Spirit Empowered Biblical Prayer

God listens to our prayer, and he loves to answer our prayers. The scripture does not suggest that we pray but command us to pray. As a Christian we are commanded in the Bible to pray without ceasing, in all things and with our entire being. Prayer is dominion. When people in the Bible prayed, God showed up on their behalf. Prayer that is according to the will of God wins God’s favor.
When we start to pray, God changes things. Prayer is talked about in Bible schools, seminaries, churches, and preached by many but practiced by few. Though it is good to study about prayer, we will never learn how to pray until we start to pray. Mother Angelica comparing the prayer of the early church and ours said, “They had the spirit but so do we. They had the Eucharist but so do we. They had men who taught them the Word of God but so do we. They had communal worship but so do we. They prayed without ceasing but we do not.” It is not enough to read books about prayer and teach about prayer, but one should pray to experience God. In the Bible, those who sought God in prayer have entered into His presence and got their prayer answered. Everything that one understands in the Bible or other books should lead the person to prayer.

The Christian life is never to be separated from a life of prayer. In fact, as our prayer life is so is our Christian life. Until we start seeing prayer as the way of maintaining our own Christian life, we cannot fully know what prayer is meant to be. For every Christian prayer should be a language of experience. It is the perfect will of God that Christians would experience the power of prayer.
We get biblical answer from God, when we pray biblical prayers. God is not our heavenly vending machine where we put a prayer “coin” and demand that he does what we will. God is sovereign. He gives us what we need in his way, in his time and as he wants it. No human being can command God because He is God and we are not. So prayer is not imposing our priorities on God rather prayer should be taking God as He is and bend our self God’s will. Though it is unfeasible to control God's will, a person who tries to manipulate God is guilty of witchcraft. When King Saul did what was right before his sight and though that he obeyed God, the prophet Samuel said to him “Does the Lord delight in burnt offerings and sacrifices as much as in obeying the voice of the Lord? To obey is better than sacrifice, and to heed is better than the fat of rams. For rebellion is like the sin of divination, and arrogance like the evil of idolatry. Because you have rejected the word of the Lord, he has rejected you as king” (1 Sam 15:22-23). Rebellion is the same as the sin of witchcraft.

Prayer is also a fight and the adversary (Satan) will do anything to stop Christians from praying. If there is no spiritual battle, why would Paul wrote to the Ephesians to put on the armor of God: the girdle of truth, breastplate of righteousness, shoes of the preparation of the Gospel, shield of faith, helmet of salvation, and sword of the spirit (Eph. 6:10-17). After Paul listed all these armors, he continued and said “pray in the Spirit on all occasions with all kinds of prayers and requests. With this in mind, be alert and always keep on praying for all the saints” (Eph. 6:18). When Paul exhorted believers to pray with all kind of prayers, he told them with the spiritual warfare in mind. Paul commanded the readers to stand and pray at the moment of attack. All the armors of God are given by the Spirit of God because what believers are fighting with is highly-organized opposing kingdom of Satan.

Prayer is communing with God. God gives us grace to pray. As for me, Bible is not the end but the means to an end. In other words, Bible shows us the way of seeking God. Only genuine encounter with God in prayer can transform our life. If the Bible was the end then all people who know what is written in it would have known God, but that is not the case. There are a lot of people who spent all their life studying the Bible but never met the author, Holy Spirit. When we pray we are expressing our need to God with humility; then God will reveal himself to us. . After Jesus taught his disciples how to pray, they couldn't pray because it takes more than knowing how to pray to engage in the discipline of prayer. May God teach us how to pray and empower us to pray by his Spirit