#prayer secrets

Spiritual Warfare #14 ~ Be Still

Waiting in silent expectation before God is a powerful and fruitful endeavor. Quiet meditation on who He is and His written word is an amazing exercise of our faith that is pleasing to the Lord. Psalm 23:2-3 He makes me to lie down in green pastures; He leads me beside the still waters. He restores my soul; He leads me in the paths of righteousness for His name’s sake. The Lord is always…

Spiritual Warfare #13 ~ Keeping Watch

Matthew 26:41 Watch and pray, lest you enter into temptation. The spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak.”           What did Jesus mean when He said “Watch and Pray?”          I remember going to a grocery store one day and the Lord prompting me to remain in the car while my friends went in to do some shopping. In the car next to me was a little dog sitting in the driver’s seat…

Spiritual Warfare #12 ~ Spirit Led Prayer

          There seems to be confusion in many church circles about praying in the Spirit and what exactly praying in the Spirit is. Many Charismatics limit praying in the Spirit to praying in tongues. Praying in the Spirit is not just praying with other tongues, but praying ANY prayer under the inspiration and direction of the Holy Spirit. Look at our instruction in Ephesians. Ephesians 6:18…

Main texts: Matthew 7:7; James 5: 13-18 and  I John 5:14

Prayer is a means of communication with God. One thing I have discovered is that all men pray but not all men receive the answers to their prayer.

So, the first thing I would want us to consider is what I call THE THREE SECRETS OF PRAYER.

In Matt. 7:7, Jesus says  “Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened for you”. From this verse of the scripture, three stages of prayer comes out clearly; they are: Asking God for whatever you need. I think that there is no believer who does not know how to pray to God for whatever we need.·        

 The second stage is the SEEKING aspect of our prayer life. I have seen that many of us claim to believe God for whatever we desire, but after we pray, most of us do not seek out the result we are expecting. We ignorantly believe that God is the one who should be responsible for even the seeking part. But when you look at what Jesus said, you will discover that the seeking part of our prayer is our responsibility. To me, that is the most difficult part of prayer because we are busy looking for something for which we do not have a specific location on our map. That is why many of us give up because once we look for the answer and we cannot find it; we conclude that maybe God is not interested in giving us the answer we desire. But don’t forget that God has promised us that as long as we delight in His word, He will give us the desire of our hearts. So don’t give up. You shall find if you refuse to stop seeking.   After God told Elijah that he should appeared to Ahab “1 Some time later, in the third year of the famine, the LORD told Elijah,1 “Go, make an appearance before Ahab, so I may send rain on the surface of the ground.” 2 So Elijah went to make an appearance before Ahab.”  1 kings 18:1-2 After then, when the time came for the rain to appear, see what he did:

 “41 Then Elijah told Ahab, “Go on up and eat and drink, for the sound of a heavy rainstorm can be heard.” 42 So Ahab went on up to eat and drink, while Elijah climbed to the top of Carmel. He bent down toward the ground and put his face between his knees. 43 He told his servant, “Go on up and look in the direction of the sea.” So he went on up, looked, and reported, “There is nothing.” Seven times Elijah sent him to look. 44 The seventh time the servant said, “Look, a small cloud, the size of the palm of a man’s hand, is rising up from the sea.” Elijah then said, “Go and tell Ahab, ‘Hitch up the chariots and go down, so that the rain won’t overtake you.’” 45 Meanwhile the sky was covered with dark clouds, the wind blew, and there was a heavy rainstorm. Ahab rode toward Jezreel” 1 kings 18: 41-45Elijah refused to give up when he did not see the cloud. He continued to pray and ask his servant to continue to go out to look out for the sign in the sky- which is the cloud, until the rain came. That is the best example of seeking to find.

The third stage is to knock and it shall be opened unto you. What this means is that you should not be afraid to request for what you want from men. Remember the story of the woman in Matt 18: 1-8. The woman refused to give up when the king refused to listen to her and at the end of the day, the king had to concede to her request because she refused to give up. That is what it means to keep knocking until the doors are opened to you. “1 Then1 Jesus2 told them a parable to show them they should always3 pray and not lose heart.4  2 He said,1 “In a certain city2 there was a judge3 who neither feared God nor respected people.4 3 There was also a widow1 in that city2 who kept coming3 to him and saying, ‘Give me justice against my adversary.’ 4 For a while he refused, but later on he said to himself, ‘Though I neither fear God nor have regard for people, 5 yet because this widow keeps on bothering me, I will give her justice, or in the end she will wear me out by her unending pleas.’” 6 And the Lord said, “Listen to what the unrighteous judge says! 7 Won’t God give justice to his chosen ones, who cry out to him day and night? Will he delay long to help them?  8 I tell you, he will give them justice speedily. Nevertheless, when the Son of Man comes, will he find faith on earth?” Luke 18:1-8 · 

Another example of knocking is that of a man who refuses to give up when  his friend refused to give him the help she requested for. : 5 Then he said to them, “Suppose one of you has a friend, and you go to him at midnight and say to him, ‘Friend, lend me three loaves of bread, 6 because a friend of mine has stopped here while on a journey, and I have nothing to set before him.’ 7 Then he will reply from inside, ‘Do not bother me. The door is already shut, and my children and I are in bed. I cannot get up and give you anything.’ 8 I tell you, even though the man inside will not get up and give him anything because he is his friend, yet because of the first man’s sheer persistence he will get up and give him whatever he needs.” Luke 11:5-8 

In conclusion, we ask from God, we seek among men and we keep knocking by making our request. You must not forget that you and I are men of like passion like Elijah, if he prayed and his prayer had effect both in heaven and on earth, then you and I should know that if we also believe in God enough not just to pray but to seek and to knock, then we shall begin to see the glory of God, Amen.