Feed Your Faith with Prayer

“But certainly God has heard me; He has attended to the voice of my prayer” (Psalm 66:19, NKJV).

Prayer is simply a conversation with God, and it is how God gets things done. He acts because someone somewhere has asked Him to do something. I heard Reinhardt Bonnke speak on prayer and he opened up the concept of prayer in a whole new way for me. In Genesis 1:2, the Spirit of God (the Holy Spirit) was hovering over the earth. We don’t know how long the Spirit hovered because it doesn’t say, but during that time nothing happened. “Then God said” and there was light. God spoke and the Holy Spirit acted. Thus what God said was accomplished.

The Holy Spirit is ready and waiting to work on your behalf; you only have to speak. “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). Even Jesus didn’t go about randomly healing people. They asked Him first!

God provides a lesson on prayer in Matthew 6:5-13.
• Where and how (verses 5-8)

• Begin with praise (verse 9)

• Pray God’s will to be done in your life and other’s lives (verse 10)

• Speak out your specific needs (verse 11)

• Ask for forgiveness and forgive others (verse 12)

• Pray for guidance and protection (verse 13a)
• End with praise (verse 13b).

Mark 11:24 says, “I tell you, you can pray for anything, and if you believe that you’ve received it, it will be yours. But when you are praying, first forgive anyone you are holding a grudge against, so that your Father in heaven will forgive your sins, too.” Be careful not to fall into the consumer Christian mentality: “God, give me this, give me that” as though He was the local Wal-Mart.

“Be anxious for nothing, but in everything by prayer and supplication, with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known to God” (Phil 4:6, my emphasis). Saying thank you is a principle to be applied to all relationships, including your relationship with God. Thanksgiving should accompany your prayers.

Answered prayer helps build faith. God does what he says he will do. Will you share a time when answered prayer help build your faith?

Debra L. Butterfield © 2010  Photograph by M. Reed Butterfield © 2010. Used with permission.