While growing up as a young church boy, I had come to see prayer as a necessary routine in Christian living. To me, prayer was more or less something done to fulfil all righteous. This perception and disposition towards prayer had robbed me of the understanding of the potency of prayer. I remember how my mother often emphasized the need for family prayer and a family prayer altar. My shallow understanding of the potency of prayer created a breeding ground for the inner resistance to my mother’s relentless emphasis on the need for a family altar.

As I grew into my mid teenage years, prayer often became a practice of convenience. However, the transformation in my perception towards prayer began as I entered into my youthful years, and as I began to take on serious responsibilities in life. Before this time, I had thrived under the prayer cover of my mother who relentlessly interceded for me. But by this time, I started facing challenges and battles (particularly spiritual battles), and interestingly, some of these challenges and battles were very personal. My mother could not fight them for me. I had to confront them on my own. It was at this point that God began to gradually open my eyes to the magnitude of what can be accomplished through prayer.

Over the years and centuries, the church has focused on teaching about prayer as a means of communication with God. We have rightfully come to see prayer as a means through which we make our request known to God. Philippians 4:6 says “Be anxious for nothing, but in everything by prayer and supplication, with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known to God”. However, beyond this, there is a dimension to prayer which must be emphasized, otherwise, prayer will be impotent. That dimension is faith. Faith has its root in the word of God. Romans 10:17 says, “So then faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the word of God”. James 5:15 talks about the prayer of faith and how it heals the sick. The prayer of faith is a types of prayer that makes a request to God, and then uses the Word of God or the scripture as a reason why God must answer the request. It is this type of prayer that puts you in command of the affairs of life.

The problem many Christians have when it comes to prayer is that we see God as a personality who cannot be negotiated with. Many might down play my use of the word “negotiate” in relation to God. But when you begin to understand the nature and personality of God, you will discover that God allows men to negotiate with Him. In Genesis 18:16-33, we see how Abraham engaged God in a negotiation over Sodom. Isaiah 41:21 says, “Produce your cause, saith the Lord; bring forth your strong reasons, saith the King of Jacob”. The process of producing your cause and bringing forth your strong reasons is a more or less a negotiation with God.

One interesting example is in the case of King Hezekiah in 2 Kings 20. In that passage, God had sent the great Prophet Isaiah to King Hezekiah with a message on Hezekiah’s death. Isaiah said to him, “…Thus saith the Lord, Set thine house in order; for thou shalt die, and not live.” When King Hezekiah heard this, he turned his face to the other side of his bed and began to put forth his strong reasons before God.

Interestingly, it was this same Prophet Isaiah, who wrote about bringing forth your strong reasons in Isaiah 41:21, that God sent with the message of Hezekiah’s death. King Hezekiah reasoned with God in 2 Kings 20:2-3 and God sent Prophet Isaiah back to King Hezekiah, with a message saying that God had extended Hezekiah’s life by 15 years (2 Kings 20:5-6). From this case study of King Hezekiah’s prayer, you can see how a man was successful in negotiating with God in prayer to the point that God changed His mind on a decree He had earlier made. Although bible scholars rightfully point out that the fifteen year extension the King Hezekiah obtained became detrimental to his generation and the Davidic lineage (2 Kings 20:16-18), King Hezekiah’s act exposes us to the tremendous opportunity that we have through prayer.

In bringing forth your strong reasons to God, as admonished in Isaiah 41:21, it is important to note that the strongest reason you can present to God, while praying the prayer of faith, is the Word of God. This is because God’s Word carries a guarantee of performance. Psalm 138:2 says, “…for thou hast magnified thy word above all thy name”. In other words, God responds quicker to His word than he does to all His names.

In Jeremiah 1:12, God says “…for I will hasten my word to perform it”. This implies that when you hinge your prayer on the Word of God, that prayer enjoys speedy response because God has vowed to respond speedily to His word. In this matter, the commitment of God is not to the prayer you are making, but to the Word of God that you are using as a strong reason for your prayer. In Isaiah 55:11, God said “So shall my word be that goeth forth out of my mouth: it shall not return unto me void, but it shall accomplish that which I please, and it shall prosper in the thing whereto I sent it”. In other words, by divine order and ordination, the Word of God is failure proof. It can NEVER fail. So when you make your requests to God and you support it with what God’s Word says about the situation you are praying about, you see God responding speedily to your prayers. This is the type of prayer that causes you to command the affairs of life.

Let me conclude with an illustration of a carriage, which was used as means of transportation before the invention of cars. A carriage can be attached to a donkey or a horse. But the speed at which the carriage moves is dependent on the animal it is attached to. Everyone knows that a horse is faster that a donkey. Therefore, a carriage attached to a horse is bound to move faster than a carriage attached to a donkey. In other words, the same carriage on a donkey (which can reach a top speed of 24 kph) will move at over three times its speed once it is attached to a horse (which can move at a top speed of 88 kph). This same logic applies to the prayer of faith. You can pray the same prayer for donkey years with no result. You can cry, tell God how much you have suffered shame and embarrassment, remind God of how long you have been praying, and nothing will change. But the moment you hinge that prayer on the Word of God, you have committed the omnipotence of God and the integrity of His Word, and you will begin to see God in action. God Bless You.

ABOUT AUTHOR

Seun Aboluwarin lives with a singular purpose of bringing men and women into an experience and understanding of the righteousness of God, via the message of salvation, faith, and holiness. You can follow him on twitter @seunaboluwarin