Christian Opinion on Effective Prayer According to the Bible

It is a gift from God that Christians can pray and communicate with Him. One of the questions that many Christians will ask is that: how can my prayer be effective? That means how can prayer reach the throne of God and receive an answer. In fact, there are some keys for effective prayer according to the Bible. The following 5 keys are important for prayer to be effective.




1. Pray with faith


Anyone who has attended a Sunday school class or Bible study on prayer before, will understand that faith is important to prayer. For the Bible say that "and without faith it is impossible to be well-pleasing unto him; for he that cometh to God must believe that he is, and that he is a rewarder of them that seek after him." (Heb 11:6). Faith always need to be excerised and tested by trial, otherwise our faith will always remian in an immature level. We can pray out loud in the church and procliam that we believe in God's healing but when it comes to praying for a sick person to receive complete healing right in front of us; it will be a different story.We are all afriad of what will happen if the sick person cannot be healed immediately.That is the reason why many Christians will choose to pray the most secure prayer in moment like this. Christians would probably say the following in a prayer : "Lord, heal this person if it is your will!" Prayer like this requires no faith at all and no wonder healing will never take place with prayer like this. Therefore, the first step for our effective prayer is :to believe that our prayer is already praying according to the will of God and expecting something will happen after our prayer. That's the first tip to effective prayer. In order to have our prayer answered by God,we have to believe in what we are praying about.


2. Pray according to the Bible


The Bible consists of all the great promises of God and we can be sure that God will answer prayer according to His words. For this reason, it is important to understand the promises of God by doing a search with your Bible tool.For example, we can search under the promises of God's healing on the internet and find out all the promises of healing in the Bible. Then we can pray according to all these promises and believe that God will perform healing miracles right at the moment according to His promises. You probably will ask that "what, if nothing happen and nobody gets heal ?" It is our responsibility to believe in God's word and pray according to His promises. God is the one who will responsible for the timing of fulfillment of His promises. We do our part and God does His part. There are still many things we have to admit that we don't fully understand the reasons for all the unanswered prayer. We don't give order to God with our prayer but to express our obedience to His sovereignty. However, we know that when we pray according to His promises, we can be certain that we are praying according to His will.


3. Pray with one another


You can pray alone if you want to. There is nothing wrong to have a quiet time and communicate with God alone. But when you want to express your urgency and request God to answer your prayer quickly, it is better to invite other people to pray with you together. For the Bible say that : "Again I say unto you, that if two of you shall agree on earth as touching anything that they shall ask, it shall be done for them of my Father which is in heaven (Matt. 18:19 )" Prayer in agreement with one another is a key for effective prayer and it is powerful according to the Bible. We are not fighting with the flesh according to Ephesians 6 in the Bible. We are fighting a spiritual battle against the evil forces. We have to win the battle together with other Christians. Therefore, be sure you will find somebody to pray with you when facing a problem.


4. Pray without ceasing


"Pray without ceasing" can be found in Thessalonians 5:17 in the Bible. It is another key for effective prayer. Ed Silvoso, who is a man of prayer and greatly used by God in the revival of Argentine once mention an illustration on prayer. He said that prayer is like a man holding a large hammer to hit a wall .The wall will remain the same until the man keep hitting at the wall to its 96 times, a crack then begins to appear. More cracks begin to show by the time the man hits the wall to its 98 times. When He hits the wall at its 99 times, the wall has cracks in everywhere. Finally, when the man hits the wall at its 100 times, the whole wall will fall down and break into pieces. That is why we should pray without ceasing. Ed Silvoso is telling the truth in prayer. Sometimes, we give up too early in our prayer, therefore we can never see any result in our prayer life. Keep this in mind, then you will be surprised by the effectiveness of your prayer in a new way.


5. Pray with fasting


Although many people have their prayer answered through fasting, it is never a way to force God to do anything according to our will. When we look at the Bible, we can understand that many Biblical characters have been benefited by fasting. Daniel, Nehemiah and Paul are just some of these examples. Of course,Jesus is the perfect example of fasting. He fasted for forty days in the wilderness to prepare Himself for the battle with Satan and Jesus won a great victory. Since Jesus overcame the three temptations according to Matthew 4 :1-11, the power of fasting is unquestionable. Fasting is a way for us to overcome our flesh and be more sensitive to God's voice. Fasting will help us to seek God's will and pray according to His will in the problems that we are facing. Therefore, fasting is another powerful key to effective prayer.


We all want to see our prayer being answered as soon as possible but in fact, prayer is a learning process. The more we pray , the more secrets of effective prayer we will discover. Why don't you start your new prayer schedule today and experience the differences for yourself?