Increase Your Prayer Power
INCREASE YOUR PRAYER POWER
1 John 5:14-15
few Christians praying with power
why only few have experiences the tremendous blessings the Lord has given to his children.
praying very frustrating experience
because people are keep on asking without the assurance of God’s answer.
All Christians know how to pray,
but knowing how to pray doesn’t guaranteean answered prayer.
They pray but there is no power!
Or there is power but not enough to bring assurance that the prayer will be answered.
the solution is to increase the power in prayer enough to bring results.
3 requirements on how to increase your prayer power.
I. To increase your prayer power you must INCREASE YOUR FAITH (V. 14a)
“This is the confidence that we have in Him.”
•Confidence (Webster) – Faith or trust = “increase your faith or trust in God”
•Jesus is reminding us that power in prayer depends on intimacy of fellowship with God.
to increase your prayer power,increase your faith, to increase your faith you increase time spent with him.
•There is a quotation which is absolutely true “The prayerful person is the powerful person”
Illustration
During the lunch our, the president of a large factory wanted to talk to his company’s manager about an urgent matter, but the manager’s secretary said, “He can not be disturbed for he is in conference—as he is everyday at this time.” She firmly replied, “I have strict orders, sir, not to disturb him while he is in conference.” Angrily the man brushed the secretary aside and opened the door to the manager’s private office. After one quick look be backed out, gently closed the door, and said, “I’m sorry! Is this a daily conference?” “Yes, everyday he spends fifteen minutes in such conference.” The president found the manager on his knees before his open Bible.
Matthew 9:29 said: "According to you faith, be it unto you."
The key to unlock all God wants to do in your life is really simple: It’s Faith.
•To increase your prayer power, you must increase your faith.
II. To increase your prayer power you must INCREASE YOUR KNOWLEDGE (V. 14b)
“If we ask any thing according to His will.”
•You can know God’s will in your life if you have knowledge with God.
If you are familiar to Him. That’s why we ought to study the scriptures to learn from Him to develop intimacy with Him.
•Most of the time we fail to receive because we are not sure if what we are requesting be in line with God’s will.
E.g. Praying for a car, but your salary is just enough for your family’s daily needs.
•In Colossians 1;9 Paul prayed; “I desire that you might be filled with the knowledge of His will in all wisdom and spiritual understanding”
•Remember that Jesus’ teaching in prayer was “Thy will be done”. God wants us to do His will and obey his will.
•You can’t expect to get your prayers answered in you’re not willing to do the will of God.
•The other thing is, we already knew that what we are praying is not God’s will but still we insist it on our prayers.
III. To increase your prayer power you must INCREASE YOUR EXPECTATIONS (V. 15)
“And if we know that He hear us, whatsoever we ask, we know that we have the petitions that we desired of Him.”
•You will notice the repetition of the word know in this verse.
•The Bible tells us that we can know in advance the Lord’s answers to our prayer.
In career, in choosing life partners – we can be sure that God will answer our prayer.
The Law of Expectations says that, basically, we get what we expect out of life.
We tend to see what we expect to see, we tend to feel what we expect to feel,
we tend to act the way we expect to act, and eventually, we tend to achieve what we expect to achieve.
Your expectations influence your happiness, they influence your health. Your expectations influence your relationships.
•There are two types of person in this world: VIP and VDP.
VIP means Very Inspiring Person and the VDP means Very Draining Persons.
VIP is optimist, positive thinker, always expects results in life.
VDP person is pessimist, negative thinker, and always backing up. E.g. David & King Saul
•I always say, “Christians do not pray because they are afraid of failing to receive what they have requested.”
Illustration
An Atheist owned a brewery. A local church prayed earnestly that God would somehow do away with this brewery. One day the brewery was struck by lightning and was destroyed. The atheist sued the church, but the church said they took no responsibility for the act.
The atheist believes in answered prayer, but the church did not. – John Bunyan
•When we pray, we should expect that God would answer our prayer.
Conclusion:
•Increasing the power in prayer is a process and involves Faith, Knowledge and Assurance. Answers to prayers depend greatly in these three words.
•We should increase our prayer power that we can move the hand of God into action and provide us what we have prayed.
Illustration:
One day a Pastor visited his deacon at his home. He saw the deaconwith his open Bible and writing the word “Proved” at the Bible’s margin where the promises of God is written.
Its also good to write downs our prayer requests and reviews them periodically.
So you will see that God answers our prayer and know that He is good.
At the right corner of your prayer request you can write the word “Answered”.
At the end of the period or year, you know that God grants most of your prayers.