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A Key to Effective Prayer

(Overcomer Wu)

"Is not My Word like as a fire?…and like a hammer that breaks the rock in pieces?” Jeremiah 23:29

God has bequeathed a great reservoir of His power and promises to us in His Word – the Bible. The Bible is comprised of the Old and the New Testaments of God. A testament is by definition a will or a bequest. Hence, if we wish to make God's promises and God's power which He has bequeathed to us ours, we must go to His Word in the Old and New Testaments. Furthermore, God promises in 1 John 5:14 that if we were to pray according to His will, He'll hear us! Once again, God's will is already revealed to us in His written Testaments. Yet people abound in the Church who are praying for power and longing to claim the promises of God, but neglecting the Bible. They are bound to be disappointed because they neglect the very source of power given to us by God. Likewise, there was no way for us to be effective in prayer without the Scriptures. I like a prayer meeting where business is done, the devil challenged, and something new in the constructive plan of God is laid hold on. This is a way of apprehending that for which I have been apprehended of Christ Jesus (Phi 3:12).

When you open the Bible with God, some word or sentence or phrase may arrest you. You should pause there and pray over it. In all probability the Spirit is speaking to you and trying to prompt your attention to apply a certain Word of God to your living and surrounding. Grip that word. It is God handing to you the fulfillment of His promise. Therefore do not simply gloss over it and lose it. Meditate and pray over it with an open heart. Do not despise the Word by which you can implement the plan and purpose of God.

The revelations given to us by the Spirit in God's Word are to become the objects of faith, and at the same time they will engender faith (Rom 10:17). They are given to us for us to hold before God to remind Him of His promises. It's not that our God is absent-minded in anyway. Rather in the principle of prayer, our God has bounded Himself from taking any action in this age until we brought the matter before Him in prayer to implement them.

In Paul’s first letter to Timothy there is an exhortation to give "supplications, prayers, intercessions, and thanksgiving … for all men" (2:1). We are exhorted to intercede on behalf of our fellow Christians and even for the salvation of the unsaved men by virtue of the fact that it can be effective. A whole situation or person can be held before God in the power of His sovereignty while unseen forces are marshaled to the fulfillment of His will and the undoing of the works of the devil. All the saints in prayerful cooperation with God can be brought to bear upon personal and world affairs for such changes as expressly conform to the administration of His will. As we pray according to the victory of Christ on the cross over the unseen forces as revealed to us in His Word in Ephesians 6:12, Colossians 2:15 and Hebrews 2:14. When we pray with the very words of these verses in subduing the enemy, I believe the Lord will gladly demonstrate His victory.

It is here that the man of prayer for whom God is always on the lookout, steps in with the victory of the cross of Christ. Like Aaron of old who "stays the plague" (Num 16:41-50), turns the battle, and “shares the spoil with the strong” (Isa 53:12). Omnipotence breaks into the scene through the faith of God’s people who stood upon His Word of promise and for the accomplishment of God's will. We shall see from the divine standpoint that "the nations are as a drop of a bucket, and are counted as the small dust of the balance” (Isa 40:15). Try reading Isaiah 40 when you feel at the end of all things. Then prayerfully hold it before God in continuous agreement and praise.

Never mind about conventionalities and methods in prayer. What's more important is being serious in praying according to God's will as revealed in His Word and touch the throne of God in implementing His will. We should be result-oriented in our prayers and not be content with just going through the action of prayer. Reckon with faith in God's Word that God will do all He says. Such faith in His Word is an invincible shield and an eternal surety for us.

Most definitely we may not see the result to our prayers immediately, yet we must persevere. Paul also conjoined us with these words: "Praying always with all prayer and supplication in the Spirit, and watching thereunto with all perseverance and supplication for all saints” (Eph 6:18). Praying, supplicating, watching, and persevering. Many battles, both in the spiritual and the physical world are won only after a period of long perseverance. We know that when we pray to storm the gates of Hades, we are set against an army of hostile forces with well trained enemy strategists and tacticians. However, praise the Lord that through the cross of our triumphant Christ, God has already accomplished His will and defeated the devil and his cohorts (Heb 2:14)! We need only to bring it to reality in each circumstance through prayer in and according to His Word.