Prayer is simply agreeing with God's will. When we are immature in our faith, we try to manipulate God. Many times immature faith is looking for shortcuts and formulas that are guaranteed to bring an answer to our requests.
Immature faith looks at prayer as a weapon to force God to come good on His promises. True prayer is not a human strong arming at persuading God or forcing our will upon Him. True praying is finding and coming into agreement with the will of God. Then we ask according to His will; then we can stand in faith, fully confident that God hears us and that whatever we ask for is already ours.
There are some lessons we can learn from these verses:
1) Pray with authority and receive answers to your prayers, being careful to make sure you ask according to the will of God. James 1:5 tells us, "If any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask of God, who gives to all liberally and without reproach, and it will be given to him." If you do not know His will, as James says, ask Him.
2) Believe that God hears your prayers and has already set the answer in motion.
3) Be tenacious and persistent in your praying until His will is accomplished. This is true prayer.
Years ago I belonged to a small intercessory prayer group. We were specifically asking God for direction over the church at that time. We were asking God to forewarn us of any attacks the enemy would try to send against us.
One of the members of the group stopped by my office one day and shared with me that she had felt the Lord impress her that an attack was coming against the church, but that it would be short and would come to nothing.
A few days later, sure enough, there was an attack that came against the church unexpectedly. It seemed devastating at the time, but the word of the Lord to us had been that an attack was coming, would be short lived and come to nothing.
We hung onto that word. We prayed exactly as God had directed us, agreeing with His will, and the attack was soon over and as God had foretold, came to nothing.
It is so important to hear God's heart in every situation. We need to slow down and listen to His Voice. You, too, can pray the perfect will of God and witness the awesome, supernatural ways of the Lord!
- What about you? Are you demanding things in prayer that may not be the will of God? Do you feel discouraged over unanswered prayers? Take them before the Lord again and ask Him to sort out in you what you may be praying amiss. Be still and let Him reveal His will and way to you. He is able to speak loud enough for you to understand how you can come into agreement with Him. Take time today.
