Pastor Jim Cymbala shares his experience with us: After I had been pastor of Brooklyn Tabernacle for about a year, the church had grown to fifty people, but we were facing problems: little money, few people coming to faith in Christ. One Tuesday afternoon, I sat in my cubbyhole office on Atlantic Avenue, depressed. I knew that later that day, fifteen people, at most, would come to church to pray. How could God call me and my wife to this city not to make a difference? I wondered. I walked into our empty, little sanctuary and recited to God a list of my problems: “Look at this building, this neighborhood … Our offerings are laughable … I can’t trust So-and-so … There’s so little to work with.” Then the Holy Spirit impressed upon me, “I will show you the biggest problem in the church. It’s you.” In that moment I saw with excruciating clarity that I didn’t really love the people as God wanted me to. I prepared sermons just to get through another Sunday. I was basically prayerless. I was proud. I fell on my face before God and began to weep. “God, whatever it takes, please change me. I would rather die than live out some useless ministry of catchphrases.” The Brooklyn Tabernacle began to turn around, and twenty years later, we are still learning about the tremendous power of prayer. Every Tuesday evening many hundreds of people come together simply to pray. ¹ The Bible is our prayer book. In it are truths which will help make us smart in the fine art of prayer. Here are three truths which will help you.

[Tweet “It is a very good idea to read the scriptures about what you are praying about before you pray.”]

Prayer Smart in the Correlation Between Faith and God’s Word

• Christians are normally people who a have a great deal of confidence in the concept of prayer.
• Many times we are very quick to pray.
• Do I dare say, too quick to pray?
• If we have a big problem, we pray.
• If we hear of someone else who has a big problem, we pray.
• It takes more than the physical act of praying to secure a positive result.
• Some think about prayer like people think about fishing.
• You’ve heard the saying, “A bad day fishing is better than a good day at work.”
• Well, some Christians think, a bad day praying is okay as long as we pray.
• In other words, it doesn’t matter whether or not you get an answer just as long as you fulfill your devotional duty and pray.
• By the way, I don’t subscribe to this saying.
• I think a good day at work is good and a bad day at anything else is just that, bad.
• Prayer is not the panacea for all problems.
• It is not a stand-alone feel-good function.
• Prayer needs partners to be effective.
• Praying to God needs faith in God to work.
• Just like it took a team to put a man on the moon
• So it takes more than prayer to land you in the Throne.
• The truth is faith is what makes prayer work.
• Not the other way around.
• You don’t get faith by praying for it.
• You must already have faith before you pray.
• Otherwise, you’re just going to have a bad day praying.

Prayer Smart In Knowing How Faith Comes

• Faith comes by hearing the Word of God.

Romans 10:17 (ESV) — 17 So faith comes from hearing, and hearing through the word of Christ.

• What does this verse speak to your heart?
• What it should say to you is that you should be hearing the Word enough to be praying the Word.
• Since that’s true, it is a very good idea to read the scriptures about what you are praying about before you pray.
• Could this be one reason why you are not receiving?
• The reason is obvious.
• How would you know if what you are asking for is God’s will unless you have a Bible verse that tells you it is?
• You cannot pray beyond the Bible.
• For example, you cannot pray for somebody else’s spouse.
• How are you going to give you someone who belongs to someone else?
• Where is your verse of scripture for that?

Hebrews 11:1 (KJV) — 1 Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.

• Since faith is the substance of things hoped for, you cannot even hope to have someone else’s spouse.
• You may go through the motions of trying to do this.
• You know, get on your knees and pray to the Father in the most solemn of tones but He won’t hear you.
• There’s only one way to have confidence about what you are praying about.

1 John 5:14 (KJV) — 14 And this is the confidence that we have in him, that, if we ask any thing according to his will, he heareth us:

Prayer Smart in What It Means To ‘Believe That You Receive’

Mark 11:23–25 (KJV) — 23 For verily I say unto you, That whosoever shall say unto this mountain, Be thou removed, and be thou cast into the sea; and shall not doubt in his heart, but shall believe that those things which he saith shall come to pass; he shall have whatsoever he saith. 24 Therefore I say unto you, What things soever ye desire, when ye pray, believe that ye receive them, and ye shall have them. 25 And when ye stand praying, forgive, if ye have ought against any: that your Father also which is in heaven may forgive you your trespasses.

• Jesus lays out several conditions in this passage to answered prayer.
• One, don’t doubt in your heart.
• Two, believe what you say will come to pass.
• Three, give voice to your desire in prayer.
• Fourth, now that you have engaged the previous three, believe you receive.
• Jesus wasted no words in His communication.
• He didn’t engage in idle speech.
• He said what He meant and He meant what He said.
• And if He said ‘and you shall have them’, then that is exactly God’s will.
• God’s will is for you to have it.
• His will for your life is to believe you receive.
• Sometimes we are not walking in the clear knowledge that not only must we desire, not only must we pray, but we must also believe that we receive.
• What does it mean to believe you receive?
• It is praying and knowing that God said yes to your prayer.
• If you are trying to obtain a loan, you filled out the paperwork, you put your John Hancock on the bottom of the form when your banker calls you and says you’ve been approved and the check is in the mail, how would you act?
• Would you go to the mailbox that same day and say because the check hadn’t arrived that day that you didn’t get the loan?
• Would you pick-up your cell phone and call another bank to get a loan because the check didn’t come in fifteen minutes after the bank called you.
• No, you would still wait expectantly because you believed the loan officer who told you the check is in the mail.
• That’s believing that you receive.
• It’s knowing that God’s answer is in the mail because you heard from God’s Word and talked to Jesus the loan officer.
• Now your actions and your speech line up with what you say you believe and you have an understanding of what faith and prayer is.

__________
References: