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Pastor Ed Pruitt
Are you looking for a Prayer that works? Part 1
Sunday July 01, 2007
The effectual fervent prayer of
A righteous man availeth much.
James 5:16
Two thousand years have passed since that Scripture was written, and during
that time much has been said about prayer.
Countless sermons have been preached about it.
Multitudes of books have been written about it.
Yet with all we have learned about prayer,
the bottom line still remains the same.
It’s the prayer that brings the intended result that
makes the difference.
In other words, the best kind of prayer is the prayer
that gets an answer.
Religion has tried to confuse the issue by saying things such as, “God always answers prayer,
but sometimes the answer is No.”
The Bible, however, doesn’t say anything like that.
According to the Bible, if you pray right you will receive what you ask for¬¬—every single time.
God’s answer to scriptural prayer is always Yes.
No doubt, that statement would upset some people.
“Well, I don’t think you can just expect God to do what you want Him to do every time you pray,”
they might say.
“After all, He is a sovereign God and He does what He chooses.”
Sure enough, He is a sovereign God.
He does do what He chooses.
And He has chosen to give us whatever we ask
in Jesus’ name.
Jesus Himself said if those who believe Him would
“ask anything” in His name, He would do it.
John 14:14 (NLT)
14 Yes, ask me for anything in my name, and I will do it!
He said in verse 13, Whatsoever ye shall ask in my name, that will I do, that the Father may be glorified in the Son.
Answered prayer isn’t man’s idea; it’s God’s idea.
Thus, when prayers aren’t answered, it’s not God’s fault, it’s ours.
We have not done something right!
James 4:3 NKJV says, You ask and do not receive, because you ask amiss.
When we don’t receive what we pray for, either our motives or our methods are wrong.
God’s desire is for us to keep changing and keep learning until we grow to the place where we get everything we ask Him for.
How do I know that’s possible?
Because Jesus received everything He asked for.
And the Bible says we’re destined to be just like Him. (Rom. 8:29.)
When Jesus prayed over the loaves and fishes, God answered and multiplied them to feed the thousands.
When Jesus prayed for Lazarus to be raised from the dead, that’s exactly what happened.
When Jesus said to His disciples that He would pray the Father to send the Holy Ghost,
God poured out His Spirit on the Day of Pentecost with the sound of a rushing mighty wind and
tongues of fire.
Actually, every miracle in Jesus’ life was born out of the time He spent in effectual prayer.
The same will be true for us.
As we learn to pray as He prayed, we’ll do the works that He did—and even greater works. (John 14:12.)
Not Just an Opportunity, but a Responsibility Truly, God has given us a wonderful part to play in His divine plan.
By promising to answer our prayers, He has made it possible for us to become agents of His will on the earth.
He’s given us the privilege of making supernatural changes in natural circumstances.
From our perspective, it is an amazing opportunity.
But God sees it as more than an opportunity; He considers it our responsibility.
Read what Jesus said to His disciples in John 15:1-8,16 NKJV and you’ll see what I mean.
“I am the True Vine, and My Father is the vinedresser.
Every branch in Me that does not bear fruit He takes away; and every branch that bears fruit He prunes, that it may bear more fruit.
You are already clean because of the word which I have spoken to you.
Abide in Me, and I in you.
As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself, unless it abides in the vine, neither can you, unless you abide in Me.
I am the vine, you are the branches.
He who abides in Me, and I in him, bears much fruit; for without Me you can do nothing.
If anyone does not abide in Me, he is cast out as a branch and is withered; and they gather them and throw them into the fire, and they are burned.
If you abide in Me, and My words abide in you, you will ask what you desire, and it shall be done for you.
By this My Father is glorified, that you bear much fruit; so you will be My disciples.
You did not choose Me, but I chose you and appointed you that you should go and bear fruit, and that your fruit should remain, that whatever you ask the Father in My name He may give you.”
According to that last verse, our mission and purpose on this earth as Jesus’ disciples is to bear fruit.
What kind of fruit?
The fruit of answered prayer!
If we’re not praying effective prayers that produce results, we’re not fulfilling our purpose for being here.
The reason we weren’t beamed up to heaven as soon as we were born again is so we could pray and bear fruit for God!
One well-known minister said many years ago that it seems God will do nothing on the earth unless someone prays.
Why is that?
It’s because, as Psalm 115:15-16 (NLT)
15 May you be blessed by the LORD,
who made heaven and earth.
16 The heavens belong to the LORD,
but he has given the earth to all humanity.
God gave authority on this earth to mankind, and through His mercies and grace,
He desires to do great and wonderful things in and among people.
He waits for someone to ask Him.
He waits for someone to pray.
It’s As Natural As Breathing or should be for a true child of God.
One reason Christians haven’t taken up this great opportunity and responsibility as we should have is because we’ve allowed the Devil and
religious tradition to convince us that prayer is hard.
We’ve thought that prayer had to be dry and tedious
and unrewarding.
But that’s a lie!
The truth is, prayer is a delightful thing for every true child of God because it takes us into
the presence of our Father.
What Isaiah prophesied in Isaiah 56:7 NKJV
has come to pass for us.
“Even them I will bring to My holy mountain, and make them joyful in My house of prayer.
Their burnt offerings and their sacrifices will be accepted on My altar; for My house
shall be called a house of prayer
for all nations.”
Prayer is not hard for those who have been
born again into the family of God.
It’s a joy!
Prayer comes as naturally to us spiritually as breathing
does physically.
True prayer rises naturally from the hearts of those who
are joined to Jesus.
It is an expression of a personal and intimate relationship
with God.
Such prayer doesn’t have to be eloquent to be pleasing
to the Lord.
It just has to be sincere.
Have you ever seen a family gather around a baby
who is just learning to talk?
That baby doesn’t have to say much to bring great joy
to those who love him.
He can babble something unintelligible and everyone,
mom and dad, brothers and sisters,
aunts and uncles, will rejoice over his efforts to communicate.
“Oh, isn’t he cute!” they’ll say.
“Isn’t he smart?”
How much more does your heavenly Father rejoice over
the words that rise to Him from the hearts of the
children He so dearly loves?
Just think how pleased He is when His children
reach out to communicate with Him!
In the same way that a baby grows in his ability to communicate with his parents as he matures and keeps practicing those communications, so our ability to pray grows and develops the more we pray.
Although studying books can help, we really learn
how to pray by doing it.
Doing it is not a great strain or effort either, if we’ll just stay fully connected to Jesus.
Think again about what Jesus said in John 15:5,7 AMP.
I am the Vine, you are the branches.
Whoever lives in Me and I in him bears much (abundant) fruit.
If you live in Me—abide vitally united in Me—
and My words remain in you
and continue to live in your hearts, ask whatever
you will and it shall be done for you.
When we’re living in vital union with Jesus, praying
effective prayers comes from us just as naturally and easily as fruit grows on the branch of a vine.
Have you ever seen a branch straining, grimacing and saying, “Come on, fruit…grow, grow, grow”?
Of course not.
That branch simply does what it does naturally,
by virtue of the life that flows to it from the vine.
It’s important to understand, however, that living in vital
union with Jesus means more than just being born again.
As Christians, we all have a connection to Jesus.
But we can all look back over our lives and realize there were some times when we were more strongly in union with Him than we were at other times.
If you’ve ever seen a tree with a broken branch,
you know that if it isn’t broken completely, a single connection to the tree will keep it alive.
There won’t be enough life there, however, for the
branch to bear fruit.
In the same way, if your fellowship with God is
broken because you haven’t been walking with
Him in accordance with His word, that
doesn’t change your position of righteousness.
You are still a righteous branch, but there probably
won’t be enough life coming from your
connection with God to enable you to bear fruit.
Being vitally united to God will bring you to a place where all you ask will be granted because, when you are in full union with Him, everything that is in you comes from Him.
When you are vitally united with Him, you’ll want what He wants.
You’ll have in your heart what He has in His heart.
Therefore, your prayers will be His prayers.
And you can be sure He will answer every prayer that
originates with Him.
That just makes good sense!
God would never initiate a prayer He does not intend to answer.
The prayer that’s started in Him will be finished in Him.
Read the Word of God
How do you maintain that kind of vital union with Jesus?
Once again, look at John 15:7 AMP:
If My words remain in you and continue to live
in your hearts, ask whatever you will,
and it shall be done for you.
You might have a deep hunger for God, but if you don’t read His Word, you will not be vitally united with Him.
If you fail to feed on the Word of God, reading,
studying, meditating on it and obeying it,
your prayer life will be weak and ineffective.
If you want a powerful, effective prayer life,
you must spend enough time in the Word of God
for it to come alive in you.
George Mueller, a tremendous man of God, spent days
poring over the Word of God.
Sometimes he would study what the Word had to say about something for two weeks
before he prayed about it.
Then, when he prayed, he kept the Bible
open before him.
I prayed with a preacher by the name of Emerson Wilson when I was younger who was much the same way.
He was so full of the Word of God and he had gotten it so deeply into his heart, that it would come out of his mouth with tremendous power when he prayed.
That Word became a sword slicing through the Devil’s
schemes and bringing forth the will of God.
I’ve never known anyone who could use the
Word of God like he did.
As he would yield his self to the Holy Spirit in prayer,
he would use verses from the Bible in the most unusual
and amazing ways.
I’m telling you, when he said, “It is written,”
the Devil got out of his way!
Now, someone else might say, “It is written,”
and it might not impress the Devil one bit.
He knows what is written, and it doesn’t bother him
when people quote the Bible.
Too often, that’s what Christians do.
They just repeat scriptural words that aren’t really
alive to them.
They speak the Word, but they’re not really believing it because they haven’t spent enough time meditating
on it to move into a place of faith.
When the Word of God is alive to you, when it is more real to you than the natural world around you, your prayers are effective.
When you’ve stored up that Word within you, the Holy Spirit can quicken it to you and show you
how to pray it out.
But you have to give Him something to work with.
You have to have the Word of God, not just in books and on tapes and in Bibles on your coffee table.
You have to have it living in your heart!
The best kind of prayer, the kind that always brings results, is the kind of prayer that comes from a
believer who’s full of the Word of God
and responsive to the Spirit of God.
The Lord has been looking for people who would pray like that for a long time.
In John 4:23-24 NKJV, Jesus said,
“The hour is coming, and now is, when the true
worshipers will worship the Father in spirit
and truth;
for the Father is seeking such to worship Him.
God is Spirit, and those who worship Him must worship in spirit and truth.”
When the Holy Spirit is Joined with the Word of God,
the result is always powerful, effective prayer.
One of the things the Word reveals to us is that there are
many different kinds of prayer.
In Ephesians 6:18 NKJV, the apostle Paul said
we should pray
always with all prayer and supplication in the Spirit,
being watchful to this end with all
perseverance and supplication for all the saints.
The Amplified translation of that verse says
to pray with all manner of prayer.
In sports there are all kinds of games: baseball,
basketball, football, soccer and golf,
to name a few.
Each one of these games comes with it’s own set of rules.
Rules in games need to be followed to get the right results.
Making a touchdown, will not score you any points in golf, and the same generally is true in prayer.
Applying the wrong kind of prayer to a given situation will not bring the desired results.
We need to pray and pray and pray if we are ever going to learn to pray right.
Like Paul said in, 1 Thessalonians 5:16-19 (NLT)
16 Always be joyful.
17 Never stop praying.
18 Be thankful in all circumstances, for this is God’s will for you who belong to Christ Jesus.
19 Do not stifle the Holy Spirit.
The way that we learn anything that we want to do is to practice, keep doing it over and over until we get the job done.
So to help us pray more effectively, in the next two or three weeks we’ll dig into the Word of God and study three general categories of prayer.
The first category is prayer that changes things.
Within that category we will take an in-depth look at the prayer of agreement, the prayer of binding and loosing, the prayer of faith, the prayer of petition, intercessory prayer and united prayer.
The second category includes prayers of thanksgiving
and praise.
The third involves prayers of dedication
and consecration.
As you learn more of what the Bible has to say about these kinds of prayers, you’ll give the Holy Spirit
more to work with as He leads you into a
lifestyle of answered prayer.
