How To Pray Always Answered Prayers
The Secret of Always Answered Prayer (Part 4, Conclusion)
All of us have experienced unanswered prayer. So, why does Jesus seem to think we can have every prayer answered?
God is not angry or disappointed with our prayers, as they are — in fact, he loves to hear our voice. However, the gap between our experience and Jesus’s promise points to massive untapped potential in our personal and corporate prayer lives. What would it be like to live with confidence that you would have every prayer answered? Or to live in a community where always-answered prayer was the norm?
In “The Process of Always-Answered Prayer,” we looked at Jesus’s description of how to pray always-answered prayers in John 15:1-13.
Matthew 21 and Mark 11 reveal the promise of always answered prayer and its connection to faith, but they don’t tell us how to have faith. In John 15, through an extended metaphor, Jesus shows us an organic process that results in answered prayer as an end result, just as fruit emerges from a grapevine. In other words, John 15 is a step-by-step instruction manual on how to pray prayers that move mountains.
In this final installment, we’ll consider the practical question of how our personal and corporate prayer practices can be more effective.
How, then, should we pray if always answered prayer is our goal?
More of the Spirit, More of the Word
“If you remain in me and my words remain in you, ask whatever you desire and it will be done for you…” John 15:7
God creates by speaking the Word in an atmosphere of the Spirit (Genesis 1:1-3). Always answered prayer is the fruit of abiding in Jesus by the indwelling Spirit, and His words abiding in us. As sons of God, we join our Father in the creative work he continues to do, just as Jesus said, “My Father is working until now, and I am working.” (John 5:17)
This is how always-answered prayer works.
As we abide in Jesus by the Spirit and His words abide in us, we find that our desires and prayers, the overflow of our hearts, are an extension of God’s creative work. Like Jesus, we find ourselves doing and saying only what we see the Father doing and saying (John 5:19, John 12:49).
If we want to participate in this work more and more, we must prioritize the presence of the Holy Spirit and the word of God in the place of prayer. God’s presence changes everything. More of His presence means more fruit. We must also make room in ourselves for Jesus’s words, so that His words can live in us. This also means removing other words that live in us that disagree with Jesus’ words. The Bible’s word for this is “repentance”. Paul also calls it “the renewing of the mind.” James describes it this way: “Therefore, put away all filthiness and rampant wickedness and receive with meekness the implanted word…” (James 1:21)
This is how faith that moves mountains (Mark 11, Matthew 21) is produced in the human heart. Remain in the presence of the Holy Spirit. Get the word of the world, the flesh, and the devil out of your mind. Allow Jesus’s words to take up residence within. This “organic process” model contrasts with a “mental certainty of outcome” model of faith that seeks to conjure up faith “by the bootstraps.”
Praying Less
To be more effective in prayer, paradoxically, we ought to consider praying less.
To be more precise, we must speak less and listen more. Our goal in prayer must be to experience the presence of God, meditate on His word in Scripture, and hear His voice by the power of the Holy Spirit.
The problem in prayer is not that God does not know what we need or what we want. He is aware of our prayers before we ask (Matthew 6:8). He knows the problems we face. The problem is that we lack faith and are not praying “in Jesus’ name”, that is, from our position in Him, from our identity in Christ.
Ecclesiastes 5 says, “Do not be hasty in word or impulsive in thought to bring up a matter in the presence of God. For God is in heaven, and you are on earth. Therefore, let your words be few…for when [prophetic] dreams increase and words [in prayer] grow many, there is vanity; but God is the one you must fear.”
Think about it in the natural: God is a great king. If any of us were called before a ruler of our nation, we would recognize it as a great honor. We would show respect, listen first, and speak only when spoken to. What if we approached our prayer times in a similar way? What if, at times, we waited to make our requests until the Lord spoke to us?
Queen Esther (Esther 5-7) was one of the most successful intercessors in Scripture, combining bold action with discretion and silence.
While she shows great courage by approaching the king without being summoned, risking her life to intercede for her people, it is only after fasting for three days. She is both brave and humble in the same action.
When she receives the king’s favor, rather than present her request immediately, she first invites the king to a banquet along with Haman, her persecutor. At the first banquet, she only makes her request at the end when asked by the king. Even then, she delays her true request and invites the king to another banquet.
In between the first and second banquets, the king discovers he owes Mordecai his life and decides to honor him. In between the first and second banquets, Haman builds a gallows for Mordecai, where he will hang just one day later. By Esther’s patient intercession, Mordecai is honored, and Haman is humbled.
Finally, at just the right time in the second banquet, she presents her ultimate request to the king, for her life and the life of her people. The king is immediately stirred to action. The Jews are saved, and Haman is hanged on his gallows.
Praying always answered prayers means we must learn to listen first and linger longer with the Lord before making our requests. We may make fewer requests, but they will have greater power.
The Prayer of Desire
Desire is the native language of prayer.
Abiding in Jesus and His words abiding in us transforms us at a heart level. It leads to new, holy desires coming out of our hearts. The Spirit of God and the Word of God working in tandem renew our minds, leading to brand-new desires that align with God’s desires (Romans 12:2).
These desires, conceived out of creative intimacy with the Lord, are prayers that will always be answered. However, when we are abiding in Him, God not only reshapes our desires to be like His, but He also sanctifies the natural desires we already have.
I love to see my children growing in their faith and would do anything to help them get closer to God. But I also care for their natural needs, like food and shelter. In fact, I even give them many things they want that are not needed for their enjoyment.
God is a much better Father than I am. He meets our spiritual desires that spring out of abiding, but also sanctifies our natural desires and meets them as well. As Psalm 84:11 says, “No good thing does he withhold from those who walk uprightly.”
I have learned to pay attention to things I deeply desire, especially if the desire is persistent over time. Today’s desires are tomorrow’s stories of answered prayer. If God delays in responding over weeks, months, and years, I have learned to anticipate a more significant answer from the Lord in proportion to the wait.
Sometimes, we experience unanswered prayer because we ask for something we believe we should desire, even though we don’t really want it. For instance, we might pray for something as a religious duty, or because we’ve been asked to by someone else, but find that desire is not present in us.
One time, while I was in Africa, I was in a gathering where people were praying fervently for South Sudan. On the same trip, we had visited refugees from South Sudan, so I could viscerally appreciate the need for prayer. However, as we prayed, I found I was becoming bored, and my mind was wandering. I asked the Lord, “What’s wrong? Why can’t I pray for South Sudan?”
Immediately, I heard in my spirit, “I’m not giving you a burden to pray for South Sudan at this time.”
When I heard that, I knew I was not needed for those prayers. I left the prayer meeting to find some lunch. Later that day, one of the other Westerners shared how she had been unable to engage in prayer for South Sudan. Was something wrong with her? Was there something wrong spiritually with how others were praying?
I shared that I had the same experience and what the Lord had told me.
Often, we do not desire something and are consequently unable to pray effectively, because God has not given us that desire. Desire and faith are not the same thing, but they are very closely linked. When you think “faith”, look around, and “desire” is probably nearby. For our prayers to be always answered, we must have desire. The stronger the desire, the stronger the prayer.
If, however, there is something that we ought to desire, something God has made clear He desires, and we find our heart does not want it, it is best to ask the Lord to change our heart and bring our desires into alignment with His desires.
In other words, if we don’t want it, but we know we should, we can ask God to change our hearts and give us godly desires.
To Abide is to Experience Love with Divine Intensity
In John 15:9, Jesus makes the shocking statement, “As the Father has loved me, I also have loved you. Abide in my love.” Jesus will repeat this theme throughout John 13-17:
“He who loves me will be loved by my Father, and I will love Him and manifest myself to Him.” John 14:21
“So that the world may know that you sent me and loved them [my disciples] just as you loved me [Jesus].” John 17:23
“I have declared to them [the Father’s] name, so that the love with which [the Father] loved me may be in them, and I in them.” John 17:26
What is shocking is the repeated comparison between how the Father loves Jesus and how Jesus and the Father now love the disciples. We might say that a divinely powerful love, a love that exists properly only within the Trinity, is now being shared directly with disciples of Jesus.
To abide in Him means to experience the love of Jesus and the Father, just as Jesus himself experienced it. Abiding in Jesus means experiencing a divine intensity of God’s love. We pray always-answered prayers when we experience the unbelievable intensity of God’s love for us.
To Abide Means to Obey
We can only abide in divine love if we obey Jesus.
“As the Father has loved me, I have loved you. Abide in my love. If you keep my commandments, you will abide in my love just as I have kept my Father’s commandments and abide in His love.” John 15:9-10
As His love flows into us, we must respond in obedience. His indwelling word has not primarily come to produce knowledge--knowledge puffs up--but to produce obedience. We are pleasing to Him not based on what we know, but on how we obey. Obedience is how we express love to Jesus. It is essential to abiding in His love, and thus, essential for always answered prayer.
“If you love me, you will keep my commandments.” John 14:15
“Whoever has my commandments and keeps them, he it is who loves me.” John 14:21
“If anyone loves me, he will keep my word, and my Father will love him, and we will come to him and make our home [abode] with him.” John 14:23
“Whoever does not love me does not keep my words.” John 14:24
We cannot abide in Jesus’s love apart from obedience, just as Jesus was able to remain in the Father’s love only through obedience. Clearly, Jesus expects us to obey him in everything.
However, there is one particular commandment that he highlights as of utmost importance to always-answered prayer.
“Love One Another as I Have Loved You”
Our fruitfulness in the vertical dimension of always answered prayer is completely dependent on the horizontal dimension: how we love one another.
“If you keep my commandments you will abide in my love…this is my commandment, love one another just as I have loved you. Greater love has no one than this, than to lay down one’s life for his friends.” John 15:10,12-13
To abide in the love of Jesus, we must first receive His love through the Holy Spirit and then share it with others. Just as we have been loved, we must love one another. “One another” primarily means loving other believers, other followers of Jesus. This does not mean that we do not love those outside the family of faith; on the contrary, we are enabled to love them far more. However, just as we have a greater responsibility to love our own natural families than another family across town, we have a greater responsibility to love our spiritual family as a priority. Jesus explicitly ties answered prayer to how we love other believers.
Many other Scriptures also highlight our relationships with others as essential to being heard in prayer:
“’Why have we fasted and you have not seen’…Is this not the fast that I have chosen, to loose the bonds of wickedness, to undo heavy burdens, to let the oppressed go free, and to break every yoke…Then you will call, and the LORD will answer…” Isaiah 58:3,6,9
“Therefore, if you bring your gift to the altar and there remember your brother has something against you, leave your gift…first be reconciled to your brother…” Matt 5:23-24
“In this manner, pray: Our Father in heaven…for if you forgive men their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you. But if you do not forgive men their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses.” Matt 6:9,14-15
“Husbands, likewise, giving honor to the wife…that your prayers may not be hindered.” 1 Peter 3:7
“The effectual, fervent prayer of a righteous [just] man avails much.” James 5:16
Abiding, and the always answered prayer that is the fruit of abiding, is only possible when we are loving other believers just as Jesus loved us, laying down our lives for one another just as He gave His life for us.
Abiding is a Corporate Reality
All of Jesus’s language around abiding is addressed not to an individual, but to a group.
He is not speaking to one disciple; he is addressing a community of disciples. He is speaking to not to “you” but to “y’all.” While the idea of abiding in Jesus is certainly applicable to us as individuals, it is even more applicable to us in a community.
In fact, certain parts of the process of abiding that Jesus describes are impossible apart from community. We cannot “love ourselves” instead of “loving one another”. The love must be passed on to others.
When we think about the fullness of the abiding reality that produces always-answered prayer, we ought to think of it in a corporate context, where we are abiding as branches together and praying always-answered prayers, together.
Experience bears this out—while I’ve seen many answered prayers in my personal times of prayer, it has been in corporate settings devoted to abiding in the presence of Jesus where we have repeatedly experienced explosions of God’s power in response to believing prayer.
Conclusions
“Always Answered Prayer” is a promise, a promise that, as yet, we have not experienced in fullness. In this series, I’ve done my best to wrestle honestly with the Scriptures, not as someone who has it figured out, but as someone with a small measure of faith who has not experienced the fullness of what is described in God’s word.
My prayer is this:
“Father, glorify your Son by teaching us to abide in Him, so that we might glorify you. Teach us the Secret of Always Answered Prayer so that Your name may be honored and our joy may be full in your house of prayer (Is. 56:7).”