the unseen parts, in the realization that the heavens are not far off. They are about us here.” (Francis Schaeffer, ‘True Spirituality’, pg. 60).
Is it so important for the praying believer to embrace the supernatural? The answer is emphatically yes, for five reasons. First, if I reject the significance of the supernatural, I sit in what Schaeffer calls the seat of unfaith. “I am not a bible-believing Christian in the fullest sense simply by believing the right doctrines but as I live in the practice in this supernatural world” (Schaeffer, pg. 56). Second, if I reject the supernatural all I do is done in the flesh. I have put myself at the center of the universe and believe that it is my power, because there is no other, that accomplishes whatever good I do. This is idolatry and ultimately, as the world around us can testify, idolatry leads to death, at least spiritual death. Third, I am only playing at being a Christian because the real battle is against the powers and principalities of the supernatural world. Jesus calls us to release the Kingdom of God into the kingdom of the world, which means pushing back the powers of darkness, primarily through believing prayer, in the name of Jesus, and in the power of the Holy Spirit. Fourth, without the supernatural there can be no resurrection, no atoning death on the cross, no Holy Spirit. We are left with nothing. Fifth, the Lord will not honor our prayers because in our unfaith we are not seeking and praying His will nor will Jesus get the glory. Prayers offered from the chair of unfaith will always be ineffectual and powerless. “The Lord’s work done in human energy is not the Lord’s work any longer. It is something, but it is not the Lord’s work” (Schaeffer, ‘True Spirituality”, pg. 59).
God intends for the prayers of the believer to change the world. Effective prayers are prayed with faith to a person with belief in the supernatural, unseen real world around us. Outside of these beliefs, prayer has no power, and ultimately no purpose.
The Power of Prayer
Jesus would often find a place of solitude and spend hours in prayer. His disciples recognized the connection between His proficiency in prayer and his wondrous life in public. None could pray like Jesus. After He had finished praying in a certain place one of His disciples asked Him “Lord, teach us to pray”. It was in response to this request that Jesus introduced the disciples to the Lord’s Prayer (Luke 11:2-4). Jesus went on to say more about prayer to the disciples. “So I say to you: ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you. For everyone who ask receives; he who knocks finds; and to him who knocks, the door will be opened” (Luke 11:9, 10); “If you then, though you are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give the Holy Spirit to those who ask Him!” (Luke 11: 13).
Jesus makes more promises about prayer. In Mark 11: 22-24 Jesus says “Have faith in God. I tell you the truth, if anyone says to this mountain, ‘Go, throw yourself into the sea, and does not doubt in his heart but believes that what he says will happen, it will be done for him. Therefore I tell you, whatever you ask for in prayer, believe that you have received it, and it will be yours.”
Hudson Taylor, the founder of the Inland China Mission in the nineteenth century, is reported to have said about prayer “the only amazing thing about praying for the mountain to move is, after you have prayed, it does not move” (paraphrased).
In His final discourse to His disciples in the upper room in the book of John, Jesus provides more insight into the potential power of our prayer. He makes five similar promises:
“I tell you the truth, anyone who has faith in me will do what I have been doing (basically healing, delivering from demons, and teaching in the power of the Spirit). He will do even greater things than these, because I am going to the Father. And I will do whatever you ask in my name, so that the Son may bring glory to the Father (John 14:212, 13)
“You may ask me for anything in my name, and I will do it” (John 14: 14)
“If you remain in me and my words remain in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be given you” (John 15: 7)
“You did not choose me, but I chose you and appointed you to go and bear fruit – fruit that will last. Then the father will give you whatever you ask in my name” (John 15:16)
“I tell you the truth, my Father will give you whatever you ask in my name. Until now you have not asked for anything in my name. Ask and you will receive, and your joy will be complete” (John 16: 23, 24)
What do these Scriptures tell us about effective, powerful, answered prayer? One key to answered prayer is faith. Another is expectancy. A third element in answered prayer is to ask in ‘the name of Jesus’. What does it mean to pray and ask in the ‘name of Jesus’? The answer to this question leads us deep into the heart of God and speaks to the relationship we are called to have as believers with the crucified and risen Christ.
First, I will tell you what it does not mean. It does not mean attaching the words “in the name of Jesus” to the end of our prayers as if these words were a magic formula. This is totally unbiblical.
The name of a person has attached to it the nature, character, wisdom, and power of that person. It represents the whole man. Asking God ‘in the name of Jesus’ means that I have been given the right and privilege to ask with the nature and power of Jesus. It is as if Jesus is making the request, not me. When I ask in another’s name I ask in that person’s authority and power, not my own. I am representing that person. An American ambassador carries the power and authority of the State Department and asks in the name of the President of the United States, not in the ambassador’s name.
When I ask in another’s name I am giving up my own power and my own agenda. I am asking according to his plans and purposes. I am giving up the right to myself. I am laying down my own view of the world to take on the viewpoint of the one in whose name I am making the request. Like the ambassador, I am representing the point of view of the other in whose name I come, not my viewpoint. I am representing the will of the other, not my will.
It is a mark of great trust and intimacy for another to allow me to use his name in transactions. When the father gives the son the right to use his name in business it signifies that the son has the full trust of the father. In business transactions the son is accorded all the respect that the father deserves. The father believes that the son will ask in accordance with what is best for the father’s interests. I have access to the Father’s authority and power to the extent that I yield myself to the interests of the Father; I surrender my interests to his.
All of this underlies my requests to the Father in the ‘name of Jesus’. Furthermore, I can do none of these things unless I live in union with Christ. Requesting rightly in Jesus’ name presupposes a high degree of spiritual intimacy between me and Jesus and a submission to His will. “Let the name of Jesus only have undivided supremacy in my heart and life, my faith will grow to the assurance that what I ask in that name cannot be refused. The name and the power of asking go together: when the name of Jesus has become the power that rules my life, its power in prayer with God will be seen too” (Andrew Murray, ‘With Christ in the School of Prayer’, pg. 64).
In John’s first letter, he writes “This is the confidence we have in approaching God: 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 what we asked of him” (1 John 5: 14, 15). To ask according to God’s will is the same thing as asking ‘in the name of Jesus’.
When we pray to the Father in the ‘name of Jesus’ we pray the will of the Father back to Him. We are not praying our will. To pray like this requires confession, self-reflection, self-denial, obedience, and a daily connection to Jesus through study, solitude, and prayer. In short, we cannot effectively pray in Jesus’ name without the aid of the Holy Spirit.
In John 15 Jesus shows us the nature of the relationship with us that leads up to His words “Then the Father will give you whatever you ask in my name” (John 15:16). First, as a branch is connected to the vine to have life and not wither, we must be connected to Jesus through the Holy Spirit. As we remain connected to Jesus through spiritual disciplines like study, prayer, fasting, and solitude He continually fills us with the Spirit. Paul tells us “Instead, be filled with the Spirit” (Ephesians 5:16). The Greek that Paul used means be filled continually with the Spirit. Next Jesus tells us to be obedient to His commands. Disobedience hinders the flow of God’s Spirit and causes us to disconnect from the Vine. After that Paul tells us that if we are obedient we will remain in Christ’s love. This does not mean that we will be loved less by Jesus if we are disobedient. Disobedience or Sin is our turning away from Christ’s love and value to find our value and love in things of the world in our way, our time, and our power. To the extent that we do that we will not be able to fulfill his next command. “Love each other as I have loved you” (John 15:12). If we remain connected to Christ through the Spirit, obey His commands, remain in His love, and love each other as He has loved us “we will bear much fruit – fruit that will last” (John 15:16). Once I have chosen to live this way, empowered by the indwelling Spirit, Jesus says “Then the Father will give you whatever you ask in my name” (John 15: 16).
Finally, when we go in the name of someone else we do not go ashamed of that other person. In Matthew 10: 32, 33 Jesus says “Everyone who acknowledges me before men and confesses Me (out of a state of oneness with me), I will also acknowledge him before My Father Who is in heaven and confess that I am abiding in him. But whoever denies and disowns me before men, I also will deny and disown him before my Father Who is in heaven” (Amp translation).
In The Message, Peterson translates this passage more succinctly “Stand up for me against world opinion and I’ll stand up for you before my Father in heaven. If you turn tail and run, do you think I’ll cover for you?”
Our prayers have effectiveness because they are mediated for us by Jesus. It is Jesus who brings our requests to God with His stamp of approval if they are truly prayed ‘in His name’. We cannot be ashamed of Jesus before men and expect that He will mediate for us if we pray ‘in His name’ in private.
Effective prayer is like an iceberg. The tip of the iceberg is our prayer life. The rest of the iceberg below the water is the life of obedience, devotion, and commitment to Christ that we live moment by moment in the Kingdom of God in the power of the Spirit. It is the life lived in the Kingdom of God. Effective prayers are the prayers of Kingdom men and women.
The believing Christian has access to incredible spiritual power and authority. That power is available to us to heal, cast out demons, restore relationships, bring revival to churches, cities, and nations. It is the same power that Jesus had. And we access this power and release it though prayer when we pray in God’s will and ‘in the name of Jesus’, understanding all that that means for our own, personal walk of obedience with Christ. Paul reminds the Ephesians of the power and privilege given the Christians:
“I pray also that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened in order that you may know the hope to which he has called you, the riches of his glorious inheritance in the saints, and his incomparably great power for us who believe. That power is like the working of his mighty strength, which he exerted in Christ when he raised him from the dead and seated him at his right hand in the heavenly realms, far above all rule and authority, power and dominion, and every title that can be given, not only in the present age but also in the one to come” (Ephesians 1:18-21).
Alfred Lord Tennyson captured this scripture when he wrote:
“There is a place where thou canst touch the eyes
Of blinded men to instant, perfect sight;
There is a place where thou canst say, “Arise”
To dying captives, bound in chains of night;
There is a place where thou canst reach the store
Of hoarded gold and free it for the Lord;
There is a place – upon some distant shore –
Where thou canst send the worker and the Word.
Where is that secret place – dost thou ask, “Where?”
O soul, it is the secret place of prayer!”
In this prayer ‘thou’ is you and me. Tennyson captures the gift, privilege, and responsibility of prayer. He also expresses the trust and value that God has for us that He should give us this authority and power.
Effective prayer, prayer that releases power and receives what it asks for, is prayer that is promised to us by Jesus. When Jesus makes a promise one time it is important; when He makes the same promise twice it is especially noteworthy. When He promises five times to “ask in the name of Jesus and it will be done for you” the promise is iron clad. As discussed above, the power in that prayer is always available but released in proportion to our willingness to ‘give up the right to ourselves’, surrender and submit our lives to Jesus, obey His commands, and love each other as Christ loved us. True, effective, powerful prayer is the consequence of moment-by-moment living through and for Jesus. It takes discipline, but it is not impossible. Would Christ have called us to this life and made us these promises if it was impossible? True, in our own power it is impossible, and here is where many Christians fail. In the power of the Holy Spirit, given as a gift to the believer, coupled with our desire to know and to love Jesus more today than yesterday, to bring Him glory in all that we do and ask, we will see a wonderful world of answered prayer open before us more every day. This is one facet of the radical good news of the Gospel of the Kingdom of God, as Jesus calls it.
Section Two: Frequently Asked Questions About Prayer
Why pray and, the related question, what is the purpose of prayer? We pray because Jesus prayed and He showed us how to pray. We pray because scripture instructs is to pray continually with all kinds of prayers and requests (1 Thessalonians 5: 16-18; Ephesians 6: 18). We pray because God desires to live in relationship with His children. Relationships require talking and listening, which we do in our encounters with God through prayer. We pray because God uses our prayers to release His power in accordance with His will into people, places, and situations in this world. This is a confusing point for many people and requires some additional discussion.
Of course, God is sovereign. He rules and reigns over the world. God is omnipotent, omnipresent, and omniscient. He is outside of time and space, yet He interacts with us in our time and space dimension. So, why doesn’t God do what He wants to do in this world? Why do I need to pray?
God does not ‘need’ our prayers. But God has chosen to work through His people to continue the work of Jesus. Jesus came to rescue, restore, and redeem God’s creation. Jesus brought the Kingdom of God, the rule and reign of God into the world. Before He left Jesus ensured that His people and His church would be filled with the indwelling Holy Spirit “Don’t you know that you yourselves are God’s temple and that God’s Spirit lives in you?” (I Corinthians 3: 26). The Amplified Bible translates the last part of the Scripture as “and that God’s Spirit has His permanent dwelling in you to be at home in you, collectively as a church and also individually”. Jesus did this so that we could release the Kingdom of God, continuing His work. “I tell you the truth, anyone who has faith in me will do what I have been doing. He will do even greater things than these, because I am going to the Father” (John 14: 12).
Augustine wrote, “Without God, we cannot; and without us He will not”. Apparently, our prayers matter.
Furthermore, God has chosen to make His children rulers and priests, to rule in the power of the indwelling Spirit and in the name of Jesus. Peter tells us that “you also, like living stones, are being built into a spiritual house to be a holy priesthood” (1 Peter 2: 5) and “But you are a chosen people, a royal priesthood” (1 Peter 2: 9). In Luke 4: 18-19 Jesus read a portion of Isaiah 61 in the synagogue from the scroll handed to Him; this is His mission statement – “ to proclaim freedom for the prisoner, to recover sight for the blind, to release the oppressed”. In Isaiah 61, God defines the mission of Jesus more fully: to release captives and prisoners; to give them crowns of beauty, anoint them with the oil of joy, clothe them in garments of praise, make them oaks or righteousness. They will rebuild the ancient ruins and restore the places long devastated, and they will be called priests of the Lord.
In Revelation 5:10 John wrote “You have made them a kingdom, a royal race and priests to our God and, and they shall reign as kings over the earth”. In Psalm 8 David writes “What is man that You are mindful of him, the son of man that You care for him? For You have made him a little lower than the angels, and you have crowned him with glory and honor. You have made him to have dominion (“you have made him ruler” in the NIV) over the works of Your hands; you have put all things under his feet (Psalm 8: 4-7 NKJV). It is clear from the context of this passage in Psalm 8 that David is not talking about the ‘son of man’ as Jesus, but David is speaking of mankind.
God calls believes rulers and priests and Has given us kingdoms to rule over. Of course, not in our own power; in the power of the Holy Spirit, and in the name of Jesus, which as I wrote above, means to represent the Father and the Father’s will. The ruler releases the power of the Father in the form of the Holy Spirit over his kingdom. Your kingdom is whatever relationships or area God has given you: your family, your workplace, your city, etc. God will define your kingdom for you. Within that kingdom you are called to rule. You do this primarily through prayer. The priest represents the people in his kingdom to Jesus through prayer; commonly, but not only through intercessory prayer. Like the Kingdom, God calls us to pray for particular people, places, and situations.
Watchman Nee, a great Chinese prayer warrior, writes in his classic book on prayer ‘Let us Pray’:
“Though we do not know the reason why, we nevertheless know that God will not act independently. If the people of God fail to show sympathy towards Him by yielding their will to him and expressing their one mind with Him in prayer, He refuses to act alone. He exalts His people by asking them to work with Him. Although He is mighty, He delights in having His almightiness circumscribed by His children. However zealous He is towards His own will, He will temporarily permit Satan to be on the offensive should His people forget His will and fail to show sympathy by cooperating with Him “ (pgs 6, 7).
Nee provides a rich metaphor for prayer. He calls prayer ‘laying the rails’. “God’s will is like a train whereas our prayer is like the rails of a train. A train may travel to any place, except that it must run on rails” (pg. 27). The train has tremendous power, but it can only run to places where rails have been lain. One of the great mysteries of prayer is that an all-powerful God generally chooses to release His plan through the prayers of His Kingdom men and women. All valuable prayer, like the rails, pave the way for God to release His will as we come into agreement with Him. This is consistent with God’s creative plan for mankind laid out in Genesis 1. We were created to perform a function: to rule over the earth and we were made in God’s own image. To be made in God’s image, to be God’s image bearer, means many things, but probably the main one is that we are delegated a God-like function. God has given us a role and He expects us to fulfill that role.
Why is prayer important, what is the purpose of prayer? If we do not take up the responsibility of prayer, we can hinder the fulfillment of God’s will. “The content of God’s will is entirely decided by God himself; we do not make, nor even participate in, the decision. Yet concerning the doing of His will it is governed by our prayer” (Nee, ‘Let Us Pray’, pg. 27). I believe this radical statement is true. And if it is, it means that our prayers have great significance in God’s Kingdom.
Are there different types of prayer? Yes, there are many different ways of praying and types of prayers. Probably the most common type of prayer is intercessory prayer in which the intercessor approaches the throne of grace on behalf of another person or institution.
Another type of prayer is contemplative prayer in which a person reads scripture repeatedly and sits in silence between readings meditating on the Word. This is related to listening prayer. In listening prayer a problem or situation is lifted to God. The person praying then sits, waits, and listens for God’s answer, generally in the form of guidance or direction. All prayer should have an element of listening prayer.
Paul tells us to pray continuously. “Be joyful always; pray continually; give thanks in all circumstances, for this is God’s will for you in Christ Jesus” (1 Thessalonians 5:16-18) and “And pray in the Spirit on all occasions with all kinds of prayers and requests” (Ephesians 6:18). Brother Lawrence, in the Middle Ages, made popular what he called ‘practicing the presence of Christ’. This is a type of continuous prayer in which you have disciplined your mind to constantly connect the task you are working on to Jesus. For a reference to this type of prayer see ‘Practice the Presence of God’ by Brother Lawrence and ‘Letters by a Modern Mystic’ by Frank Laubach.
There is also a type of prayer called exclamatory prayer. Such a prayer is very short, perhaps only a few words. “Jesus, help me” is an example. This type of prayer can be whispered or prayed silently many times during the day. It is very effective. A good example of exclamatory prayer is in the book of Nehemiah. When the Babylonian king Artaxerxes asked Nehemiah what he wanted, Nehemiah “prayed to the God of heaven” in the few seconds between the question and the answer. He was asking for wisdom to give the right answer. Probably the King did not notice the prayer that took about a second and Nehemiah probably prayed the prayer silently.
There are many forms of prayer. No one is better than another. Having said that, Jesus frequently found it necessary to get away from the crowd and spend time with His Father in intentional and focused prayer. Charles Spurgeon wrote “It is the duty and privilege of ever Christian to have set time of prayer. I cannot understand a man keeping up the vitality of godliness unless he regularly retires for prayer, morning and evening, at the least … It is good for your hearts, good for your memory, good for your moral consistency that you hedge certain portions of time and say ‘These belong to God” (The Power of Prayer, pg. 147).
What are some tips for getting started with prayer? The type of prayer that Charles Spurgeon describes takes practice. If you haven’t developed a life of prayer in a solitary place at least once a day, it might be hard to pray for five minutes. But with practice you will soon find yourself praying for fifteen to thirty minutes. This time of the day will become essential to you. Be patient and persistent. Prayer is like runnning a marathon. You cannot wake up one morning and run twenty-six miles without training. In the same way you probably will not be able to wake up one morning and pray for two hours. You build up to it.
The type of prayer I am describing works best for me if I pray early in the morning before I do anything else. This is called ‘giving God the first fruits of the day’. I have a dark, private place where I can pray out loud if I feel called to do that. It is a quiet place, free of distractions. This is not always possible for parents with young children. But if you get up a half-hour before the rest of the house wakes, it should be possible to start the day off with prayer. This, of course, takes discipline. If that time does not work, then prayer in the evening is also very good (best of all, do both times). I try to make my morning prayers a regular habit. Often, I miss a day or two each week. This happens and I don’t let it bother me. I do the best I can and know that God does not love me less if my prayer life is lacking. Just the fact that I have an open invitation to come before God anytime is a measure of how valuable I am to God, even if there are longer stretches in which my prayer life is dry.
What are some good books on prayer? As you can imagine, there are many excellent books on prayer. The most authoritative book on prayer is the Bible. According to Richard Foster, who himself has written a book on prayer, the best book written on prayer is ‘With Christ in the School of Prayer’ by Andrew Murray. Another good book is ‘Let Us Pray’ by Watchman Nee. Charles Spurgeon’ book ‘The Power of Prayer’ is also very good. Another excellent book is “Prayers that Move Mountains” by John Eldridge.
I try to pray but my mind wanders and I am easily distracted by seemingly random thoughts. What can I do to overcome these distractions? First, be sure that the thoughts are ‘random’ and not the Lord leading you to a deeper understanding of your life or situation or the life of someone or something you are praying for. If these are the cases, let the Lord lead you. But most of the people who pray regularly that I have spoken with occasionally do find their minds far away from where they started. Once you recognize that you are off track, gently return to your subject of prayer, as often as necessary. I have found it helpful, when I am praying alone in a quiet place, to pray audibly, even if it is in a whisper. At other times, when I believe that there is a spirit of distraction at work in my heart or mind I will pray to rebuke and bind that spirit and, in the name of Jesus, I will expel the spirit. This is often all that it takes to get back on track and stay on track.
Is there a particular way to pray or formula for prayer? I usually begin my prayer time with confession and asking God for the gift of repentance, believing in the scripture which says “If we confess our sins he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness” (1 John 1:9). This is generally followed by giving God praise and thanks. I pray for myself, asking God to take me deeper into His heart and for Him to help me find all of my value, comfort, and safety in Jesus. I always pray for a Spirit of humility. Most of my prayers are intercessory. I am praying for people that God has put on my heart, my church, city, and nation. I have a mental list of people that I pray for. First, my family; then friends and pastors, my church, then a wider group of pastors followed by men that God has called me to mentor. I finish with a prayers for healing for certain people that God has instructed me to pray for. God adds and removes people from my mental list. Sometimes my prayers are almost totally about confession and repentance. However, one time when I was confessing and repenting God told me to be quiet. Then He gave me a vision of His friendship with me and told me, at least in that moment, my friendship with Him blessed Him and was more important to Him than my confessions.
This is how I pray most of the time. There are probably as many different ways to pray as there are people praying. No one way is right. Some people use the formula ACTS – adoration, confession, thanksgiving, and supplication. I broadly follow this pattern, but want to follow the leading of the Holy Spirit each time I sit down with God. One powerful way to pray is to pray Scripture back to God. The best template is the Lord’s prayer. I have heard powerful prayer warriors pray the Lord’s prayer, breaking their prayer into the elements of the Lord’s prayer, and didn’t know that was what they were praying until they told me later. No there is ‘right’ way to pray. But, prayer is both talking and listening to God. Be sure to leave time for listening. Sometimes that is the most important part of prayer.
How long should I pray? There is no rule here. As long as it takes to bring to God whatever He has laid on your heart. Exclamatory prayer will take less than a second or so. When God calls you to intercede for a family member, co-worker, fellow church member, elected official, city, or nation you might be in continuous prayer for hours.
When we pray for something or someone we may not receive an answer for a very long time, perhaps years. We are called to be like the persistent woman who hammered away at the Judge until she got what she wanted.
I pray silently. I am not comfortable praying out loud. Is this a problem? When I became a Christian in about 1992, I was extremely self-conscious about praying out loud in public. The first time I prayed for another person out loud was on a Stephen Ministry training retreat in about 1995. Asa Hunt, our leader, broke our class into teams of two and told us to pray for each other. I asked him “do you mean out loud?” Yes, he said, out loud. That was a big step for me. I remember I spent the first few minutes weeping. Something was released in me; it was like a Spiritual logjam was broken.
God hears all of our prayers, even before we pray. The silent prayer is as effective as the audible prayer. In some cases more effective, if by praying out loud you are trying to impress people. But sometimes your prayers spoken out loud for other people in their presence are very comforting and powerful, even necessary.
Spoken prayers are also important in Spiritual warfare. Whenever Jesus confronted demons and commanded them to leave another man’s spirit He always commanded them orally. In Luke 4:35 Jesus rebuked an evil spirit in a man in the Synagogue saying “Be silent, and come out of him”. In Mark 5 Jesus had a conversation with an evil spirit ‘living’ in a demon-possessed man saying “come out of this man, you evil spirit”. During His time of temptation in the desert, Jesus spoke at least three times to Satan, rebuffing and rebuking him.
I know it was a big hurdle for me to open my mouth and pray out loud. I only did it because I was put on the spot by Asa (in a good way). It was the beginning of a great blessing in my life. Once you pass over that hurdle I believe you also will be blessed and you will be a blessing to others. Find someone – spouse, friend, or child and offer to pray with them. Then, perhaps praying a silent exclamatory prayer like “Lord, help me”, open your mouth and let the words flow. God will do the rest.
Conclusion
Prayer is a conversation with God — both speaking and listening. God desires to have an intimate relationship with us. He has made His home in our heart, after all. And if you think of your heart as a house with many rooms, since He entered your heart when you ‘repented and believed’, He has visited every room and investigated the contents. That is intimate.
Is that the only reason to pray? Not hardly. Prayer changes us. How can we come into the presence of God, converse with Him in the power of the Spirit, and not be changed. But there is more.
God is sovereign. That means He is King, Ruler. Everything in the Universe, including us and our world, is under His rule and reign. So why pray, especially prayers of intercession? God already knows the situation and in His sovereignty will address it in His own time and in His own way. But that is apparently not God’s approach. He has given us authority and power, called us rulers and priests to this world. He has given us responsibility. Not because He is deficient in any way, but because He chooses. We are partners with God, junior partners for sure, but partners.
In my opinion (for what it is worth) there is great mystery here. Prayer is not straightforward from where I sit. All I can say is that God has called me to pray and in response to my prayers, He has moved. I have experienced answered prayers. Would the same result have been achieved if I didn’t pray. Who knows, but in my heart I think ‘No’. I certainly do not pray or ask in my power. I ask in the ‘name of Jesus’ and in the power of the Holy Spirit. There is a mixture of God’s spirit, Jesus name, and my passion and words that all come together to give prayer the power to change the our world. But my participation is necessary.
I have suggested in this document that God generally moves in response to our prayers. As uncomfortable as this is for many people, I believe that is what God wants us to understand. Why would He give us power and authority and call us Rulers and Priests if these functions were only ceremonial? We were created in His image, given the same power God used to raise Jesus from the dead (Ephesians 1: 18-21). Jesus tells us that we have the power to move mountains. But we are not totally independent — as I said above we are partners operating with His power and our effective prayers are asking for His will to be done. We cannot change God’s will, but we release and ‘enforce’ His will in the world.
One more point about effective prayer — prayer that accomplishes what is asked for. It is the prayer of a Kingdom man or woman; a person living in the Kingdom of God, under the rule and reign of Christ. People who are living in the kingdom of self pray also, but wonder (I think) why their prayers aren’t answered. When we choose the Kingdom of God as our spiritual and emotional home, we get gifts — one of these gifts is the power and authority to ask God for His will to be done in prayer. And Kingdom life is not just something we ask for just one time — it is a lifestyle that requires true repentance daily.