This is such a crucial subject. Knowing how to pray with faith is essential if you will pray at all. While what we pray for is just as important (and I cover that briefly below), we must also know how to pray. And that is with faith in God. Without this, we can’t even come to God to pray! (Hebrews 11:6)
“Therefore I say to you, all things for which you pray and ask, believe that you have received them, and they will be granted you.” Mark 11:24
The more I meditate on this verse, the more powerful and amazing I realize it is.
ALL THINGS… FOR WHICH YOU PRAY AND ASK… BELIEVE THAT YOU HAVE RECEIVED THEM…AND THEY WILL BE GRANTED TO YOU.
Here are four things to know about how to pray:
First off, whatever THINGS you want—things are definite objects, specific requests, precise desires.
Are you asking God for specific requests? For a long time, whenever I would be offended by my husband, I would pray, “Please God, please convict my husband’s heart.” Then one day I realized, I needed to ask God to change Todd’s heart, and then ask for the precise change I wanted!
Second, we must pray with strong desire. We must be serious about what we ask. We must strongly desire our requests and pray with fervency. James 5:16 says, “The effective, fervent prayer of a righteous man avails much.”
Third, we must pray according to God’s will. What does this mean? We know that God’s will is revealed in the Bible. If we pray for things that the Bible forbids, God will not answer those prayers.
• “If you abide in Me [Jesus], and My words abide in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be done for you.” John 15:7
• “Whatever you ask in My name [Jesus], that will I do, so that the Father may be glorified in the Son.” John 14:13
• “Beloved, if our heart does not condemn us, we have confidence before God; and whatever we ask we receive from Him, because we keep His commandments [obey what the Bible says] and do the things that are pleasing in His sight.” 1 John 3:21-22
• “This is the confidence which we have before Him [God], that, if we ask anything according to His will, He hears us. And if we know that He hears us in whatever we ask, we know that we have the requests which we have asked from Him.” 1 John 5:14-15.
Fourth, we must believe without any doubt that God will answer our prayer. We must believe God hears us and really will give us what we’ve asked.
And the proof we believe that God will answer is in our response. After you pray, do you live as if you believe the answer is on the way? Not only on the way, but already answered and done? Do you act as if the answer had already come? The Bible says, “believe that you receive them, and you shall have them.”
Do you continue to worry about those things you’ve prayed for? Or do you live with complete confidence that God will give you what you’ve asked? Do you consider yourself as one blessed with the answers for which you’ve asked even before they’ve come? Do you give thanks and believe that these blessings are already on their way?
To say yes is faith in God. To say no is to not believe God when you pray. Now, have you begun to understand why these words are so mind-blowing?: “ALL THINGS… FOR WHICH YOU PRAY AND ASK… BELIEVE THAT YOU HAVE RECEIVED THEM…AND THEY WILL BE GRANTED TO YOU.”
We must live as though we already have those things for which we have asked. Have you asked God to make your husband a patient man? Then treat him as if he is already a patient man. Have you asked God to make your husband love you more? Then treat your husband as if he already were madly in love with you! Believe in God to answer what you ask!
Consider what C.H. Spurgeon said about prayer: “There is nothing, I repeat it, there is no force so tremendous, no energy so marvellous, as the energy with which God has endowed every man, who like Jacob can wrestle, like Israel can prevail with him in prayer. But we must have faith in this; we must believe prayer to be what it is, or else it is not what it should be. Unless I believe my prayer to be effectual it will not be, for on my faith will it to a great extent depend.”
It is amazing to realize that God’s answer to your prayer will depend a great deal on the extent of YOUR FAITH. I know that many times I’ve asked God to change something in my life—but it the back of my mind, I really didn’t believe the situation would change. And guess what? It didn’t change. I didn’t believe God when I prayed. I didn’t expect change to come. And change didn’t come.
And yet, there have been times when I was truly convinced that God heard my prayer, and that the answer to my prayer was already on the way. And it was done for me “just as [I] believed it would” (Matthew 8:13).
