Category Archives: How to Pray

We all need help how to connect with God in prayer.

Intercession is a Work of Faith

Intercession is preeminently a work of faith. Not the faith that tries only to believe the prayer will be heard, but the faith that is at home amid heavenly realities—a  faith that does not trouble about one’s own nothingness and feebleness, because it is living in Christ.  A faith that does not make its hope depend upon its feelings, but upon the faithfulness of the Three–One God, in what each person has undertaken to do in prayer.  A faith that has overcome the world, and sacrifices the visible to be wholly free for the spiritual, heavenly and eternal to take possession of it.  A faith that knows that it is heard and receives what it asks, and therefore quietly and deliberately perseveres in its application till the answer comes.  The true intercessor must be a man of faith.

The intercessor must be a MESSENGER—one who holds himself ready, who earnestly offers himself personally to receive the answer and to dispense it.  Praying and working go together.  Think of Moses—his boldness in pleading with God for the people was no greater than his pleading with the people for God.  We see the same in Elijah—the urgency of his prayer in secret is equaled by his jealousy for God in public, as he witnessed against the sin of the nation.  Let intercession always be accomplished, not so much by more diligent work, as by the meek and humble waiting on God to receive His grace and spirit, and to know more definitely what and how He would have us work.  It is one thing,  a great thing, to begin to take up the work of intercession—the drawing down to earth of the blessings which heaven has for every need.  It is a greater thing as an intercessor personally to receive that blessing, and go out from God’s face, knowing that we have secured something that we can impart.  May God make us all whole-hearted, believing, blessing-bearing intercessors.

But there is so much conscious sinfulness and defect in our prayer? True, but have you not learned what it is to pray IN THE NAME OF CHRIST?  Does the name not mean the living power?  Do you know that you are in Christ and He in you—-that your whole life is hid and bound up in His, and His whole life is hid and working in you? The man who is to intercede in power must be very clear that, not in thought and reckoning only, but in the most actual, living, divine reality, Christ and he are one in the work of intercession.  He appears before God clothed with the name and the nature, the righteousness and worthiness, the image and the spirit of life of Christ.   Do not spend your chief time in prayer in reiterating your petition, but in humbly, quietly, confidently claiming your place in Christ, your perfect union with Him, your access to God in Him. It is the man who comes to God in Christ, bringing to the Father that Christ in whom He delights, as his life and his law and only trust who will have power to intercede.

These are quotes from The Inner Chamber by Andrew Murray on Moses the man of prayer.

Devotion and Obedience to God gives Power in Prayer

“Tell me wherein thy great strength lieth.”  It is the question we fain would have answered the men of old, and in later times, as intercessors for others, have had power with God, and have prevailed.  More than one, who has desired to give himself to this ministry, has wondered why he found it so difficult to rejoice in it, to persevere, and to prevail.  Let us study the lives of the leaders and heroes of the prayer world.  Maybe some of the elements of their success will be discovered to us.

The true intercessor is a man who knows that God knows of him that his heart and life are WHOLLY GIVEN UP TO GOD AND HIS GLORY.  This is the only condition on which an officer at the court of an earthly sovereign could expect to exert much influence.   Moses, Elijah, Daniel and Paul prove that it is so in the spiritual world.  Our blessed Lord is Himself the proof of it.  He did not save us by intercession, but by self-sacrifice.  His power of intercession roots in His sacrifice; it claims and receives what the sacrifice won.  As we have it so clearly put in the last words of Isaiah 53, He poured out His soul unto death, and was numbered with the transgressors, and He bare the sins of man.”  Study this in connection with the whole chapter of which it is the crown—“and made intercession for the transgressors.”  He first gave Himself up to the will of God.  There He won the power to influence and guide that will.  He gave Himself for sinners in all-consuming love, and so He won the power to intercede for them.  There is no other path for us.  It is the man who seeks to enter personally into death with Christ, and gives himself wholly for God and men, who will dare to be bold like Moses or Elijah, who will persevere like Daniel or Paul.  Whole-hearted devotion and obedience to God are the first marks of an intercessor.

These are quotes from The Inner Chamber by Andrew Murray on Moses the man of prayer.

Faith in Association with Prayer

The Prayer of Faith

Faith in association with prayer is simply the exercise of confidence in God to do His will in a particular matter.  As we pray in the name of Jesus Christ, we are indicating that we have complete confidence that God is going to do what is good for us and that He will never do what is bad for us.  Recognizing the sovereignty of God, we are to completely leave all to His jurisdiction as we pray concerning everything, particularly the matter of healing.

— from James the Epistle of Applied Christianity by Theodore Epp.

James 5: 15 and the prayer offered in faith will restore the one who is sick, and the Lord will raise him up, and if he has committed sins, they will be forgiven him.   16 Therefore, confess your sins to one another, and pray for one another so that you may be healed. The effective prayer of a righteous man can accomplish much.   17 Elijah was a man with a nature like ours, and he prayed earnestly that it would not rain, and it did not rain on the earth for three years and six months.

Lord, Teach Us to Pray

As the disciples saw Him pray  and they remembered that none can pray like him,  we can understand the disciples in Matthew 6, saying  “Lord, teach us to pray”. There is something about the Lord’s prayer that touched them.  I wish we had the words that were said, but all we have is what is mentioned in Matthew 6 at this point.  When we think about all he is, and has done, and think about Him being our life, we feel confident that if we just ask that He would take us into a closer fellowship with Himself.  In that close fellowship we expect Him to teach us to pray as He only can pray.

This is based on some portion from the book With Christ in the School of Prayer by Andrew Murray.

The Lord’s Prayer in Brief

The Lord’s Prayer in brief.

Now I know you are expecting a lot of points here but I am going to just give you the six or seven main points in outline form.

Who We are Praying To

  • Our Father, Who is in heaven

Prayer Towards God

  • May Your name be sanctified
  • May Your kingdom come
  • May Your will be done on earth as it is in Heaven

Prayer For Man’s Needs (prayer for us)

  • Give us today, Father, what we need for today
  • Forgive us our wrongs as we forgive the wrongs of others.
  • Don’t lead us into temptation but deliver us from evil

Prayer in the Lord’s Name (1) – Ask, Seek, and Knock

I want to read a little portion from the book of John, “And whatever you ask in My name, that will I do, that the Father may be glorified in the Son.  If you ask Me anything in My name, I will do it.”  In John, chapters 14, 15, and 16, Jesus says to ask in His name at least six, maybe seven times. That means to ask God for things in the name of Jesus Christ. Today, on this program, In the Beginning, we are going to talk about what it means to ask in the name of Jesus.  We are going to cover the matter of prayer in the Bible. I want to read from the gospel of Luke, “And I say to you, ask and it shall be given you, seek and you shall find, knock and it shall be opened to you.  For everyone who asks, receives, and He who seeks finds, and to him who knocks, it shall be opened.”  We have three important words in this little portion:  Number one, asking. Number two, seeking. Number three, knocking. These are three forms or types of prayer. Today we want to talk about these three words. What does it mean to ask?  What does it mean to seek?  What does it mean to knock? And what is the real essence of prayer? What does it mean to pray?In Romans 8, Paul is talking about living in the Spirit, how we need to walk in the Spirit, and how we need to set our mind on the Spirit. Later in that chapter he gets a little bit into the subject of prayer.  I want to read from Romans 8. He says, “In the same way, the Spirit also helps our weaknesses, for we do not know how to pray as we should, but the Spirit Himself, intercedes for us with groaning too deep for words.”  Paul is saying that a lot of times we feel weak, and we need the Spirit to strengthen us. Not only that, a lot of times we don’t know how to pray.  It says, here, that the Spirit intercedes for us with groaning too deep for words.

As an eBook on Olive Tree see Prayer in the Lord’s Name by Drew Haninger.

Prayer in the Lord’s Name (2) – Pray and Seek My Favor

What is it to pray and how do you pray?  I want to read another portion of Scripture on prayer.  It says, “When My people, who bear My name (that means the Lord’s people, you and me), humble themselves, pray, and seek My favor and turn from their evil ways, I will hear from My heavenly abode (or from heaven) and hear and forgive their sins and heal their land.” It says we are to humble ourselves. This verse from II Chronicles has become a rather popular verse today on the subject of prayer because it contains several principles on prayer.  Before I cover it piece-by-piece, I want to make the comment that some people like that verse and some apparently don’t like it.  Some people in the Christian community have said that since this verse is from the Old Testament, it does not apply to us today in the New Testament, or does not apply to Christians. They say to look at the context of this verse.  What is the context of this verse? The context is God speaking to Solomon. God is telling Solomon, “If My people (that is God’s people) obey Me, follow Me, walk with Me, and do the things I want to do, then everything will be just fine.  But, if you turn away to do evil things and things that I am not happy with, then evil will come on your land, the enemy will come in, and all kinds of problems will occur.”  He says, “If you will pray and turn back to God then I will restore the land and solve all the problems.”  So some people say this passage does not apply to the New Testament because the context is for Israel.  I have two comments on that.  In the book of I Corinthians, it is talking about Moses and the things that happened in the Old Testament.  Paul is saying that all these things happened as an example for us. In other words, what happened was really for us, an example to us. That means what?  We can take this passage out of the Old Testament and apply it to the New Testament.  Why? Because there are some principles there for us that do apply even though that verse is actually addressed to the children of Israel.  Secondly I would say it this way, if some people want to say this verse does not apply to us because it is taken out of context, and is speaking to Israel and not to the Church, I would ask, “What about the Ten Commandments and the Psalms?  I do not believe that the Ten Commandments and the psalms were really not written for us, but we still enjoy them. So, based on those principles I believe we should accept this passage in II Chronicles 7:14 as applying to us today. There are several things mentioned in this passage and I would like to quickly go over some of them.  First of all it says, “My people.” It doesn’t just say, “Hey you people over there.”  It says My people, His own personal people, “Who bear My name.”  We, as Christians, bear God’s name.  It says we are to humble ourselves.  What does that mean? This means to admit who we are, and be willing to admit our failures, problems, and so on. It says to, “Pray and seek My favor.”  What does it mean to pray?  We will get into that in just a few minutes.  We are to seek His favor, seek after God, and after the things of God.We are to turn from our evil ways. In other words, it is one thing to seek after God, but it is another thing to turn away from things we know God is not happy with. We need to turn from evil things.

Prayer in the Lord’s Name (3) – I Will Hear from Heaven

Then there is a promise here, “I will hear from heaven.” God will answer prayer.  He says, “Then I will forgive their sins and heal their land.”  I want to read II Chronicles 7:14 one more time. ”When My people, who bear My name, humble themselves…”  It is something to humble yourself.  That means to admit our own failures, to admit our sins and not hide them. Then, “Pray and seek My favor, turn from their evil ways, and I will hear from heaven, forgive their sins, and heal their land.” There is a whole bunch of things mentioned here and I want to go over them again one-by-one. It says, “When My people.”  It is not just the people out there, or the people over there, or some kind of an impersonal group of people but is “My people”, God’s people, or people who are God’s own possession. Then it says, “Who bear My name.” We, as Christians, bear the name of Christ; we bear the name of God.  Then it says, “Humble themselves.”  That means what?  Admitting where we are. There is one little principle of prayer I wasn’t planning to get into yet but I will go ahead and mention it.  Don’t be phony with God in prayer. When things are not going so good, tell it to God the way it is. Humbling ourselves means admitting where we really are, and admitting our own problems before God.  It says, “Pray and seek My favor.”  We need to seek the face of God. It is one thing to pray and seek God’s face, but along with this needs to come a turning from evil, a turning away from the things we know God is not pleased with or God is not happy with. There is a promise here, “I will hear from heaven.”  In other words, God hears prayer.  Then, “I will forgive their sins and heal their land.” That means God restores our situation.