Prayer is powerful when we have the right perspective!
If we hope to have Powerful Prayer that pursues the heart of God, it is important to have an understanding of what it is and isn’t.
What is prayer supposed to be? 🙏
Why bother? What’s the purpose? 🤷♂️
Is God listening? Is He going to answer? 👂
These are fair questions. If we’re honest, most of us have probably asked them at some point. Perhaps you have even experienced times when your prayers felt like they were going nowhere—empty or hollow efforts to talk to God.
So, what makes prayer powerful?
Perhaps the answer begins with something more important than the words we say or the requests we make.
Powerful prayer begins with understanding who God is and approaching Him with the right perspective.
Powerful Prayer, begins with reverence, not requests
In a recent morning service at the church where I worship, we began a series of messages on prayer. The pastor reminded us that before we ask anything of God, we need to focus on who He is—our Father in heaven.
Recognizing God’s holiness first and foremost helps determine how we approach Him in prayer.
Powerful prayer begins with reverence, not requests.
Before we bring our requests to God, we need to recognize who we are approaching: the sovereign, holy and wise God of the universe.
That raises another important question: What exactly is prayer supposed to be?
What Is Prayer Really?
Most simply, prayer is a conversation with God.
Prayer isn’t about delivering an eloquent speech or finding the perfect words. It is about honestly and sincerely opening our hearts to God.
Psalm 145:18 tells us that the Lord is near to all who call on Him in truth. Hebrews 10:22 invites us to draw near to God with sincere hearts, while Psalm 51:17 reminds us that God values a broken and contrite heart.
Prayer is also:
- Time to express gratitude, thankfulness and dependence on God in all things. (Psalm 100:4; Colossians 4:2)
- Talking intimately with God. Jesus gave us a pattern for prayer beginning with the very personal words, “Our Father.” (Matthew 6:9)
- A great privilege God has given His followers. We are invited to bring our concerns and requests to Him. (Philippians 4:6-7)
- An invitation to bring everything to God. We can bring our worries, anxieties, needs and concerns to Him with thanksgiving. (Philippians 4:6-7)
- Casting our care on God and receiving His peace. We are told to cast all our anxiety on Him because He cares for us. (1 Peter 5:7)
If prayer is truly a relationship with God, then we don’t need to pretend when we come before Him.
Powerful Pray Is Honest
Since God already knows our hearts we don’t have to give Him a sanitized version of ourselves.
Paul Sadler, in his article Why God Prefers Honest Prayers Over Polite Ones, asks an important question: How honest are our prayers?
When we are hurting, can we tell God that we’re hurting?
When we’re afraid, can we tell Him we’re afraid?
When we’re confused, angry or disappointed, can we bring those emotions honestly before Him?
Powerful prayer is honest prayer.
We can bring our real struggles to God while remembering who He is and what He has already done for us. Prayer is not simply about speaking; it also involves listening—allowing God to speak to us through His Word and inviting Him to meet us in our pain.
But if prayer is more than simply presenting God with our feelings and requests, we need to ask another question…
Why Does God Want Us to Pray?
Why should we pray when God already knows what we need?
For one thing, God invites us to pray to Him and pour out our hearts. (Psalm 62:8)
There are hundreds of prayers recorded throughout the Bible, including many prayers spoken by Jesus Himself. If Jesus prayed, shouldn’t we also?
God repeatedly invites His people to call on Him. (Jeremiah 33:3; 1 Thessalonians 5:17; Psalm 50:15)
Another important reason we pray is that God wants us to pray.
What an amazing privilege! The Creator of the universe allows us to enter into a personal relationship with Him. He isn’t distant or inaccessible. He invites us to draw near. (1 Peter 3:12; Psalm 145:18-19)
Further, God even expects us to pray. In Matthew 6:5, Jesus says, “When you pray,” not “if you pray.”
Prayer is therefore not an optional activity for a follower of Jesus. It is part of our relationship with God.
Prayer Deepens Our Relationship With God
We know that close relationships require time together.
We grow in our human relationships by talking, listening, sharing, trusting and spending time together. Our relationship with God is no different.
Prayer gives us an opportunity to deepen and strengthen our relationship with Him through:
- talking to God
- listening to God through His Word
- discerning and responding to biblical truth
- expressing gratitude
- acknowledging our dependence on Him
- learning to trust Him
- confessing our sins
- surrendering our desires to His will
James 4:8 says, “Draw near to God, and He will draw near to you.”
Prayer is one of the ways we draw near.
Prayer Helps Us Trust God
God wants us to learn to trust Him in every circumstance of life.
Proverbs 3:5-6 reminds us to trust in the Lord with all our heart rather than relying solely on our own understanding.
Prayer gives us an opportunity to bring our challenges to God instead of carrying them alone.
It is also a time for self-reflection.
We can confess our sins—our failures to do what we should have done and the things we have done that we shouldn’t have done—and genuinely repent by turning away from sin.
But prayer is not about bargaining with God or trying to control Him.
What Prayer is Not
The purpose of prayer becomes clearer when we understand what prayer is not.
Prayer is not:
- bargaining with God
- making demands of God
- simply asking God for things
- therapeutic or meditation-type exercise
- bothering God or taking up His time
- a way to control God
- showing off our spirituality before others
Prayer is about relationship.
It is about coming before God with humility, gratitude, honesty, faith and dependence.
And that brings us to another important question:
Is God Listening? Is He Going to Answer?
This is where our perspective becomes particularly important.
If we believe prayer is about getting God to give us what we want, we may become discouraged when His answer isn’t what we expected.
But powerful prayer isn’t about changing God’s will to match ours. It is about bringing our hearts into alignment with His will.
Powerful Prayer Seeks God's Will
When we approach God in prayer, we need to remember who He is.
He is the sovereign, holy and wise God of the universe.
By all means, understanding that changes how we pray!
We can approach Him with confidence because Scripture tells us that when we ask according to His will, He hears us. (1 John 5:14)
God’s attention to the prayers of His people is personal and purposeful. Psalm 34:15 tells us that His eyes are on the righteous and His ears are attentive to their cry.
Jesus also taught us to pray to our Father privately, knowing that our Father sees what is done in secret. (Matthew 6:6)
So how should we approach God?
- Seek Him humbly, with awe and reverence. (Ecclesiastes 5:2)
- Submit to God’s will rather than demanding our own way. (Matthew 6:10; 1 John 5:14)
- Present our requests with thanksgiving, sincerity and faith. (Philippians 4:6; Hebrews 11:6)
- Trust God’s wisdom and timing. (Proverbs 3:5-6)
We can confidently bring our requests to God while still praying, “Your will be done.”
That is a very different perspective from treating prayer as a way to get what we want.
Does God Hear Every Prayer?
The Bible gives us great encouragement that God hears the prayers of those who seek Him.
Jeremiah 29:12 says:
“Then you will call on me and come and pray to me, and I will listen to you.”
God hears.
But hearing does not mean that God will always give us the answer we want.
Sometimes the answer is yes.
Sometimes it is no.
Sometimes it is wait.
God answers according to His perfect wisdom, will and timing.
Our responsibility is not to manipulate God into giving us what we want
Our responsibility is to trust Him—even when we don’t understand His answer.
Powerful Prayer Requires an Honest Heart
There is another important consideration when we think about powerful prayer: the condition of our hearts.
Psalm 66:18 says:
“If I had cherished sin in my heart, the Lord would not have listened.”
This doesn’t mean that we have to become sinless before we can pray. None of us could meet that standard.
But Scripture does warn us that deliberately holding on to sin can hinder our fellowship with God and affect our prayers.
The good news is that God provides a way back through confession and genuine repentance.
Repentance means more than simply saying we’re sorry. It involves turning away from sin and choosing a different path.
When we confess our sin and humble ourselves before God, we restore our fellowship with Him.
If you are struggling to understand why some prayers seem unanswered, there are also other possible hindrances to prayer that are worth considering.
But How Can We Approach a Holy God?
This brings us to an even more important question.
If God is holy and we are sinful, how can we have access to Him in the first place?
The answer is Jesus Christ.
Believers now have direct access to God through Jesus, our mediator. (1 Timothy 2:5)
When Jesus died, the curtain of the temple was torn in two from top to bottom. (Matthew 27:50-51)
That was not merely a dramatic event.
It signified that Jesus had opened the way for us to approach God.
Hebrews 10:19-22 explains that because of Jesus, we can draw near to God with confidence.
Before Christ, access to the holy presence of God was represented through the priesthood and the sacrificial system under the Old Covenant.
But Jesus became the perfect sacrifice for sin.
Our access to God does not depend on our ability to pray perfectly. It depends on what Jesus has done for us.
Do You Know what Jesus has done for you?
Perhaps you already have a relationship with God through faith in Jesus Christ.
If so, what an incredible privilege you have!
You can approach the Creator of the universe through Jesus, bringing your gratitude, fears, failures, questions and requests to Him.
But perhaps you don’t yet know Jesus.
Perhaps you’ve never understood that He died as the perfect sacrifice to pay for your sin and mine.
If that’s you, don’t ignore the invitation.
Knowing Jesus isn’t simply about learning how to pray better. It is about entering into a saving relationship with the One who makes it possible for us to approach God.
This is the most important relationship you will ever have.
Powerful Prayer Pursues the Heart of God
Powerful prayer isn’t about finding magical words that guarantee the answer we want.
It isn’t about trying to persuade God to see things our way.
And it isn’t simply about presenting Him with a list of requests.
Powerful prayer begins when we recognize who God is and approach Him with reverence, honesty, humility, faith and trust.
We bring Him our gratitude, our fears, our failures, questions and requests!
But ultimately, powerful prayer seeks more than God’s hand—it seeks God’s heart.
When we learn to pray, “Your will be done,” we begin to understand what it means to pursue the heart of God.
A Prayer to Abide
The song “Abide” is a beautiful prayer expressing our trust and dependence on our sovereign God for literally everything.
As you listen, perhaps make its words your own prayer:
“Lord, help me to abide in You.”
