It behoves us to learn how to pray. When we know how to pray, not only can we have answers for our lives, but we can also help others receive answers for their lies. However, perhaps the greatest reason as far as I am concerned why we must learn to pray is that answered prayer honours God. The experiences that we have in prayer or rather the experiences that we have in life as a result of God answering our prayers testify to the goodness and to the greatness of God. I love to pray and I love to pray for people. I believe that one of the greatest gift that God has given us is the gift of answered prayer.
This Sunday I had the joy of seeing somebody I had prayed for in a meeting come back after the service to testify to what God has done in his life. This is his story. He showed up in a prophetic conference invited by a member of his church. There were many people there who were not members of our church. At some point, I gave a prophetic word for a person who needed healing. It was very specific in terms of the affliction but I did not have the name of the person. This gentleman raised his hand and said that the word applied to him. I called him forward and prayed for him and as I prayed more accurate words were given about his specific situation. The Lord revealed the trials he had been going through mentally, physically and spiritually and I prayed and declared restoration over him.
Shortly after that, he came to a service and and gave an initial testimony of how things were changing in his life. He had been very sick and in fact he had been on sick leave when he came for the meeting and now he was totally healed. Afterward, he came to another conference and very excitedly got on the stage to share even more testimonies. His official residency documents that had been in abeyance for 20 years were not settled, his business was back on track, more like his side hustle, and his job was also looking good. It was astounding.
Then, this past Sunday there he was again. He came over to testify that his housing situation had also been sorted out. For the first time in more than a decade, he now had his own apartment. A few months before he was ill, weary, physically and spiritually spent, materially low and in administrative difficulties. Now, his life is not perfect, but everything had changed, radically. And all of this because of a short prayer.
Here are four short tips to a powerful prayer life.
- Prayer requires first and foremost that you believe that God is truly intervening in the affairs of humanity today. Many people pray for psychological reasons, it just makes them feel better. A good night’s sleep will do the same. No, we pray for solutions and God is still granting solutions. The Bible states clearly that when you ask for something that is in line with what God Himself wants to do, He will grant the request. Jesus did not mince words in saying that those who ask receive and that whatever we ask the Father in His name will be granted.
- Secondly it requires that you make yourself available to pray. In many instances when people want to make us feel comfortable about prayer, they tell us that we don’t really need to do much, just a few minutes a day will be ok, because they don’t want to make it a burden for us. But the truth of the matter is this, even though I prayed a short prayer for that gentleman and his life was changed ; I had the faith to pray that prayer because I did more than spend a few minutes in prayer daily. For optimum results we need to build spiritual capacity. So make yourself available to pray. We give time to things that are of value. If you will allocate significant time to pray you will see a radical change in your own spiritual level and in the kind of power that you can release when you pray for people.
- The next point is willingness. Willingness is an essential factor in prayer. I believe those leaders who try to dumb down prayer by relegating it to a few minutes a day do so essentially to ‘help’ people. Since it appears most people are not really willing to pray, they try to make it easy for them. But if you develop willingness in prayer, if you want it with all your heart, you will find yourself soaring in prayer even if you were previously very challenged in that department. that you can really pray even if you do not know how. You will find out that time goes by very quickly and also that the Holy Spirit will literally take you by the hand and help you to pray.
- And final short tip, the Word of God. One of the simplest and most accurate ways for us to pray is to pray the scriptures. We can begin by praying the prayers of the apostle Paul. These are absolutely magnificent and we will do well to emulate him. Pick them out in Ephesians, Colossians and Philippians and pray them, say, for a week consistently. It will take you deeper in revelation and intimacy with God.
I get many requests from my social media pages for prayer, and this is yet another proof of the importance and need for prayer. I posted some prayers and the video clip in this article here. Click to watch it.