The most effective prayers I have ever prayed were when I could barely articulate enough to just say, “Lord, Lord,” and He took it from there. But we all want to grow, so over the next two days I will share my recommendations and Scriptures that have influenced me.
Lesson One: Approaching God in Prayer
- Approach God in prayer with reverence and desperation
Look at the condition of your heart before you go into prayer. Do you go into prayer with an overwhelming Sense of God’s Holiness? You should because He is overwhelmingly Holy. Remember that you are going to the throne. I am sure that if you were to have been given an audience with Queen Elizabeth when she was on the throne, you would have been extremely respectful as you approached her. You would have entered with respect and honor and deference and maybe even some awe. Our God is so much greater and more worthy of awe than all the monarchs of this world.
If you go to someone’s house for a visit or a meal, you don’t just barge in talking about what you want or you wouldn’t say hello at the door and make a beeline for the dinner table and start gobbling up the food. You don’t talk at your hosts. You would probably thank them for inviting you in. If they make an offer of anything such hors d’oeuvres, you compliment them and you show your appreciation for what they have done already. Show God hospitality. Show the Holy Spirit, “You are welcome in this place where I am praying.“ Remember times you were in awe of Him, and get in touch with that awe He revealed to you that day.
You greet these earthly people. We should greet the Lord. Use His names and his attributes. If you don’t know His attributes, Google “List of God’s Attributes.” Tell Him how you love some of these attributes and why.
Secondly, I am suspicious of people who say their mind never wanders in prayer. Do you know when your mind doesn’t wander? When your child is missing because she has been affected by a flooding river while at camp. Or when your child is going into surgery that could affect him for the rest of his life. God has your full attention then. When you are called in and terminated from your job and you didn’t see it coming and you have a mortage you can barely afford and you are living month to month and you suddenly see very clearly how perfectly average people like you become homeless- – that’s when you have focused prayers. Or when your husband walks out. You’re not casual about prayer that night. You’re not lukewarm that night. Your prayers are fervent and passionate and focused. You are truly crying out. Some people say they have never cried out or even prayed out loud alone until a crisis brings them to their knees. Try it. Try it before a crisis hits you. God responds to fervent prayer, prayers that come from a deep place in your soul and well up and burst from your mouth or heart in desperation.
We should be desperate for the Lord. Desperate for communication with Him.
And that is how we should pray every day. Some of your prayers should be desperate because we are desperate for Him every day whether we are acknowledging it or not. Remember, we are all one minute away from lifechanging events. God knows that. We forget about that. Those who have great intimacy with the Lord are more aware of how completely dependent they are on Him for their next breath and for protection from what is right around the corner. Our children are one second away from lifechanging events. Every minute. It is only at His discretion and mercy we are not consumed.
2. Focus on Him not you.
Prayer is not an information dump; however, most of our prayers are all about us. As we know Him better and really grow in our relationship with Him, our prayers should gradually be almost all about Him and what He wants in our lives.
Verses to consider before you pray:
James 5:16
Therefore, confess your sins to one another and pray for one another, that you may be healed. The prayer of a righteous person has great power as it is working.
Matthew 4:24
So his fame spread throughout all Syria, and they brought him all the sick, those afflicted with various diseases and pains, those oppressed by demons, those having seizures, and paralytics, and he healed them.
Hebrews 13:8 Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever.
Philippians 4:6-7
Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God. And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.
Lesson Two: Pray the Word and Prayers of Remembrance
3. Pray Scriptures. It is easy to take verses and turn them into prayers. For example, today, I was to receive some important medical results in a video appointment. As I waited online for my video conference to begin, I prayed this Scripture, Psalm 18:10:
The name of the Lord is a strong tower;
the righteous man runs into it and is safe.
My prayer went something like this:
Your name, oh Lord, is strong and mighty. You are my strong tower. I am running to you, Lord, for help with my health needs and this diagnosis. I am climbing into my strong tower. I know I can trust you to keep me safe.
4. Remember His faithfulness to you. Throughout the years, I have heard Dr. Michael Youssef many times exhort us to “bring to remembrance what God has already done to prove His faithfulness to you.” Pray what you know about His character- that He is good, merciful, steadfast, loves His children, means good toward us, and is a rock of stability.
5. What not to do in prayer:
In Mark 7:7 we see the Pharisees take the law and the Word that they knew so well and take it just an inch further than it was meant to go. Their intentions started as good ones. Like we are doing here, they were trying to teach good things. But as they embellished and added their own personal spin to it, they got very proud of their processes. Beware of people who tell you that they have a special process that makes them more qualified than you to pray for healing or anything else. If they make a bigger deal of their process or terms for prayer (that are not in the Bible, such as prayer ladders) run. If they make a big deal of any human’s qualifications or status to pray, run.
Remember that Satan can twist scripture. Satan takes our own pride in knowing how to do anything well and uses that to take us down paths that are not in the Bible!
Today, Satan’s most effective way to creep into the church and bring bad teaching in is through “SELF.” Beware of giving a high place to any of these: self focus , “be your best self, “ believe in yourself , self worth, self advancement, selfish ambition, self care, self healing, self absorption, and even self consciousness. All of that leads to pride and pride is the biggest block to prayer.
So my final words to you is just to reiterate- Focus on Him and not yourself when you pray.
God bless you.
6. Go Biblical—Corporate Prayer
One thing the Bible talks about is corporate prayer. Matthew 18:20 says, “For where two or three are gathered in my name, there am I among them.”
A group prayed Paul out of prison. Don’t leave the gift of corporate prayer on the table. Even if you don’t know how to pray out loud and your friend doesn’t know how to pray out loud, do it anyway. The Holy Spirit will teach you. Go to prayer gatherings like Wednesday night prayer and listen to all kinds people who pray all kinds of different ways. You will learn a lot. There is power in praying as a group.
Lesson Three: George Muller
Mueller’s Great Discovery
How did George Mueller pray? He said that for the first ten years of what he called his “life of faith”—referring not to when he was unknown but to ten years of trust in God and remarkable answers to prayer—he often struggled to get into the spirit of prayer, in other words, to really feel like praying. Until, that is, he made one slight alteration in his method. Here’s how he described the change:
The difference, then, between my former practice and my present one is this: formerly, when I rose, I began to pray as soon as possible, and generally spent all my time till breakfast in prayer, or almost all the time. At all events I almost invariably began with prayer. . . . But what was the result? I often spent a quarter of an hour, or half an hour, or even an hour on my knees before being conscious to myself of having derived comfort, encouragement, humbling of soul, etc.; and often, after having suffered much from wandering of mind for the first ten minutes, or quarter of an hour, or even half an hour, I only then really began to pray.
I scarcely ever suffer now in this way. For my heart being nourished by the truth, being brought into experimental [today we would say “experiential”] fellowship with God, I speak to my Father and to my Friend (vile though I am, and unworthy of it) about the things that He has brought before me in His precious Word. It often now astonishes me that I did not sooner see this point.
So Mueller would sometimes flounder for half an hour to an hour trying to pray, fighting to focus his thoughts and to kindle feelings for prayer in his heart. Only after that long, determined struggle would he finally enter into a sense of communion with God.
But once he began the practice of conversing with God about what he found in the Word of God, he “scarcely ever” suffered with those problems in prayer again. Praying through a passage of Scripture as he went “walking about in the fields” was the uncomplicated method that transformed the daily experience of one of the most famous men of prayer in history.
And it can transform your prayer life just as easily.
Whitney, Donald. Praying the Bible.
Pray these Scriptures for your prayer life:
Luke 11:1
Now Jesus[a] was praying in a certain place, and when he finished, one of his disciples said to him, “Lord, teach us to pray, as John taught his disciples.”
Romans 8:26
Likewise the Spirit helps us in our weakness. For we do not know what to pray for as we ought, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with groanings too deep for words.
Psalm 66:18
If I had cherished iniquity in my heart, the Lord would not have listened.
Hebrews 4:16
Let us then with confidence draw near to the throne of grace, that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need.
1 Thessalonians 5:17
Pray without ceasing,
Matthew 6:7
“And when you pray, do not heap up empty phrases as the Gentiles do, for they think that they will be heard for their many words.
Jude 1:20
But you, beloved, building yourselves up in your most holy faith and praying in the Holy Spirit,
1 John 5:14-15
And this is the confidence that we have toward him, that if we ask anything according to his will he hears us. And if we know that he hears us in whatever we ask, we know that we have the requests that we have asked of him.
Ask God to do for you what He did for these Biblical prayer warriors:
Matthew 14:14
When he went ashore he saw a great crowd, and he had compassion on them and healed their sick.
Psalm 30:2
O Lord my God, I cried to you for help, and you have healed me.
Romans 8:26
Likewise the Spirit helps us in our weakness. For we do not know what to pray for as we ought, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with groanings too deep for words.
Matthew 25:36
I was naked and you clothed me, I was sick and you visited me, I was in prison and you came to me.’
Matthew 8:13
And to the centurion Jesus said, “Go; let it be done for you as you have believed.” And the servant was healed at that very moment.
Matthew 19:26
But Jesus looked at them and said, “With man this is impossible, but with God all things are possible.”
Lesson Four: Persist in Prayer
As you read the Word of God, you begin to notice some truths about prayer that have been consistent over thousands of years, and here are two of them:
- God responds to persistent prayers, so do not give up. In the Old Testament, we see Hannah praying fervently for years for a child, and what a child God gave her! Read about Hannah’s prayers for Samuel in I Samuel 1 and her beautiful prayer of gratitude in I Samuel 2:1-10. Her beautiful example reminds us not to forget a prayer of gratitude and acknowledgment when He answers our prayers. You can read about another woman who persisted in prayer in Luke 18:1-8. God is highly responsive to both women who persisted in prayer. And he told them a parable to the effect that they ought always to pray and not lose heart. 2 He said, “In a certain city there was a judge who neither feared God nor respected man. 3 And there was a widow in that city who kept coming to him and saying, ‘Give me justice against my adversary.’ 4 For a while he refused, but afterward he said to himself, ‘Though I neither fear God nor respect man, 5 yet because this widow keeps bothering me, I will give her justice, so that she will not beat me down by her continual coming.’” 6 And the Lord said, “Hear what the unrighteous judge says. 7 And will not God give justice to his elect, who cry to him day and night? Will he delay long over them? 8 I tell you, he will give justice to them speedily. Nevertheless, when the Son of Man comes, will he find faith on earth?”
- Pray without ceasing, 1 Thessalonians 5:17.
I Peter 5:7 tells us to “Cast ALL your anxieties on him, because he cares for you.” That means “all,”, big or small. Just as earthly parents listen and care about the little things in their children’s lives, so does your Heavenly Father. Pay special attention to the word “whatever” in Mark 11:24:
Therefore I tell you, WHATEVER you ask in prayer, believe that you have received it, and it will be yours.
If you want to see a more recent example of persistent prayer, you have only to look at this example from George Muller’s extraordinary prayer life.
George Muller Persistent Prayer for 5 Individuals
In November 1844, I began to pray for the conversion of five individuals. I prayed every day without a single intermission, whether sick or in health, on the land, on the sea, and whatever the pressure of my engagements might be. Eighteen months elapsed before the first of the five was converted. I thanked God and prayed on for the others. Five years elapsed, and then the second was converted. I thanked God for the second, and prayed on for the other three. Day by day, I continued to pray for them, and six years passed before the third was converted. I thanked God for the three, and went on praying for the other two. These two remained unconverted.
Thirty-six years later he wrote that the other two, sons of one of Mueller’s friends, were still not converted. He wrote, “But I hope in God, I pray on, and look for the answer. They are not converted yet, but they will be.” In 1897, fifty-two years after he began to pray daily, without interruption, for these two men, they were finally converted—but after he died! Mueller understood what Luke meant when he introduced a parable Jesus told about prayer, saying, “Then Jesus told his disciples a parable to show them that they should always pray and not give up.”
https://www.georgemuller.org/devotional/george-muller-persistent-prayer-for-5-individuals
Don’t you want to have testimonies to prayer like that one? I do! To help build up your prayer muscle, I am leaving you with these verses that you can count on:
- Do not be anxious about anything, but in EVERYTHING by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God. And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus. Philippians 4:6-7
- Praying AT ALL TIMES in the Spirit, with all prayer and supplication. To that end, keep alert with all PERSEVERANCE, making supplication for all the saints, Ephesians 6:18
- Therefore, confess your sins to one another and pray for one another, that you may be healed. The prayer of a righteous person has great power as it is working. James 5:16
- WHATEVER you ask in my name, this I will do, that the Father may be glorified in the Son. If you ask me anything in my name, I will do it. John 14:13-14
- And though the Lord give you the bread of adversity and the water of affliction, yet your Teacher will not hide himself anymore, but your eyes shall see your Teacher. And your ears shall hear a word behind you, saying, “This is the way, walk in it,” when you turn to the right or when you turn to the left. Isaiah 30:20-21
Pray these verses and tell the Lord you believe the truth in them. Ask Him to strengthen and blossom your prayer life with Him.
I also like to use the C.A.T.S. method: Confession first, then Adoration, then Thanksgiving for all He has done, and finally Supplication as we ask on behalf of ourselves and others for things we believe are within His will.
Lesson Five: George Muller Quotes About Prayer
It is true that when we go through seasons when we are left alone through widowhood, divorce, empty nesting, or other things that isolate us or slow us down, we see the greatest growth in our prayer relationship with the Lord. It is then that we have the best opportunity of our lives to learn what it is to be really wanted, to be loved by someone we can always depend on, and to be truly adored. When I experienced divorce, there were rooms I did not want to walk into by myself. One example was when I had to go into the closing on my house. The Lord made it so obvious to me that I would not be walking into that room alone. The other couple had a spouse to accompany them, but I had the Lord God Himself. He promised then He would never leave me nor forsake me and He never will. And He will be at your elbow accompanying you into every room you will ever walk into.(Hebrews 13:5)
But I learned another important thing- how to pray. Although He will never forsake me even if I don’t pray, I rob myself of the intimacy of feeling tenderly close to Him when I do not spend time in prayer. I give up the opportunities to see how His end of the conversation plays out through answered prayer. I lose the chance to see His power operating in my life to its fullest; the power is there, but answered prayers put it on full display for my mortal eyes to see.
George Muller was one of my faithful teachers as I learned to pray, through his writings. Enjoy his wisdom in the quotes below:
“A Narrative of Some of the Lord’s Dealings with George Müller”. Book by George Müller, First Part, 1837.
- I live in the spirit of prayer. I pray as I walk about, when I lie down and when I rise up. And the answers are always coming.
- I believe God has heard my prayers. He will make it manifest in His own good time that He has heard me. I have recorded my petitions that when God has answered them, His name will be glorified.
George Muller (1996). “The Autobiography of George Muller”, p.41, Whitaker House
Only a life of prayer and meditation will render a vessel ready for the Master’s use.
George Muller (2005). “Release The Power Of Prayer”, p.9, Whitaker House
“A Narrative of Some of the Lord’s Dealings with George Müller” by George Muller, First Part, 1865.
- The greater the difficulty to be overcome, the more will it be seen to the glory of God how much can be done by prayer and faith.
- On the ground of our own goodness we cannot expect to have our prayers answered. But Jesus is worthy, and for His sake we may have our prayers answered. There is nothing too choice, too costly, or too great for God to give Him. He is worthy. He is the spotless, holy Child, who under all circumstances acted according to the mind of God. And if we trust in Him, if we hide in Him, if we put Him forward and ourselves in the background, depend on Him and plead His name, we may expect to have our prayers answered.
- The joy which answers to prayer give, cannot be described; and the impetus which they afford to the spiritual life is exceedingly great.
George Muller (2013). “Answers to Prayer From George Müller’s Narratives (Start Classics)”, p.42, Simon and Schuster
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