How Powerful is Prayer?
Prayer is one of the greatest parts of being a Christian. Ever since Jesus died on the cross for our sins, there has been a direct line to God. The way to connect to our heavenly Father is through Jesus. From the moment we receive Jesus as our Savior, we are encouraged to pray continuously. Persistent believing prayer is an unstoppable force, and the benefits of believing prayer are the stuff of dreams.
How to Have Powerful Prayers
What exactly is Prayer?
Prayer is communication with God. It isn’t necessarily a request or expression of thanks. It says in 1 Thessalonians 5:17 to “pray without ceasing.” If prayer were getting in a certain posture to beseech God, how could we work and live our lives? Instead, prayer is to maintain an open line of communication and connection to God. It’s an attitude of heart. Or another way to think of it is maintaining an awareness that God is actually always with you and you aren’t ignoring him, even when you aren’t speaking to him.
Prayer is also a weapon against our spiritual enemies and against temptation. Jesus teaches that we are to be persistent in prayer. Luke 1:18 says, “And he told them a parable to the effect that they ought always to pray and not lose heart.” This tells us prayers aren’t always answered immediately. In Daniel 10, we find that a prayer had been hindered for 21 days by a battle in the heavens. It was necessary to persevere in prayer, to receive God’s answer.
What Jesus Taught About Prayer
Reading about the life of Jesus, you can see how important communion with God the Father was to him. Jesus often slipped off alone at night to be alone with God in prayer until morning. He prayed all night, for instance, just before choosing the twelve disciples (Luke 6:12-16).
In Matthew 6:9-13, Jesus gave us what we refer to as The Lord’s Prayer. The model prayer instructs us to show reverence for our Father in heaven and seek God’s will on earth. We ask for our daily bread, ask for our sins to be forgiven, for deliverance from evil, and to be empowered to resist temptation.
Power of Believing Prayer
Our hearts are not in the right place if we seek God in prayer for what we can get from him. Still, it’s amazing to fully grasp what scriptures say about the potential in prayer. In short, we are told that we can get whatever we ask for, if we believe and don’t doubt. Since God isn’t like a genie in a bottle, there is a lot more to understand about context. For instance, true believing prayer can only come through strong faith. When we abide in Christ, we end up wanting what the Father wants, rather than seeking selfish desires. The following are some scripture references about the incredible power of prayer: 1 John 5:14-15; 2 Chronicles 7:14; Mark 11:22-24.
The possibilities in prayer can be summed up with Mark 11:24: “Therefore I tell you, whatever you ask for in prayer, believe that you have received it, and it will be yours.”
