How to Pray – Unlocking the Power of Prayer

The search for effective prayer often leads to frustration, as people attempt to persuade God to align with their own desires. However, the Model Prayer, taught by Jesus Christ in Matthew Chapter Six, reveals that effective prayer is not about changing God’s will, but about finding God’s will and getting in on it. The cornerstone of this powerful spiritual practice is praying, “Thy Kingdom come, Thy will be done in earth, as it is in heaven”.

This guide explores the four essential aspects of the coming Kingdom of Christ and provides the practical principles necessary to align your prayers with God’s sovereign will, ensuring they are heard and answered.

Part 1: The Principle of Effective Prayer (Matthew 6:10)

Jesus taught His disciples how to pray in a specific manner. While the passage is often called “The Lord’s Prayer,” it is more accurately the Disciples’ Prayer, as it includes a petition for the forgiveness of sin, which Jesus Himself would not have needed to pray.

The key to answered prayer is found in First John 5:14-15: “This is the confidence that we have in him, that if we ask him anything according to his will, he heareth us: and we know that he hear us, whatsoever we ask, and if we know that he hear us, whatsoever we ask, we know, we know that we have the petition we’ve desired of him”.

Effective prayer is defined by this alignment:

• It is not talking God into doing something He does not want to do.
• It is not bending God’s will to fit our will.
• It is finding the will of God and getting in on it.

Praying in the will of God does not lead to fewer blessings; it leads to more blessings because God wants for you what you would want for yourself if you had enough sense to want it.

Part 2: The Three Principles for Knowing God’s Will

Since the only prayer that can be prayed is the prayer that is in the will of God, we must actively seek to know His will. God has given us three principles to follow so that we can know when we are praying in alignment with Him.

1. The Surrender Principle

You will never know God’s will until you are willing to know God’s will. This requires total, complete, and sincere surrender.

• Surrender vs. Commitment: A key misunderstanding is replacing the old word surrender with the new word commitment. When you commit, you are still in control; you decide what you are going to do and dedicate yourself to it. However, in surrender, you lift both hands and say, “I’m under your control”.
• The Mark of a Subject: Surrender recognizes that God is Sovereign, supreme, and the King. A subject serves because he must.
• Rebels and Revelation: God does not reveal His will to rebels. It is an absurdity and an insult to say you want to know the will of God but are not willing to do the will of God. The Surrender Principle is the first step in knowing God’s will, requiring you to say, “Thy will be done. Not my will, but thine be done”.

2. The Scripture Principle

God reveals His will through His written Word.

• The Book of His Will: The Bible is the will of God; it is God’s revelation to you.
• The Test of Desire: If you truly want to know God’s will, you must spend time in the Bible, the one book God specifically wrote to reveal and unfold His will.
• Abiding in the Word: Jesus said, “If ye abide in me, and my words abide in you, then ye shall ask what ye will, and it shall be done unto you”. Abiding in Him is surrender, and His words abiding in you is the Scripture Principle.

3. The Spirit Principle

The Holy Spirit helps us understand the Word and articulate our prayers.

• Helper in Weakness: “The Spirit also helpeth our infirmities: for we know not what we should pray for as we ought: but the Spirit himself maketh intercession for us with groanings which cannot be uttered”.
• Perfect Intercession: The Holy Spirit intercedes for the saints “according to the will of God”.
• The Prayer Circuit: The prayer that gets to heaven is the prayer that starts in heaven. The Holy Spirit finds a desire in the heart of the Father, puts that desire into our hearts, and then sends it back to heaven in the power of the cross.
• Praying in the Spirit: Any prayer that the Holy Spirit lays upon your heart will be answered, because a prayer that originates in heaven certainly will not be rejected there. To pray in the Spirit, you must be filled with the Spirit, and you cannot be filled until you surrender.