Pray with Power

As many of you know, during the summer of 1979 I served as youth pastor of a church in the Applewood area of Golden, Colorado. Three boys from the high school youth group and I went canoeing and camping on the boundary waters of Minnesota and Canada. On the last night, a bolt of lightning shot through the tent and hit me on the side, knocking me unconscious. I want to zero in on just one aspect of what took place after I regained consciousness and my legs recovered from paralysis.

With the storm still raging and lightning still flashing all around our tent and campsite, the four of us joined hands and prayed. Doug, the youngest of the group at age 15, prayed first, asking God to calm the storm. Immediately the lightning ceased, with just sheet lightning remaining a great distance away, and the rain let up to a sprinkle. Doug prayed a short, simple prayer, and God's answer was immediate. No delays, no waiting.

How did that happen? It is very simple. Doug prayed with power. But what made his prayer so powerful, when our prayers seem so feeble at times? Way too often, our prayers seem quite unproductive. What made the difference?

First, Doug’s prayer came from a humble heart. He recognized his own inability to do anything. He had to rely on God. Second, his prayer was sincere. He knew in his heart that only God could handle the situation, so with a sincere heart he turned it all over to Him. Third, he prayed with purpose. He recognized the need and his prayer was specific, "Lord, calm the storm." He prayed with purpose, yet left wide parameters for God to act according to the real need, which only He knew. Fourth, he prayed with boldness, with total confidence that God would meet the need and watch over our safety. The result was power in prayer. God's answer was immediate, and in very dramatic fashion.

When you seek to live the faith, you must trust the Lord implicitly. You must trust Jesus in all things and at all times. That takes time to learn. It takes a great deal of spiritual growth; growth that comes through the practice of the core disciplines of the faith—Bible study, prayer, worship, fellowship, service, and evangelistic outreach.

Living the faith, requires learning to worship the Lord daily at home, both alone and with your family. It also involves learning to worship, silently perhaps, at work or wherever you are—anywhere, any time.

Living the faith, requires practicing the discipline of prayer. We are commanded to "pray without ceasing" (1 Thess. 5:17). That means learning how to pray with power. Such prayer must become a part of us, who we are in Christ.

"When you pray, you are not to be like the hypocrites; for they love to stand and pray in the synagogues and on the street corners so that they may be seen by men. Truly I say to you, they have their reward in full" (Matt. 6:5). Anything but humble! When your main thought in prayer is to be noticed by others so that they might give you praise—"Oh look at how spiritual he is"—that is all the reward you will get, because your prayer will go unheard by the One who needs to hear it most—God our Father.

Note the context: "Beware of practicing your righteousness before men to be noticed by them; otherwise you have no reward with your Father who is in heaven. So when you give to the poor, do not sound a trumpet before you, as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and in the streets, so that they may be honored by men. Truly I say to you, they have their reward in full" (Matt. 6:1-2). The context is a discussion by Jesus concerning the practice of righteousness. Jesus is talking about how to live the faith; how to live in such a way that honors God.

The audience you are to seek is God. Live your righteousness before Him, with no thought of what others may see or think. "But when you give to the poor, do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing, so that your giving will be in secret; and your Father who sees what is done in secret will reward you" (Matt. 6:3-4). The hypocrites put on a great show when they give to the poor. A good cause, but they give for all the wrong reasons. They make a great show, because all they really care about is what others think and say about them. That is all the reward they will get. When it counts most, when Jesus returns, they may very well find themselves on the outside looking in. Their actions prove a lack of faith.

Instead, you are to give to the poor in secret. Your Father in heaven, the One who counts most, will see and reward you accordingly. Your prayers will be heard and God will answer in ways you could have never imagined; in amazing and even miraculous ways. That is the power of prayer. When you pray with humility, your faith will be made evident to God and He will not only answer your prayers in power, He will give you both abundant life now and eternal life in heaven with Jesus. What more is there?

So, when Jesus turns to the discipline of prayer, the message is the same. Don’t "be like the hypocrites" who "love to stand and pray in the synagogues and on the street corners so that they may be seen by men" (Matt. 6:5). Instead, "when you pray, go into your inner room, close your door and pray to your Father who is in secret, and your Father who sees what is done in secret will reward you" (v. 6). When you pray, pray to your Father in heaven, not to men. Pray with humility. Let your approach to the throne of God be from a humble heart. Then you will begin to experience the power that prayer is intended to have. "The effective prayer of a righteous man can accomplish much" (James 5:16b, NASB).

David said, "O God, thou art my God; early will I seek thee" (Psalm 63:1a, KJV). Jesus did the same. Mark 1:35 says, "In the early morning, while it was still dark, Jesus got up, left the house, and went away to a secluded place, and was praying there." The important thing is not the time of day that you set aside for prayer, but the fact that you do set aside a time each day to spend in prayer; heart-felt, humble, sincere prayer.

"And when you are praying, do not use meaningless repetition as the Gentiles do, for they suppose that they will be heard for their many words" (Matt. 6:7). The phrase "use meaningless repetition" is a single word in the Greek. It refers to idle chatter or thoughtless words. It may be a reference to people who mimick the sounds of meaningless jabber.

The hypocritical prayers of the "Gentiles," referring to unbelievers, were not only given in the wrong spirit, but in meaningless words. They had no substance, no significant content. To be acceptable to God, prayers must be genuine expressions of worship and of heart-felt requests and petitions. They must come out of a sincere heart, a heart that truly trusts God to know what is best and to do whatever is necessary to meet the situation.

"So do not be like them; for your Father knows what you need before you ask Him" (Matt. 6:8). When you understand this truth, you will pray with sincerity. Needless repetition comes from a lack of understanding, thinking that God will only hear if you keep repeating yourself. If you say it enough, maybe it will get through and be heard. That only shows the lack of a sincere heart.

Being aware that God already knows your need before you even ask, allows you to simply lay it all out clearly and in complete trust that God will take care of it. Being free to pray with a sincere heart, opens up your prayer to the power of God.

To pray with power, you also need to pray with purpose. Your prayer must come from both a humble and a sincere heart, but your prayer must also be filled with purpose. Know who you are praying to and what you are praying for, and then you can pray with purpose.

In Matthew 6:9-13, Jesus gave His disciples an example of such a prayer. This prayer is often referred to as "The Lord's Prayer." But it is not really His prayer (John 17 is His prayer). It is rather the model he gave his disciples to follow when they prayed. So it might better be referred to as "The Disciples' Prayer."

First, you must know who it is you are speaking with—the God of heaven, the God all-powerful who can move mountains, if need be, to meet the need at hand. So when you pray, begin by acknowledging God through praise and reverence in worship. Jesus said, "In this manner, therefore, pray: 'Our Father in heaven, Hallowed be Your name'" (v. 9). Praise—reverence—worship.

Remember as you pray, whose will needs to be done—God’s will, not mine. "Your kingdom come. Your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven" (v. 10). Often times, Christians add the words, "Thy will be done," as a kind of mantra. It is as though they think that such a statement alone will get God’s attention. In that sense the words become nothing more than meaningless repetition. It is a matter of the heart. What does the heart say? Verse 10 uses those very words, but with a heart-felt, humble, and sincere purpose—that God’s will truly is all the matters, and from my heart, may His will and only His will be done!

When you pray for God's will to be done in that manner, you may find God saying to you, "Thy will be done." When you know God intimately and you pray with purpose that God meet the need as only He can, then He may say to you, "Absolutely. So be it. As you ask, so shall you receive. Thy will be done." That is what it means to pray with power.

When you know God and come to Him properly, you can bring your petitions before Him to seek His will in your life. "Give us this day our daily bread. And forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors. And do not lead us into temptation, but deliver us from the evil one. For Yours is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever. Amen" (vs. 11-13). Whatever the need—food, shelter, clothing, forgiveness of sin, deliverance from temptation—you can come to God with purpose and experience His power; His wonderful, miracle working power.

"Ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives, and he who seeks finds, and to him who knocks it will be opened" (Matt. 7:7-8). Well known, oft-quoted verses. These two verses underscore the overriding thought concerning prayer that Jesus wanted His followers to understand—the assurance that their prayers will be heard.

Note the progression: Ask—given; Seek—find; Knock—opened (v. 7). And to underscore this truth the progression is repeated: Asks—receives; Seeks—finds; Knocks—opened (v. 8). When you pray with power, when you pray with a humble and sincere heart, and you pray with purpose seeking only what God wants, it will be given to you, you will find it, there will be an open door before you. You will experience the power of God as He provides.

"You do not have because you do not ask" (James 4:2). Or, "You ask and do not receive, because you ask with wrong motives, so that you may spend it on your pleasures" (v. 3). Your prayers are not answered because everything is wrong—your motives are wrong; you simply are not trusting God.

When everything is right, however, and you ask from a humble and sincere heart, and you approach the throne of God with purpose, seeking His will and not your own, you can pray with boldness. You can be completely confident that He will answer your prayers and meet your needs. That is how God operates.

"And all things you ask in prayer, believing, you will receive" (Matt. 21:22). "This is the confidence which we have before Him, 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).

The proof—our ability to give good gifts to our children, compared to who God is. "Or what man is there among you who, if his son asks for bread, will give him a stone? Or if he asks for a fish, will he give him a serpant? If you then, being evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father who is in heaven give good things to those who ask Him!" (Matt. 7:9-11).

Such confidence in who God is leads us to pray with boldness. The writer of Hebrews gives a command, saying, "Therefore let us draw near with confidence to the throne of grace, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need" (Hebrews 4:16). Amen.