Do you understand how to split the atom? Sure, you might have the school textbook knowledge, but could you do it yourself? Do you really know how it works?
Do you understand all the ends and outs of electricity? How it’s produced? How it’s transferred to your house? How it makes your various electrically powered devices in your house operate? Sure, you might have a basic working knowledge, but do you really know how it works? Even if you’re an electrician, do you really know the exact science behind all the disparate parts of electricity production?
What about natural gas, or heating oil, or propane? Do you have intimate knowledge to how those things work to heat your house or cook your food?
What about prayer? Do you understand how it works? Sure, you know all the verses in the Bible about prayer, and you might even have some kind of seminary theology degree, but do you really know why prayer works and how it works?
Just because we may not understand how to split the atom, or how electricity in general is produced, does that keep us from flipping the light switches in our homes? Of course not. We may not know all the ins and outs of how electricity works, but that doesn’t keep us from using it. How foolish we would be if we refused to use electricity because we don’t completely understand it. How foolish we would be if we refused to use gas or heating oil to heat our homes just because we don’t fully understand how it all works.
How foolish we are to not pray just because we don’t get how it works.
We have Biblical evidence of the efficacy of prayer. Just read Acts 16 or any of the OT stories about Elijah for amazing events caused by prayer. But what about today? Does that kind of life-changing, earth-shaking prayer still take place today? A better question might be, do we pray in the same life-changing, earth-shaking way today?
Let get some advice from James on how to put our prayer life into place for life-changing, earth-shaking effectiveness.
First, to experience power in prayer, we need a believing mind. James 1:5-7 says, “Let him ask in faith without any doubting, for the one who doubts is like the surf of the sea driven and tossed by the wind.” To doubt something does not mean we totally reject it, it means that we waver back and forth between belief and unbelief. If we are this way, James tells us we’re just like the surf. We’re able to be driven about by the smallest gust of wind. We cannot doubt the truth of God, for if we do, we lose power in our prayer.
Second, to experience power in prayer, we need a surrendered will. James 4:1-3 says, “You ask and do not receive, because you ask with wrong motives.” John clarifies this for is in 1 John 5:14 by saying, “And this is the confidence which we have before Him, that, if we ask anything according to His will, He hears us.” In other words, we have to surrender our desires to His. This is just like a parent who gives instruction to a child, say to study hard and do their best in school. The child one day comes and asks that, rather than study and do homework, can they just go out and play. What’s the (good) parent’s answer going to be? NO!
So why is it the same with us. God tells husbands to loves their wives like Christ loved the church. This means to do what Christ did for us and place the needs and desires of his wife before his own. God tells wives to submit to the love of their husband (not a doormat) the same way the church is to submit to the will of Christ. Husbands and wives sometimes neglect or refuse to do these things, and then wonder why the Lord does not answer their prayers for a better marriage! There is no power in prayer without a life that is surrendered to the Lord’s will.
Third, to experience power in prayer, we need a fervent spirit. James says again in James 5:16, “The effectual fervent prayer of a righteous man availeth much.” That the King Jimmy version, which includes a word we don’t use very often anymore: fervent. Fervent means passion. Fervency is passion demonstrated through perseverance.
Fervency is demonstrated by a child asking for something they desire from their parent. A child will ask over and over and over in an endless seeming procession of voiced desire, sometimes with great emotion attached. Why are they this way in their requests? Because they know that if they continually ask without giving in, we will be much more likely to acquiesce to their desire.
The same should be said of our prayer lives. Like the man knocking on the door in the middle of the night in Luke 11, and the woman begging for justice from the unrighteous judge in Luke 18, we should bring our prayers to the Lord with an impassioned and persistent spirit. A fervent prayer life, not just a one-off prayer to “fix it and forget it.”
Last, to experience power in prayer, we need a pure heart. James 5:16 also points out the “confessing of your sins to one another,” and the effectual fervent prayer of a “righteous man.” Are you a righteous person? You are if you have begun and are continuing a relationship with the Father through Jesus Christ. You are if you are confessing to God. You are if you are living in faith. You are if you are committing your heart to make Jesus the only Master of your life.
Power in prayer can be found by staring with a believing mind, a surrendered will, a fervent spirit, and a pure heart.
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