Prayer is essential for our walk with God. It brings us close to Him and it draws Him close to us. The Bible tells us many times of the delight and great interest that God takes in us who pray unto Him. From the Bible we also see that God does answer prayer. Prayer has given people boldness, assurance, peace etc. When we study the lives of the patriarchs described in the Bible, we see that God does in fact answer prayer. He did in fact intervene thanks to prayer, quite often in a mighty way! What He did for them, He will do for us.. But prayer must come from the heart, for God always looks upon the heart. Psalm 37:4 tells us: “Delight thyself also in the LORD; and he shall give thee the desires of thine heart.” What does this mean? According to Strong’s Concordance, the word “delight”means to take pleasure, to have joy.
We may conclude then, from Psalm 37:4 that if we enjoy praying, that is, drawing near to God in prayer, God is faithful and will give us the desires of our hearts. One word of caution must be said though. The desires of our heart must be pleasing to God. James 4:3 tells us that we will not receive what we have asked if we ask amiss. ”Ye ask, and receive not, because ye ask amiss, that ye may consume it upon your lusts.” (Ja 4:3) We see here, that what we ask God in prayer must NOT be for the consumption of our own lusts. It must be biblical, according to the wishes of God. "And this is the confidence that we have in him, that, if we ask any thing according to his will, he heareth us." (1Jn 5:14) In order to know how to pray and see what is pleasing to God and what is not, we must study the Bible. You need to realize, however, that with and through prayer, Christianity stands or falls. Prayer is the very essence of our Christianity.
Churches need to focus more on the essence of prayer. There seems to be a lack of the importance of real heartfelt prayer. Instead, many churches seem more focused on teaching what Scriptures to quote in order to get rich. They think that by manipulating God, whilst quoting Scriptures, we may obtain what we want and become rich. Wrong! Do you seriously think that God will honor such a prayer? I don't! God looks at your heart. If your heart is full of worldly desire that only fulfills one purpose, you indulging in riches of this world, God will NOT hear such prayers. Not even whilst quoting His own Word! I know of many people who have been quoting faithfully all the prosperity Scriptures from the Bible for years on end and still remain in the same situation.Why is this so?
That's right! Good Answer. So don't get yourself fooled with what these 'wolves in sheep clothes' teach! All they are after is YOUR MONEY. They quote Scriptures such a : "But my God shall supply all your need according to his riches in glory by Christ Jesus."(Phil 4:19), teaching that whilst you quote this Scripture amongst other Scriptures of course, God is obligated to comply. But they do fail to teach that this Scripture very specifically teaches us that 'God will meet our NEEDS.." and not our "DESIRES"! Their teachings are based on the principles of witchcraft. You do well to remember this! Let's study now the conditions to answered prayer shall we?
Conditions to answered prayer:
Much has been written about prayer, but not much has been written about the conditions to answered prayer. There are conditions to fulfilled prayer! The first condition is as we have seen, that we ought to ask for things that are pleasing to God. Another very important condition that Jesus himself gave us is forgiveness. We ought to forgive our debtors before we pray. Let’s take a look at what He said: “And forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors. And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil: For thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory, for ever. Amen. For if ye forgive men their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you: But if ye forgive not men their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses.”(Mt 6:12-15).
From this Scripture we see that unforgiveness can tempt us into evil. Unforgiveness can be a fertile ground for hatred, bitterness and much worse. This opens the doors for evil spirits into your life. That is why forgiveness is so important! Now that we have seen the importance of forgiving our debtors, we can move on to another condition to answered prayer .Faith. That's right. Hebrews 11:6 tells us: “But without faith it is impossible to please him: for he that cometh to God must believe that he is, and that he is a rewarder of them that diligently seek him.” The faith talked about in this verse is explained in Hebrews 11:1: “Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.” What exactly is this evidence of things not seen? It is the hopeful expectation of the things you have been praying for. It is seeing that which you have prayed for, coming into existence. This takes faith. Here is another example of the importance of faith whilst praying: "Let us draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith, having our hearts sprinkled from an evil conscience, and our bodies washed with pure water." (Heb 10:22). This Scripture confirms it doesn't it? If says that we need to have the assurance of faith to have the answer to our prayers. How is this done? Through expectation. And expectation brings faith. It works both ways.
Let's take a look at yet another condition. A clean conscience. “Let us draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith, HAVING YOUR HEARTS SPRINKLED FROM AN EVIL CONSCIENCE, and our bodies washed with pure water.”(Heb.10:22).What exactly does God mean by this? He means that our heart must not condemn us whilst praying. It is a very interesting thing that happens to us all, I think, that when you are engaged in prayer, whilst asking God, your heart condemns you immediately if something that you have asked is good or not. I am convinced this is the working of the Holy Spirit. He is your indicator whether your prayers will be answered or not. Yet another hindrance to prayer is unconfessed in. Unconfessed sin opens the door for the devil to hold our sin against us when God wants to answer our prayers. Satan is our accuser who accuses us day and night before the Lord.(Rev. 10:12). God is a just God and He has to judge rightly. In this case, if we keep on sinning or living in active sin, God cannot but comply to Satan.
God honors prayer if we really desire and are fully committed in getting that which we have asked for. We have learned that the desire must be biblical. We must be totally committed in getting the answer of this prayer of God. Sometimes we need to get this answer by using a "bit of violent force'. Let's see what I mean: "And from the days of John the Baptist until now the kingdom of heaven suffereth violence, and the violent take it by force."(Matt. 11:12). What Jesus here means, is simply that we must not give up our prayer. Sometimes we pray and we do not see the answer immediately. Jesus here tells us that we have to keep on knocking and fighting until the answer to our prayers comes. " And I say unto you, Ask, and it shall be given you; seek, and ye shall find; knock, and it shall be opened unto you."(Lk 11:9) Praying is not just mumbling our hearts desires in 5 to 10 minutes a day. Prayer is hard work people! First, we must dig into the Scriptures to see what God has to say about our needs. We learn to see what is His will and what is not. Then we must commit ourselves to pray until the answer comes. Not just one day, but maybe months, sometimes even years on end. We must hang in there. And this is not always easy. Believe me! I know what I am talking about here. But, yet again, if your heart is set on getting this answer, God will answer it.But again , and( I can not emphasize this enough, your petitions must be biblical!
Let's look at some Scriptures regarding prayer:
"And I will give unto thee the keys of the kingdom of heaven: and whatsoever thou shalt bind on earth shall be bound in heaven: and whatsoever thou shalt loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven." (Matt. 16:19). Here we see that prayer is also a spiritual battle. It means that we must bind those things that must be bound for they are hindering us, and we must loose things that will benefit us.
"Again I say unto you, That if two of you shall agree on earth as touching any thing that they shall ask, it shall be done for them of my Father which is in heaven. For where two or three are gathered together in my name, there am I in the midst of them." (Matt 18:19,20). This is a very important principle. For it shows us that two people united in prayer not only are stronger but they bring Jesus into their midst. This means that Jesus not only hears our prayers, but that He joins our prayers. Usually these prayers find answers more quickly than others.This prayer must be done in complete uniformity. This means that both parties must agree in everything that is being prayed for.
So: “Let us therefore come boldly unto the throne of grace, that we may obtain mercy, and find grace to help in time of need’.”(Heb 4:16). For Jesus himself told us that: "Therefore I say unto you, What things soever ye desire, when ye pray, believe that ye receive them, and ye shall have them."(Mk 11:24). Remembering of course, that whatever we ask is Scriptural!