Increase Your Prayer Power

INCREASE YOUR PRAYER POWER

1 John 5:14-15

Only few Christians are praying with power that’s why only few have experiences the tremendous blessings the Lord has given to his children. So praying is very frustrating experience because people are keep on asking without the assurance of God’s answer.

All Christian know how to pray, but knowledge in prayer doesn’t guarantee of answered prayer. They pray but there is no power! Or there is power but not enough to bring assurance to answer their prayers. So the solution is to increase the power in prayer enough to bring results.

There are 3 requirements on how to increase your power prayer.

I. To increase your prayer power you must INCREASE YOUR FAITH (V. 14a)

“This is the confidence that we have in Him.”

•Confidence (Webster) – Faith or trust = “increase your faith or trust in God”

•The preposition “in” can be translated as “before him or face to face with God”

•Jesus is reminding us that power in prayer depends on intimacy of fellowship with God.

•There is a quotation which is absolutely true “The prayerful person is the powerful person”

Illustration

During the lunch our, the president of a large factory wanted to talk to his company’s manager about an urgent matter, but the manager’s secretary said, “He can not be disturbed for he is in conference—as he is everyday at this time.” She firmly replied, “I have strict orders, sir, not to disturb him while he is in conference.” Angrily the man brushed the secretary aside and opened the door to the manager’s private office. After one quick look be backed out, gently closed the door, and said, “I’m sorry! Is this a daily conference?” “Yes, everyday he spends fifteen minutes in such conference.” The president found the manager on his knees before his open Bible. Hudson Taylor – Sermoncentral.com

•“These 40 years have not seen the sun rise in China without my father kneeling in Prayer” – Howard Taylor, son of Hudson Taylor

Matthew 9:29 said: "According to you faith, it will be done to you." The key to unlocks all God wants to do in your life is really simple: It’s Faith.

•To increase your prayer power, you must increase your faith.

II. To increase your prayer power you must INCREASE YOUR KNOWLEDGE (V. 14b)

“If we ask according to His will.”

•You can know God’s will in your life if you have knowledge with God. If you are familiar to Him. That’s why we ought to study the scriptures to learn from Him to develop intimacy with Him.

Illustration:

The fishing with the old man on the bay ---- “I know this ship will stop because my father is the captain.”

•Most of the time we fail to receive because we are not sure if what we are requesting be in line with God’s will.

E.g. Praying for a car, but your salary is just enough for your family’s daily needs.

•In Colossians 1;9 Paul prayed; “I desire that you might be filled with the knowledge of His will in all wisdom and spiritual understanding”

•Remember that Jesus’ teaching in prayer was “Thy will be done”. God wants us to do His will and obey his will.

•You can’t expect to get your prayers answered in you’re not willing to do the will of God.

•The other thing is, we already knew that what we are praying is not God’s will but still we insist it on our prayers.

III. To increase your prayer power you must INCREASE YOUR EXPECTATIONS (V. 15)

“And if you know that He hears us, whatsoever we ask, we know that we have the petitions that we desired of Him.”

•You will notice the repetition of the word know in this verse.

•The Bible tells us that we can know in advance the Lord’s answers to our prayer. In career, in choosing life partners – we can be sure that God will answer our prayer.

The Law of Expectations says that, basically, we get what we expect out of life. We tend to see what we expect to see, we tend to feel what we expect to feel, we tend to act the way we expect to act, and eventually, we tend to achieve what we expect to achieve. Your expectations influence your happiness, they influence your health. Your expectations influence your relationships.

•There are two types of person in this world: VIP and VDP. VIP means Very Inspiring Person and the VDP means Very Draining Persons. VIP is optimist, positive thinker, always expects results in life. VDP person is pessimist, negative thinker, and always backing up. E.g. David & King Saul

•I always say, “Christians do not pray because they are afraid of failing to receive what they have requested.”