If
you ask most believers, "How's your
prayer life?", the common response would most likely be a blank stare
or eyes lowered in dismay and guilt since they know it is not what it should
be. But that kind of thinking tells me that those who might respond in such a
manner see prayer as a duty and not as a lifeline.
As
we've been learning, our prayer life is a thermometer for our relationship with
our Father...not only about how we interact with Him, but how He interacts with
each of us. If we recorded our prayers, we would see that most of them are
primarily about ourselves and what we want or need. We keep asking but nothing
happens; so pretty soon we don't spend time in prayer at all! But, effective or
answered prayers must comply with God's operational procedures...if we don't
pray as God instructs, then we can't really expect Him to answer.
So
how should we pray so that our prayers will be effectively answered by a loving
God? Unless we understand the essentials of prayer, we will go to God only with
our "wish list" and treat Him as some big "genie in a
bottle". Our prayers will be self-centered and about what God can do for
us and not what we can do for Him...so let's look at six ingredients that lead
to answered prayer.
Since
prayer is about our relationship and our ongoing growth as a child of God,
Scriptures tells us that in the Gospel of John, Jesus said, "And
whatever you ask in my name, I will do it, so that the Father will be glorified
in me." (my paraphrase John 14:13) This sounds like the
"genie in the bottle" mentality at first glance; but broken down into
its parts...first we ask "in Jesus name."
That
means when we pray in Jesus name, we pray in accordance with His
CHARACTER....and Jesus never prayed for ANYTHING outside of God's will. If we
pray SELFISHLY for our "lustful" desires or because we think we
deserve what we are asking for...I can assure you the answer to your prayer
will be "NO!!!" However, if we pray for something that Jesus would
want for us as a child of God, then we pray correctly..."IN HIS
NAME."
The
next ingredient can be found in this same verse, "that the Father may be
glorified in me." So we must ask ourselves when we pray, "Who gets the glory if God answers my
prayer? Will the outcome of my prayer bring honor to the name of Jesus...or do
I get the credit? Will His name be praised or will others be talking about me?
Is God going to be pleased and will His divine will be accomplished with the answer to my prayer? God says
through the word of His Son, that if He receives the GLORY, then He will
respond to my prayer.
The
third ingredient is based on our true relationship to God. The greatest
commandment is "to love the Lord
your God with all your heart and with all your mind and with all your
soul." When we live out this commandment, our lives will be filled
with faith from which flows our love and devotion to our Heavenly Father...so
we will do what the Lord wants us to do because we love Him and He loves us.
But Jesus ask His followers, "Why do
you call me Lord and yet do not do what I say?" So if we say we love God, WE KEEP HIS
COMMANDMENTS....and if we don't keep His commandments, then we really don't
love Him...and if we don't love and obey Him, why should we expect Him to
answer our prayers? Simple logic!
The
fourth ingredient is one that confronts and confounds us all. James wrote, "But when you ask, you must believe and not doubt, because
the one who doubts is like a wave of the sea, blown and tossed by the
wind. That person should not expect to receive anything from the
Lord. Such a person is double-minded and unstable in all they do."
When
you let doubt enter your prayer life, you are in for one roller coaster of a
ride. You will never know what is coming, what to give thanks for and what to
continue to pray about since your ability to decipher what God is doing is
based on what you see rather than what you believe...Faith helps us conquer the
"highs and lows" of a tempest-tossed life and allows us to trust the
hand that is on the helm; steering us to our holy destinations.
Our
next ingredient is perseverance or determination...coming to a point in our
prayer life that NOTHING will deter us from making our supplications known
before the Lord...no matter how many times we have to pray about the same
thing; WE WILL NOT BE DETERRED FROM A GODLY ANSWER TO OUR PRAYER. It is with
fervency that we show God the passion of our sincerity.
And
the last ingredient is a lot like trying to bake a cake with our baking
powder...it's not going to rise! That ingredient is FORGIVENESS...for as Jesus
taught us to pray, "Forgive us our
debts as we forgive our debtors." He further emphasized, "If you forgive men when they sin against you, your heavenly
Father will also forgive you. (Matt 6:14) How can we expect God to hear our prayer for
forgiveness with when have failed to forgive those who have sought forgiveness
from us? We must keep an open line to
the Father for Him to hear and answer our prayer; however, that line is cut in
two when we fail to resolve our differences with others by holding grudges
filled with bitterness....a bitter heart is a breeding ground for the Evil one
and believe me, the Devil will stop at nothing to break your heart line to
Heaven's throne.
The
Apostle John wrote, "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."(I John ,14-15)
So
what's the summation of these 6 ingredients to effective, answered
prayer...simply stated;
We pray for what we believe He wills; we ask for
what will bring Him glory; we obey His commands; we do not doubt; we ask
repeatedly and we always pray from a pure heart, filled with His love and
forgiveness....
Now,
Let the prayers begin.....God Bless!
WPQ
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