It is common among Christians to often ask how to pray, or to pray effectively. These questions come when a believer prays and never gets the result of his or her prayers. Whereas the Bible has promised us that whatever we ask God, we will receive. You start wondering why you never get results or why you never get answers to your prayers. Yes, God promised to answer our prayer whenever we pray but there are some guidelines to prayer, until you pray according to the biblical ways of prayer, you may not get results.
Here, we will be discussing the tips to pray effectively. And also how to pray according to the bible.
How to pray and get results
Pray in Faith
Here is what the bible says about Praying in faith
Therefore I tell you, whatever you ask in prayer, believe that you have received it, and it will be yours.
Mark 11:24 (ESV) 24
Many Christians never get the result when they pray because they doubt their prayer. Here in Mark 11:24, Jesus had assured us that when we pray and believe that we have received it, it will be ours. When you doubt your prayer, it means you have limited God. God only moves when we move by faith.
Learn to pray and Spend Time with Jesus
Remember what the Bible said in the book of Hebrews
“And without faith, it is impossible to please God because anyone who comes to him must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who earnestly seek him.”
HEBREWS 11:6 (NKJV
Many healings that happened during the ministry of Jesus Christ were all because of the faith of the persons. For instance, Jesus healing the woman with the issue blood (Mark 5:25–34).
This woman has suffered for 12 years heard about Jesus and believed that when she touches Jesus’s cloak, she will get healed. When she did that, in verse 34, Jesus said to her, “Daughter, your faith has healed you. Go in peace and be freed from your suffering.”
When you prayed in faith, you do not have to think about how it would come to pass.
When you have prayed, or you ask God something in prayer but have hoped on somebody through whom you have been expecting to help you, that is not faith. Hebrews 11: 1 “Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.” NKJV
God works in mysterious ways. When He blesses you through people that you know, sometimes it will become hard to acknowledge him as the source of your blessings. Do not map out a blueprint of how God will bless you, or through whom God will bless you. Faith is all about hoping for something and allowing God to do as He wishes and seems right to Him.
Pray and Work
I want you to know that trusting in God requires work because faith without work is death James 2:26.
The work you should do is to pray and go back to work. Don’t be lazy, God will not send blessings over in the air. He works through men; He will bless you through the work of your hands. For it to be faith, you must work contrary to hoping on people.
“Thus says the LORD: “Cursed is the man who trusts in man and makes flesh his strength, whose heart departs from the LORD.”
Jeremiah 17:5
When the Israelites were trapped between the Egyptians and the Red Sea, Moses cried unto God, and God instructed him (Moses) to stretch out his rod to divide the red sea. Why did God not from Heaven order the red sea to divide by His Words? The reason is that the journey with God is a faith journey, and every faith journey is tested by work.
“that the genuineness of your faith, being much more precious than gold that perishes, though it is tested by fire, may be found to praise, honor, and glory at the revelation of Jesus Christ,”
1 Peter 1:7
You pray amiss
James 4:3 “You ask and do not receive, because you ask amiss, that you may spend it on your pleasures”
God has promised to give us everything we ask by faith in Him, but sometimes even though we have trust in Him and had prayed in faith, we do not receive it because we do not ask the mind of the Father.
God is our Heavenly Father and knows what is good for us. There are two criteria to what you will ask God and receive from Him.
2 Peter 1:3 “as His divine power has given to us all things that pertain to life and godliness, through the knowledge of Him who called us by glory and virtue,”
- It must pertain to life: God cannot answer a prayer to anything you ask that does not pertain to living. You cannot ask Him to kill and expect God to grant such a request.
- Godliness: If what you are asking God is not uplifting or will not bring glory to Him, He will not answer it.
God has magnified His Word above His Name Psalm 138:2. What it means is that although you ask in God’s name and it is not God’s Word for you, He will never answer the prayer. So how to pray effectively is to pray for the will of God over you.
Have CHRIST Consciousness and learn to ask the will of God
In Numbers 22 and 23, Balak, the king of the Moabites summoned Balaam to curse the Israelites. He could not, even though he was coming in the name of the Lord, because God opposed him.
Sometimes what you ask in prayer may be to impress our friends. It could be something you need, but you have not come up to the level to manage it. But because you want to belong to the social class, you will feel like your mate all has it, and you want to have yours. God may not grant it.
At this point, I want you to know that there is a difference between need and want. Your need is the necessitated requirement to survive as a person. And personal want could be considered as a luxury.
If you ask God for what He knows you do not need, He will not grant you the request the first time. But when you persist, He will grant your request but will add leanness to your soul. For such gifts or blessings, You will never enjoy it
And He gave them their request, but sent leanness into their soul.”
Psalm 106:15
If it a blessing from the Lord, it should bless your life and bring you happiness.
Pray and Hear God talk to you.
Prayer is bilateral, whenever you talk to God, you will hear Him talk back to You. There are many ways God does talk to us individually; it could be as tiny as that little voice in your heart. When you pray, wait for God to tell you what to do. Sometimes He can ask you to go and do a specific task or that you should wait. It is always different because God is dynamic and works in different ways. And as such, there is no unique formula to follow God.
When you don’t do what God asked you to do after prayer, you may never have an answer. Everything He has promised us, He has given us in Christ Jesus. Therefore, the ticket to receive from God is salvation. Compare these scriptures;
“But as many as received Him, to them He gave the right to become children of God, to those who believe in His name”.
John 1:12
“as His divine power has given to us all things that pertain to life and godliness, through the knowledge of Him who called us by glory and virtue,”
2 Peter 1:3
“Jesus said to him, “I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through Me.”
John 14:6
God’s blessing and promises are for His children, those who were redeemed by the blood of Jesus Christ. Are you born again?
Only when you have accepted Jesus as your Personal Lord and Savior.
Then you can have access to the Father and whatever you ask in God’s name through faith and work in accordance to the will of God, that He will do. That is how to pray according to the bible.
