Conversational Prayer

By Les D. Crause

Conversational Prayer

Copyright © 2011 by Global Business Resources International

All rights reserved

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1st Printing October 2011

Published by Global Business Resources International

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Web Address: www.global-business-resources.com

All rights reserved under International Copyright Law.

Contents may not be reproduced in whole or in part in any form without the express written consent of the publisher.

Scripture quotations are taken from the Apostolic Movement International (AMIV) version of the Bible.

Original teaching by Les D. Crause

Transcripts and editing by Daphne J. Crause

Cover Design by Nadine Crause

Section 01 – Conversational Prayer

Chapter 01

Basics of Prayer

Section 01 – Conversational Prayer

Chapter 01 – Basics of Prayer

In the first volume of Bible Doctrine Made Easy, I dealt with the subject of the Elements of the Gospel. We covered the basic foundational doctrines leading right up to salvation.

Now as we come to this second volume of teachings, we are going to be looking at a different set of elements: The Elements of The Spiritual Life. This includes everything that you need to know, now that you have accepted the Lord and experienced the new birth.

So we are going to start with probably the first and most important thing that we need to learn about which is the Doctrine of Prayer.

You say, “Do you mean to tell me that there is a Doctrine of Prayer?”

Well if you consider that the word doctrine means teaching, do you think you need some teaching on prayer? There are many books out there that have been written on prayer. And people are still writing new books all the time, because prayer is a much bigger subject than you realize.

You say, “Well prayer is easy. Prayer is bringing your requests to God and asking Him to do things for you.”

No, prayer is a lot bigger than that. And I would like to show you in this e-book all the basics of what is involved in prayer. I am just going to touch the surface and lay a little foundation for you, because after all this is Bible Doctrine Made Easy. I want to keep it as easy and simple for you as possible, and teach you about prayer in such a way that anybody can use what I’m teaching.

Whether you have just been born again today or yesterday; whether you have been a Christian for a while or for many years, I believe that the principles that I will share on prayer are still as relevant to everybody, and still should be easy enough for us to understand.

And yet as simple and easy as what they are, you would be amazed at how many Christians who have been saved for 20 or 30 years, still don’t know the basics of prayer.

I am going to start by looking at exactly what prayer is. Then I’m going to explain to you the three main different kinds of prayer. Well I could probably give you 8, 9 or 10 different kinds. There are so many varieties that are involved in prayer that you could make as many lists as you like.

But I believe that there are three main kinds of prayer that we should start getting involved in right away and that all believers should be doing. We will be looking at that as part of this doctrine.

What Prayer Is

Let’s start firstly with what exactly prayer is. From the moment you are born again, one of the first things that should become your daily experience is the practice of prayer. Most people only pray when they are in trouble don’t they? When things start to go wrong suddenly they realize,

“There is nobody else out here to help me. There is only one person left and that is God.”

So we look up, and we cry out to God in prayer and say,

“Oh God, please help me.”

Have you heard the story of the atheist who didn’t believe in God? He fell into a raging torrent of water and was starting to drown. In his desperation he realized that there was only one person he could cry out to. So he cried out and said,

“Help me God.”

As he said that he saw a big log floating towards him that he could grab hold of. As he saw it he said,

“Oh never mind.”

He missed the log, and the log floated down the stream and he drowned.

Now I am not saying that this is a true story, but I thought it was such a beautiful illustration of how people often do the Lord. They say that they don’t believe in Him, and they don’t want anything to do with Him until they are in trouble. Then suddenly they want to cry out to God.

But God is not just a fire escape. And prayer is a lot more than just crying out to God when you are in trouble. Prayer should be the daily experience of every believer. It should be like eating or breathing. It should be a practice that we do and carry out every day of our spiritual lives.

Different Pictures of Prayer

Now if I were to ask a group of people what is involved in prayer, I’ll guarantee that each person probably has a very similar picture of what prayer is.

The more religious people will think in terms of getting down on their knees, folding their hands together and muttering a few words in prayer. It is the old standard religious teaching and there is the famous painting of the praying hands.

The Muslims have their way of praying on their prayer mats. And the Israelis go to the Prayer Wall and they wail. That is why it is called the Wailing Wall. There are all these different ways of praying.

But here is the mistake that everybody makes, and that causes them to get it all wrong where prayer is concerned. It is caused by a faulty understanding of who God is and how we should approach Him.

In the first module on the Elements of the Gospel, I clearly described and showed you the nature of God. I showed you how God relates to us as human beings, and how we enter into a relationship with Him through the salvation experience.

We saw that God is manifested as the Father who fills the universe, and who is the big, austere God ready to pass His judgment. He is the originator of all things. We saw that God also manifested Himself in awesome, dynamic power by the Holy Spirit.

And then we saw that God manifested Himself in human form in the Lord Jesus Christ. He was the loving, caring person who went around reaching out, healing the sick and ministering love, and ultimately giving His life for us to bring us back to God.

Now most people make this mistake when they come to prayer. We all have this idea that if we are to pray, we are to pray to God. Well where is God, who is He and what does He look like? Perhaps He is an old man up there somewhere with a long beard.

Wrong Ways of Reaching God

How do you picture God? The most common idea that we have is that God is up there in the sky. Have you ever stood on a starry night and looked up into the stars, the galaxies and the planets out there and thought to yourself,

“Where out there is God? I wonder where He is. Which planet is He on? How far do we have to go to find Him?”

Have you ever thought that? Well you know when we come to pray we kind of do the same thing. We think,

“I need to pray, and somehow I need to launch one of these little rockets, to get it to go way up into the sky, high enough to reach God so that He will hear my prayer. Hopefully my prayer will reach Him; He will hear it and He will answer it.”

Experience shows however that most of our prayers don’t have enough rocket fuel in them to reach God. Quite clearly He never heard them, because He doesn’t respond does He? But we keep trying in hope.

Sometimes we have this idea, that in order to get the rocket to go up, we need to fire the fuel for as long as possible. So we must pray long prayers repetitively, over and over again and eventually it will get through to Him. Or we feel that we have to raise our voice and really pray loud with great emotion, to get that rocket up to Heaven.

Have you seen people who pray like that?

Of course some people have the religious idea that you have to sit and mutter to yourself. And some people think that you are not even allowed to pray out loud. You must just pray in your mind, because God can read your mind and He knows.

Chapter 02

Unbelievers and Prayer

Chapter 02 - Unbelievers and Prayer

How do you go about praying to Almighty God? And what chance do you have of your prayer getting into the Throne of Heaven where God is?

Well let’s make it clear. Since the fall of man in the Garden of Eden and the judgment of God that came upon the whole human race, all of us are born in a condition of sinfulness and separation from God. That being the case, what are the chances of man reaching out and having communication with God?

There is very little chance. Yet God is aware of our prayers. He is aware of our circumstances and He is ready and waiting. But before we can communicate with God we need to touch Him and we need to be restored back into that place of fellowship with Him. That can only take place as we enter into the New Birth through the work that Jesus did on the cross.

Now does this mean that God is not aware of the prayers of unbelievers? No God is well aware of the prayers of unbelievers. But He is not obligated to answer the requests of unbelievers. They have no right to demand or ask anything from Him.

Access Through Jesus

So how do we get access to God? Does prayer give us access to God? The answer is yes and no. Jesus spoke these words:

No man comes to the Father except through me.

Another Scripture says,

There is one God, and there is one mediator between God and men; the man Christ Jesus.

So how do we get access to God? There is only one way for man to get access to God, and that is through the Lord Jesus Christ. Until you have accepted Jesus as your Lord and Savior, you cannot get back into that fellowship with God.

Once you have accepted Jesus as your Savior, you have been born again by the Spirit of God, and you have Him dwelling in you by His Holy Spirit, how do you as a Christian gain access to God?

Many people have this confusion. And a lot of it is caused by a misunderstanding of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. You see that the Doctrine of the Trinity teaches that there are three Gods – or that is what it sounds like. Most people see it as three Gods. So they come in prayer and they say,

“Well I know I should pray to the Father because He is the highest one. But I would really like to pray to Jesus because He is easier to get to. And I’m wondering if the Holy Spirit will be upset if I don’t pray to Him as well, because He is also God. So who do I prayer to when I come in prayer?”

Our eventual conclusion really gets down to,

“Well the Father is the highest one so I should pray to Him first.”

And so people come in prayer and they say,

“Heavenly Father we come to you today…”

We pray and give our big religious words, thinking that that is going to impress Him.

God is Right Here

Where is God? Well we looked at the nature of God and found out that God is everywhere. But when you accepted Jesus as your Savior, the Holy Spirit with Christ came to take up their place of living in your spirit.

So where is God’s address right now for you as a Christian if you want to reach Him? Is it up on Mars or higher; on one of the stars or the outer galaxies of the universe? Where is He?

Yes He is there – and on the moon and on all the planets. But most important of all is He is right here. The Scripture says that He is closer than breathing. So if you are going to pray, how far do you need to reach? You don’t have to send any rockets up at all. He’s right here.

Where is He? Look around you. Do you see the nearest chair? He’s sitting there. You see the room next door? He’s standing there. If you look right next to you He is standing right there.

Have a look behind you and He is there. Well what are you seeing? You are seeing whatever your picture is of God.

What picture do we have of God? There is only one picture that is easy for us to see and that is Jesus isn’t it? And as I showed you, the Scripture says that we have no other way of coming to God except through Jesus.

Jesus Himself, after He rose from the dead, said to His disciples,

“Ask in my name. Pray in my name. If you want to pray, then you must pray through me because I am giving you access to the Father now.”

Pray to Jesus

So let me make it simple for you and take away all the confusion. Who are you going to pray to? You are going to pray to Jesus. And when you pray to Jesus you are reaching the Father and the Holy Spirit because they are all one.

Jesus is a very easy picture for us to get isn’t it? Maybe the only way you can imagine Him is from the pictures that they have painted of Jesus, which may or may not be accurate.

I don’t think they are accurate because I have seen Jesus in vision and He doesn’t have that long hair and beard. But that doesn’t matter. The point is we have a picture; an image in our mind that we can imagine.

So if I come to pray now, I can imagine Jesus            sitting in a nearby chair. I can imagine Him standing in front of me or sitting beside me. It is a very easy picture for us to form.

How to Approach Him

Now imagine you are going to come to prayer, and there is Jesus sitting or standing next to you. How would you communicate with Him?

Well if He was a real person physically sitting there, like somebody else that you know, how would you communicate with that person? Would you shout at him and say,

“HEY JOHN, HOW ARE YOU DOING?”

No you wouldn’t. John is sitting right next to you. He isn’t deaf. You also wouldn’t whisper,

“John my dear brother, I want to share with you.”

Do you hold conversations with your friend like that, using thee’s and thou’s and great big complicated prayers, and super-spiritual, religious language?

Try that with one of your friends or relatives, or with one of the people you work with, and you will see them getting that weird look on their face as if to say,

“What is up with you? Are you mad?”

Hold a Normal Conversation

You don’t have to do that. Jesus understands whatever language you speak. And if you speak in English you don’t have to speak King James English to Him. He doesn’t only understand the thee’s, thou’s and art’s. He understands the language that you speak. So why not realize that prayer is nothing more than holding a conversation with Jesus.

Now imagine that you were to hold a conversation with somebody that you are close to, somebody that you are very good friends with and you have an intimate relationship with. This person cares for you and is somebody that you love. How would the conversation go?

You would just share your heart with them. You would ask them questions. You would speak to them and just hold a normal conversation. That is all prayer is. Prayer is simply holding a conversation with God.

Now that changes everything. If you are sitting down, imagine that Jesus is sitting next to you. Suppose you are in the car driving to work. Where is Jesus? Imagine He is sitting in the seat next to you and you are having a conversation with Him.

Start talking to Him – out loud as if He is really there. Yes I know that the people in the car next to you who stop next to you at the traffic light will look at you and think you are mad because you are talking to yourself. If you are worried about that, just put your hand over your mouth so that nobody can see your lips moving.

You will be amazed at the sudden power that you feel in your prayer when you imagine the Lord as really sitting there; when you just start talking to Him, opening your heart to Him and sharing with Him, instead of sending your little religious prayer rockets. You just have a simple conversation with the Lord.

Do it Anywhere and Any Time

Now you can do that anywhere; any time of day. You don’t have to have a special prayer time. You don’t need to say,

“I have had such a busy day today. I really just haven’t had time to pray.”

Did you go to the bathroom at all during the day? While you were at work, did you take a bathroom break? You sat there in the bathroom for a couple of minutes. Jesus was sitting there with you. Why didn’t you talk to Him?

Maybe you took a coffee break. You went for a walk to get water at the water cooler. Whatever it was that you did, Jesus was there. Why didn’t you just talk to Him?

You see prayer is so simple that if you imagine Jesus going with you wherever you go, you can talk to Him at any time and in any place and just share your heart with Him. In fact it can become so common that no matter what situation takes place in your life, the first thing you should be doing is turning to Him and saying,

“What should I do here, Lord?”

“Lord I’m a bit confused. Lord I am afraid.”

Wherever you are and no matter what you are doing, it is a place to pray. The Bible speaks about praying without ceasing. Well that gets into another deeper kind of prayer which we will look at another time.

But I want you to see how simple prayer is. Prayer is a daily practice that we should be doing all the time. It is simply talking to the Lord because He is your friend and He is with you all the time.

And if you want to take the allegory to an extreme, imagine that Jesus and you are Siamese twins and you can’t be separated. Now you have no choice. Wherever you go that person is with you. They know what you are doing and they are involved with what you are doing.

That is how close the Lord is to you. And when He is that close, conversation with Him becomes a 24 hour a day thing. But we don’t do that do we? We get so busy with our lives that we think,

“I need to make time to pray. I need to get up in the morning before I go to work and I need to set aside time to pray.

“When I get home in the evening I need to set aside time to pray. Maybe I can snatch a few minutes during my lunch hour to get alone and have time to pray.”

No you don’t. You can pray anytime, anywhere. That is how simple prayer is.

A Two-Way Conversation

Now how exactly do we go about holding a conversation with the Lord? That is where it gets a bit complicated doesn’t it?

Imagine now in the natural that you have this person who is always with you. And you are one of these expressive chatterboxes who talks all the time.

Would you like to be with somebody like that? I wouldn’t like to be with somebody like that; somebody who talks and talks all the time and never gives you a chance to talk back. They never take time to listen. They just tell you about themselves all the time and tell you all their problems.

Isn’t that the way we do the Lord? All we want to do is say,

“Lord I have a problem. I need this. Lord, please can you do that? Lord I want this; I want that.

“Lord I need you to solve this problem for me. Lord, help!”

We are always telling the Lord our problems and we just talk and talk all the time. But prayer should not be a one-way conversation. It should be a two-way conversation. We should give Him a chance to talk back.

That is where it gets a bit complicated. Because although you can imagine Jesus with you, how are you going to hear Him talking back to you?

Well if you are a young believer you may find this extremely difficult, because you haven’t learned yet to listen to the inner voice of your spirit. Sometimes it takes a while and a bit of training to get to hear that voice.

Chapter 03

Ways to Hear Him Speaking

Chapter 03 - Ways to Hear Him Speaking

There is a way of hearing God speaking to you, and that is to go and read all the words that He has spoken though the years. They are written in a very thick book called The Holy Bible.

If you are into the modern technology you don’t have a thick printed Bible. You have a little iPod, or a PDA or a phone. You have something small that has an electronic Bible on it that has all the words.

So if you want to hear God speak, pull out your iPhone or iPod or whatever device you have, have a quick look at the Word or pull out a Scripture. We have in fact written a program for that online called the GBM Bible.

You can go in on your mobile device and just grab a random Scripture if you want. If you just do that you will be amazed to see what comes up. Sometimes God will actually speak to you. Otherwise just read a passage, because when you do God speaks to you from His Word.

You see you can come to the place where you can listen to a very deep, still voice that speaks inside of you. This takes a bit of practice, and it takes a while to recognize the voice of God, because there are so many voices coming at us from the outside that very often we can’t hear that inside voice.

Hearing the Deep Inner Voice

If you want to get to that kind of prayer, it is good to get alone somewhere where it is very quiet. Make sure there is no noise or disturbance and there is nothing happening round about you to distract you so that you can look inwards.

Here is how you can start practicing this, but be very careful with it because it can lead to deception. You can start this way. Find yourself a place to sit and pray, and imagine that Jesus is sitting next to you or across the way from you.

Imagine you are in a normal conversation. Speak to Him, imagining that He is there. You see this is all taking place in your imagination. As you speak to Him, imagine in your mind what He would say back to you.

Now He is not really saying that. You are just picturing it in your mind. But you will find that as you practice doing this, after a while something will start to happen deep down inside of you. And you will start to imagine Him saying certain things over and over again.

After a while your imagination will start to become a lot stronger. And you will realize that what you are sensing is not just coming from your mind, but it is coming from deep down inside somewhere.

When that happens, you are starting to tap into a very deep part of yourself. You are starting to tap into your spirit.

A Word of Caution

Now as a young believer it takes you a while to develop that. More mature believers have learned how to hear that inner voice more accurately. And some people who have an anointing, or people who have a ministry like the Prophetic Ministry, have developed it so strongly that they can hear God a lot more clearly.

But you are not going to hear it as an audible voice. Do not go looking for an audible voice. And if you do hear an audible voice speaking to you, stop right there and say,

“I rebuke you Satan!”

God very seldom speaks in an audible voice.

And if you see a being appearing before you dressed in a robe that looks like Jesus, be very careful. It is deception. He doesn’t work that way. He works through your spirit deep within. You have to hear with inner ears, not outer ears. And you have to see with inner eyes, not outer eyes, and you will learn to develop that.

So now you have come to the place where you are entering into these daily conversations with the Lord. But here is one of the most important things that you need to learn to find out before you go into any active kind of prayer activity if I can call it that.

Find Out What He Wants

You need to know what He wants because He is Lord isn’t He? He is now the Lord and Master of your life. And you know most of us really don’t see Him as the Lord and Master, but we see Him as the servant or like a waiter. You say to a waiter,

“I’d like steak, egg, salad; an extra portion of fries and a dessert please. Go and get it.”

Isn’t that the way we do the Lord? We give our orders and we say,

“Okay Lord, I want this and that. I want you to do this and I want you to do that. I want you to give me that.”

He is not your waiter. He is your Lord and Master. He has in fact provided you with a whole host of waiters. They are called the angels. That is another subject altogether and we will look at the Doctrine of Angels later on.

You need to realize that the Lord has a purpose for your life. Because you see He knows your future and you don’t. One of the most important things you need to find out is what He wants. But how are you going to do this?

The first and most obvious place is to read His Word, because in the Bible God has told us very clearly what He wants from all of us and for all of us. So as you learn to read the Word you will learn what He wants. Once you have learned what He wants, then it will be very easy for you to pray, taking what He wants into account. And so you can start to pray according to the will of God.

Something Extra

Now as you start to get inner revelation and you begin to hear Him speaking in that inner voice, sometimes He will give you extra indication beyond what you read in the Bible, to tell you what He wants. He will say,

“This is what I want from you. This is what I want to do for you. This is what I want to give you.”

And sometimes He will surprise you. When you come into a lovely relationship with the Lord, sometimes He is like a loving person, maybe even a lover, who will come with a surprise gift behind His back and say,

“Hey, I have a surprise for you. Here is a little present.”

You will say, “Oh wow, what is it?”

Isn’t it exciting when somebody does that? The Lord does us that way sometimes too. He has new and unexpected, beautiful things for us that are His will and purpose for us.

If you can find out those things, and let Him be Lord and let Him do what He wants to do in your life, then your prayer experience will become such an exciting time that you can’t wait to get alone with Him.

It is like a loving couple who can’t wait to get alone with each other and sit and talk about nothing. They can talk for hours about nothing.

What do they talk about? Well there are three different kinds of conversations that can take place. There are three different kinds of prayers that can take place, and that is going to be the subject of the next chapter. We are going to cover those three prayer types there.

For now I hope you understand what conversational prayer is, so that you can have a whole new outlook on coming to the Lord in prayer simply by talking to Him. Doing that alone is going to revolutionize your prayer life like never before.

Section 02 – Types of Prayer

Chapter 04

Praise and Worship

Section 02 – Types of Prayer

Chapter 04 - Praise and Worship

In the last chapter we saw that prayer is having a conversation with God. We saw that especially we should be holding a conversation with the Lord Jesus in our prayer times.

I said that there are three main kinds of prayer. There are many more, but there are three main kinds that we can be involved in. And so in this Section I want to explain those different kinds of prayer to you, so that you can know how to go about holding this conversation with the Lord each day.

I am calling the first kind of prayer praise and worship. Now at one stage I taught this as being the 3 Ps, but some of the words were a bit high English and I think a lot of people didn’t understand them. So I am just going to try and keep this simple by trying to explain to you the three different kinds of prayer.

Jesus, the One Who Loves You

Let’s start then with praise and worship. The first thing you must realize in your relationship with the Lord Jesus is that He is your Savior. He is the One who loves you and the One whom you love. He is not just an austere God up there that you have to somehow try and impress, and hope that if you make Him happy He will be nice to you.

You see that is the problem with seeing God as a father, because your father never had time for you did he? He was always busy and said,

“Don’t waste time talking to me. I have work to do.”

Many people have bad experiences with their fathers, and that is why they have a bad experience coming to God in prayer. That is why it is so wonderful when we can see the Lord Jesus as our friend and our lover, rather than our father. And through Him we get access to the Father.

This is also what helps us in our prayer. It is when we come to the Lord Jesus and know that He is One who loves us and cares for us, and we can have a loving relationship with Him.

A Loving Relationship

So the first thing that you begin to do in this kind of prayer is imagine that Jesus is your lover. Well it is easy for women to do that because Jesus is a man. For men it becomes a little bit more difficult and you start feeling that you must be gay to tell Jesus that you love Him.

But you need to realize that this is not a physical love. It is something far deeper. It is a deep, intimate love. And you will find that even as a man, you can come into a love relationship with the Lord Jesus

You can have the same feelings that you get when you are falling in love. You can have butterflies in your stomach and feel goose pimples when you are in the presence of the person that you love.

But it is not a physical, outward thing. It has no sexual connotations. It is a deep, spiritual thing, but yet it affects your emotions and feelings in the same way.

And so as you come into the presence of the one that you love, the conversation should go two ways. Imagine two people who are deeply in love with each other. They sit together and they look into each other’s eyes.

He says, “I love you.”

She looks at him and says,

“I love you too.”

A moment later he says,

“I really love you.”

She says, “I really love you too.”

It sounds so boring, but you would be amazed how you can do it for hours. Eventually you start running out of words. Then you start saying things like,

“My heart just burns. I love you so much that it hurts.”

People say stupid things when they are in love. Sometimes they speak what we call ‘sweet nothings’. Those are things that you would be ashamed for the whole world to hear. But at that moment your emotions are so stirred up and you are feeling such a passion in you towards that person, that you just can’t find the words to express how much you love and adore them.

I am sure that you have never thought of prayer in that way. But it is a very important part of prayer, and you should learn to cultivate and develop this kind of relationship with the Lord Jesus.

He Wants to Bless

In fact I would go so far as to say that this is probably the most important prayer of all. Because you see His heart of love actually wants to bless you and give you far more than you could ever ask Him for.

We have this idea that prayer is just coming and bringing our requests to Him. But you know the amazing thing is that if a couple are in love they don’t have to make requests.

Imagine this young couple who are deeply in love and the man is extremely wealthy. He is a billionaire. Now is she going to come to him because of his abundant money and start to nag him?

“You know I could really do with some new clothes. I would like a ring and some jewelry. I could do with a new car.”

What kind of a relationship would that be? He would soon get the idea that she is only after his money. She doesn’t love him at all. She doesn’t care for him for who he is. She only cares about what she can get from him.

Wouldn’t you feel that way if your partner was only coming to you and pretending to show some love and care for you for what they could get from you? But don’t we do the Lord that way so often?

You need to come with just a pure, open heart of love, not expecting anything from Him and not demanding anything from Him. And when you just come to tell Him how much you love Him, you will hear His words coming back,

“My child I love you too. You’re precious to me. You are special to me. I died for you and I would do it again gladly. You mean the world to me.”

As you continue to tell Him how much you love Him, you will hear Him saying,

“What can I do for you? Is there anything you want? What would make you happy right now? What do you really desire that I can give you to show you how much I love you? I want to show you how much I love you. I want to give you a token of my love. What is it that you want?”

Can you see the whole change? If we would learn to do the Lord that way, He would withhold nothing from us. And sometimes we need to realize that the Lord wants to bless us far greater than what we are trying to get blessing from Him. But we are always coming into His presence and saying,

“Lord, please bless me. Lord I need blessing. Lord I want this. I need this.”

No, He knows your needs. But do you know what the most exciting thing is about blessing somebody that you love? Is it when you meet their needs? Do you really get excited about giving somebody something that they need?

Well that is okay. But when you are in love with somebody, what you really want to give them is what they desire.

You want to go out and buy the biggest gift that you can afford, knowing that this is the one thing that this person has been wanting for years. You want to be able to wrap that gift up and present it to them as a surprise and say,

“Here is a gift to show you how much I love you.”

You will see them opening up that gift and their eyes brightening, and they will say,

“Wow I don’t believe it. Isn’t that awesome? Thank you so much. I so appreciate it. I’ve wanted one of those for the longest time.”

Can you see the difference? If we can learn to just pour our love out to Him all the time, He will withhold nothing from us.

Being Thankful for All Things

This kind of prayer is the most important one of all. But think about your prayer times. What do you do during those times?

Firstly you don’t usually have a prayer time until the world is falling apart; until your life is falling apart, you are in a corner and everything is going wrong. Then you want to cry out and say,

“Oh God, help me.”

Where have you taken the time to just tell Him that you love Him?

You say, “I told Him that already.”

Well a loving couple keeps saying it over and over again. So try this. When you get up in the morning, the first thing you must do when you open your eyes is say,

“Good morning, Lord. I love you, Jesus.”

It is the best prayer to start the day with just as you open your eyes. While you are brushing your hair say to Him,

“I love you Lord. Thank you Jesus for everything that you have done.”

Start to praise Him and thank Him.

Now here is the part that is difficult. As you look at everything that is happening in your life, how much of what you have right now are you grateful for, and how much have you taken for granted? How much of what He has given you and blessed you with, have you taken the time to come to Him and thank Him for?

Say to Him, “I want to thank you for this thing in my life. I want to thank you for this opportunity you have given me.

“Thank you for the things you have provided for me. Thank you for the life I am living right now. Lord I want to thank you for the place I am in right now and the position I’m in, because if it wasn’t for you I wouldn’t be here.”

How often do you do that every day? How much time and effort does it take?

Now here comes the more difficult part, when you look at the bad things; the pressure, the hurts, the anger and the people treating you badly.

Did He know about it? Sure He did. It could be that He actually encouraged you to get yourself into a situation where these pressures came on you. And He did it for a very important reason because you may have prayed some silly prayer like,

“Lord I want to change.”

He said, “Sure, I will help you to change. I’ll put you into a situation where people put pressure on you and force you to do things differently.”

Then you start moaning and complaining, and the Lord says,

“But you wanted change, so I answered your prayer and I gave you what you needed in order to change.”

How about praising and thanking Him for that? That is what the Bible calls ‘the sacrifice of praise’ because that one is not easy. But you should be doing it every day.

Why don’t you get into the habit from tomorrow, today even, to sit down and thank the Lord firstly for all the good things in your life? Secondly thank Him for all the bad things in your life. Make it part of your daily prayer time.

You say, “Well I don’t have time to pray.”

You have plenty of time to pray. You have 24 hours a day. You can pray right in the middle of the work you are doing. Don’t tell me you can’t talk while you are busy working with your hands. Yes if you are working with other people you can mutter it under your breath if you like. You can also pray in your mind because He can read your mind.

You can talk to Him and tell Him that you love Him. You can praise Him and thank Him for all things that are happening in your life. Even though it seems like everything is going against you, you can thank Him and say,

“Lord I know you are in control. Lord I’ve given my life to you. I believe that you know what you are doing. Lord I don’t understand it. I’m confused and I don’t know what is going on. But Lord I trust you. Thank you that you are going to work it out.”

Doesn’t that change everything? That is only one of the prayers. There are another two to go.

Chapter 05

Intimacy With God

Chapter 05 - Intimacy With God

Here is a way that we don’t like to pray. When we were looking at the 3 P’s I called this one Penitence. I have changed it here to something a little more interesting and exciting called intimacy with God, but they don’t sound like they are connected are they?

How do you get into an intimate relationship with the Lord? How do you come very close to Him? Well I need you to tell me what it was that separated God from man in the first place. It was sin.

So how do we get back into a closer relationship with God? We get rid of the sin. When we do that we come into an intimacy with God. We get closer to Him and come into a more personal relationship with Him. So how do we deal with this?

Every day, each one of us goes through phases of walking in the flesh and walking in the spirit. To put it more blunting, we go from sinning to not sinning.

We looked at this in some detail under Book 1: Elements of the Gospel. We will look at it in a lot more detail later when we will deal with it at a higher level on walking in the spirit.

So how do we create an intimate relationship with the Lord? We daily take away all the barriers that come between us.

Feelings of Guilt

Now here is the mistake that we often make. We think,

“Every time I sin He gets mad at me. He gets angry with me and He won’t talk to me. He’s going to shout at me and He’s going to give me that one-two.”

So here is what happens. As soon as you have done something wrong that you know you shouldn’t have, tell me do you feel comfortable and confident to go and have a prayer time?

If you have done something against somebody else, do you feel comfortable even looking that person in the face? No you don’t. You feel guilty. And when it comes to the Lord, it is about this time that you hear people saying things like,

“Well I would really like to have had a prayer time today, but I had so much work to do. You know it was so hectic at work today. And when I got home I was quite exhausted and I had to eat supper.

“Then somebody came over and visited us. And by the time it was all over it was so late that I just collapsed into bed. I really didn’t have time to pray today.”

What that person was really saying was,

“I’m afraid to pray. And I’m finding every excuse under the sun, because I know I failed and I feel too guilty to come into His presence.”

But the Lord is still there.

I remember reading a little pamphlet years ago called ‘My Heart Christ’s Home’. And they taught a beautiful little allegory of how Jesus came to live in the home and changed everything in their life.

This guy said he got so busy that he stopped having his time of chatting with Jesus every day. And he remembered the one day as he rushed out to close the door. He looked in and there was Jesus, sitting in the living room and waiting to speak to him. He felt so guilty he thought,

“That’s terrible. You know what? I’ve been so busy that I haven’t had the time to meet with Him.”

He went and he said,

“Lord I’m so sorry. I’ve been so busy. I didn’t realize you would be here waiting.”

Jesus said,

“I said I would be here didn’t I? I’m always here ready and waiting for when you want to come and talk to me.”

You see He hasn’t moved. And even when you have sinned, He hasn’t changed. He still loves you the same because He paid the price for your sin. But our guilt and our own heart condemns us. It starts putting a barrier between us and the Lord, and we are afraid to come into His presence.

And now we lose out on all of His blessings. We lose out on hearing those beautiful words of love. And we lose out on the opportunity to pour out all our cares to somebody who will understand and listen. We cannot share our hearts and listen to His words of love, to find out His will and purpose, and at times to even get direction and wisdom from Him about what we should do.

All of this happens because we have allowed our own failures to so fill our hearts with condemnation that we let that sin come between us and the Lord. And actually it doesn’t need to at all. All you need to do is come into His presence and say,

“Lord, I really missed it didn’t i?”

No Condemnation

I remember once when I had developed a very close relationship with the Lord and I used to speak with Him almost face to face like that in the spirit. And I really did something that I felt so bad about. I was afraid to have my prayer time that day, because I felt sure that if I came into His presence He was going to say,

“Why did you do that? You should have known better.”

I was waiting for Him to rebuke me and I didn’t want to hear those words. So I kind of tried to avoid it, but eventually I thought,

“Okay I’ll face the music.”

I had nowhere else to turn to. He was the only one that could help me out. And as I came into His presence He stood there with the same smile on His face and the same love. I waited for the rebuke but it didn’t come. He just stood there with the same look of love. And as I came to Him I said,

“Lord I really missed it.”

He said, “Yes you did, but I still love you. And if you want, I can help you so that you don’t do that again. I can give you the wisdom and the strength. If you will just come I will show you. But my love for you hasn’t changed.

“There is nothing that you or anybody can do that will change the love that I have for you. Come to me my child. Come and share with me and let me help you.”

You know it just set me free. There is no condemnation in the Lord. He is not a God of judgment. The judgment was poured out 2000 years ago on the cross of Calvary on the One who died for us. He is not here to judge us or condemn us. He is here to pour His love and blessing on us.

You need to take time daily to deal with your sin; to confess it and to come into His presence with your dirty hands and let Him clean them. Don’t try and make your hands clean and then come into His presence. Bring your dirty hands and your dirty garments and let Him change them for you.

This is what the prayer time is about. It is what coming into His presence is about. Because you see every day we become contaminated in the world that we go to. And every day we should come into His presence and let Him decontaminate us and wipe it all away with His precious blood.

That is how we develop intimacy with the Lord. We do it by keeping a close relationship, so that the moment something comes between us we deal with it instantly and get rid of it.

Chapter 06

Bringing Your Requests

Chapter 06- Bringing Your Requests

We come to the final type of prayer which is bringing your requests to the Lord. This is what everybody thinks is prayer.

What is the P word that goes with this one? It is a word that we don’t use much these days called petition. It is bringing your petitions or your requests to the Lord.

How do we go about bringing our requests to the Lord? There is nothing wrong with this kind of prayer. And the Lord has even told us to ask Him. He said if there is anything you want I will do it for you. I am here for you to give you the very desires of your heart. The Scripture says,

Delight yourself in the Lord and He will give you the desires of your heart.

I have spoken about that already; about the praise and worship and delighting yourself in Him. If you do that you will hear Him saying to you,

“What do you want? What desires can I fulfill for you?”

Now is the time for you to enter into this kind of prayer. You don’t start with it. You end with it. You start by coming into His presence with praise and worship and adoration. You start by dealing with the sin in your life, removing all the barriers and confessing your failures.

And then as you come into that intimacy with Him, now you are ready to open your heart to Him and tell Him what you want.

The Wrong Way to Pray

Now here is what many people do. They say,

“Lord, please bless me.”

The Lord says, “I’m ready to bless you. How would you like me to do it?”

“Lord, I want lots of good things.”

The Lord says, “That’s wonderful. Which good things do you want?”

“Lord I’d like a lot of money.”

“Awesome! How much money do you want?”

“Lord I’d like some friends.”

You see we often have this idea and we feel that it wouldn’t be right for us to tell Him exactly what we need. We kind of leave that up to Him. So we come to Him and we say,

“Lord, I need some money.”

And in our minds we are thinking,

“I hope He is feeling generous today and I hope He gives me lots. But whatever He gives me I will be happy with.”

The Lord knows your heart and He knows what you need. But He wants you to tell Him what you desire. You don’t have to come and tell Him what you need.

You say, “Lord you know that we need to pay the rent. We need money for food. And Lord you know that the car needs new tires and we have to pay this bill.”

Yes He does know, so why do you come and tell Him? He knows about it already. Instead you should be coming into His presence and saying,

“Lord I believe that you are meeting all my needs. I thank you for that and I trust you.”

The kind of prayer that I am speaking about when it comes to requests is not about your needs. It is about your desires, because He delights to give you the things that you are excited about.

How exciting is it to give somebody money to meet their needs? Well it is wonderful and it is a blessing. It is a very charitable thing, and people give to charitable organizations to feed the poor and the hungry and things like that.

But you know it is not as exciting as when you can take the money and give it to say fulfill the heart’s desire of a young child who has been too poor to go on a holiday to the sea. You give them the money so that they can have a free holiday.

You do something special like that, that really delights the heart of the person; something that they didn’t have but they wished they could have and really desired, knowing that you were a blessing.

You know the heart of our Father is the same. He wants to give us things in the same way we want to give gifts to our kids; to see their eyes sparkle and for them to say,

“Ooh that’s wonderful.”

Be Specific

He wants to give us things, not that we need but that we desire, to make us happy and to be a blessing. So when you come to bring your requests to Him, you must be very specific. Say something like,

“Lord, we need $1000 and we need it soon – within the next week or two.”

Be specific and tell Him exactly what you need. You see now you have given Him something definite to work with. Your requests should always be very clear and distinct.

Imagine giving your child a shopping list, sending them to the shops and saying,

“I would like you to get some milk, some bread and some meat.”

What do you suppose you will get back?

Well you know that when you go to the shops there are a dozen different varieties of milk to start with. They come in all different bottle sizes. Some of them have been prepared by heat and can be kept on the shelf. Other types are fresh. There are such a variety of milks that you can get.

You said, “Go and get some milk.”

Well firstly you didn’t tell them how much milk to buy. They could come back with a whole cart load of milk. Or they could come back with one tiny little bottle that is not enough for the day. They could also come back with the wrong brand.

What bread is your child going to get? Well he should know that you only eat whole wheat bread, but he brings you white bread. And what brand of bread will he get? Do you know how many different kinds there are?

You said, “Bring me some meat.”

Have you been through the meat aisle to see how many different kinds of meat there are? And again, how much of it did you want?

You see none of us would be so foolish as to give somebody a list like that and to say,

“Go and get me some bread, milk and meat.”

No we have to be a bit more specific and say,

“Get me 1 gallon of full cream milk of that brand. I want a loaf of one of those 12 grain breads. In fact get two loaves. And I want 2 kgs (5 pounds) of New York steak and ground beef.”

We need to be specific when we bring our requests to the Lord. Do you know why? It is not because He doesn’t know what we want. But here is question I want you to ask yourself. How will you know when your prayer is answered?

You say, “I asked the Lord for money. I will know that my prayer has been answered when money comes in.”

Here it is. You prayed for money, and in your mind you were thinking you will get thousands of dollars, but somebody gives you a dime.

You say, “Well thank the Lord my prayer is answered. I got money in. I got a dime. I found it lying on the street while I was walking. It is God’s provision.”

Was your prayer answered? Well you asked for money and you got it didn’t you? Your prayer was answered. But it really wasn’t what you wanted was it? You wanted something far more than that.

Be very clear and very specific in your prayer. Then as you trust the Lord to provide your needs, when they are provided you will know that He has answered your prayer.

Those are the three kinds of prayer:

1.      Praise and worship

2.      Prayer of dealing with sin and getting into an intimate relationship with the Lord

3.      Bringing our requests to Him so that He can provide everything that we desire.

How do we do it? We do it by holding a conversation with the Lord on a daily basis; wherever we are, many times a day over and over again. There is no need for long prayers; just lots and lots of simple, short prayers.

That is all that is involved in prayer. And if you can do that on a daily basis you would be amazed at the results that you will start to get.

Next time we will deal with a very important subject; that of praying not just for yourself, but praying for other people.

Section 03 – Praying for Others

Chapter 07

A Different Kind of Prayer

Section 03 – Praying for Others

Chapter 07 – Praying Alone

We have looked in the previous sections at conversational prayer, and we have looked at the three main types of prayer. Now there is another type of prayer which is a whole different category on its own and that is praying for others.

Up until now I have spoken about prayer as you having a conversation with the Lord, telling Him that you love Him, dealing with your own personal sin and bringing your requests to Him. That is probably the prayer that occupies the time of most of us as Christians.

But praying should not always be a selfish thing. Praying is not something that we only do for ourselves. We don’t only speak to the Lord about ourselves and our own needs, but we should also be speaking to Him about the needs of other people. And that means getting your eyes off yourself.

There are two different ways of praying for other people. Firstly there is the kind where you praying all alone by yourself, which is the kind of thing that you would do most of the time. But then there is also a different kind of praying, and that is where you pray in a group. This is where you get together with some other people and you pray together.

These are two different kinds of prayers and they require different mechanics and methods. And actually the whole thing changes and we will be looking at a little bit of that in this subject.

Let’s start firstly with praying alone.

Now you must bear in mind that you are not praying for yourself now, but you are praying for others. This is not as easy to do on a regular basis like conversational prayer, where you are talking to the Lord and having a conversation.

This is total petitionary prayer; bringing requests to the Lord. And it gets a little bit more complicated if you are having a prayer time and you are praying for several other people.

Praying for Needs

Maybe you see somebody with a problem, or you know somebody who has a problem. Or you may hear some bad news or something and you feel that you would like to bring another person’s needs to the Lord. Whatever it is, it can be done in exactly the same way. At any time of day, no matter where you are, Jesus is sitting next to you and you can bring the need to Him. You can say,

“Lord I just heard that something went wrong with so-and-so. They have a problem. Lord I want to hold this person up now and I ask you to reach out and touch them; to heal them, to provide for them and to encourage them.”

You pray for whatever that person needs. You can do that on the run just like any kind of prayer.

But there may come a time where you want to have a season where you set aside a bit of time all alone by yourself just to come into His presence. It is a wonderful thing to be able to do that at least once a day, maybe first thing in the morning before you start your day. Or maybe last thing at night before you go to sleep, you can spend a bit of time in the presence of the Lord.

This is a time where you will perhaps begin by praising and worshiping Him, telling Him that you love Him, dealing with any sins or failures in your life and anything that happened during the day. Then you can give Him your requests.

And then you may find that you want to go one step further and start bringing to the Lord some of the needs of the people that you love, that are close to you and that you care about.

That means that you now have yourself out of the way. You take your eyes off yourself and start looking at both the needs and the desires of other people.

Finding Out His Will

I shared in the last chapter about finding out what the Lord wants for you and what He wants to do in your life. You don’t just come and give Him a whole big list and say,

“This is what I want.”

You rather take your time to find out what He wants. And when it comes to praying for other people the exact same principle still applies. You don’t just go and decide what the Lord should do for that person.

Firstly somebody may have asked you to pray for them. They may have asked you to bring their request to the Lord, so you are praying on their behalf about something that they want from the Lord. There is nothing wrong with that and it is quite a common thing.

Somebody has fallen ill. They are in hospital and the word goes out,

“Let’s hold this person up in prayer, that the Lord will reach out and touch and heal them.”

Well what is God’s will in this situation? Does God want to heal this person?

It is very easy to find that out. Just go into the Word and you will find out that the Bible clearly teaches that the Lord wants to heal the person. Jesus already showed that when He walked the earth. Remember when the leper came to Him and said,

“Lord, if you want to you can heal me.”

And Jesus said,

“Of course I want to. Be healed.”

You see He never denied anybody. So we know when it comes to something that obvious, that we don’t have to try and find out the will of the Lord.

But if a person is asking you to pray for a change in their circumstance, for God’s blessing on a decision that they made or a change that they decided to make in their life, you can’t just go in and say,

“Lord I want to open the door for this person. I want you to bless what they are doing.”

Because you see maybe what they are doing is out of order and is actually going against God’s will and purpose for their life. So you can’t just pray what people ask you to pray, and you can’t just pray what you think.

No Pressure

Now here something that is even more dangerous. You look at the way somebody else is going, and in your mind and in your opinion they are doing it all wrong.

They have made the wrong decisions and are going the wrong way. They are acting the wrong way and doing the wrong things. And so you take it upon yourself to put pressure on them by praying for them.

You pray, “Lord I ask you to deal with John. He is quite clearly out of order and has an arrogant attitude. He thinks he can do this all without you. Lord, deal with him. Break him. Put pressure on him, Lord and cause problems in his life.”

Have you seen people praying like that? It is really not much different to witchcraft. You are releasing a spiritual power against the person, instead of asking God to come in and have His will and purpose in the life of that person.

So be very careful when you pray for somebody else, that you don’t try and impose on that person your will and your desire for them. Do not try to force them through your prayer to do or become what you think they should be. It is a very dangerous situation. Rather find out what God wants.

How are we going to find that out? Well that is a very big subject. But the clearest one as I already shared is to see if there is Scripture that supports it.

Perhaps the person is stepping out of line. For example you know of someone who has become involved in an extra-marital affair and they are living in sin. It would be easy for you to now pray and say,

“Lord I ask you to end that relationship now. I ask you to break it off and set that person free, so that they can come back to their spouse.”

It is quite in order for you to pray like that because that is in accordance with God’s will. They are clearly out of order. That is a different matter, so you must be very careful. But if you don’t know from the Word and you are not sure, then all you can do is hold that person up to the Lord and say,

“Lord you know this person’s situation. You know what is in their heart and mind, and you know the purpose that you have for them. Now Lord I want to ask you just to reach out and touch this person. I ask you to bless them, use them and lead them in the way you have for them.”

Feel led in your spirit as you pray. And if you can come to the place where you can hear that still small voice and you can hear the Lord speaking in you, then the Lord will say,

“I want you to pray in this direction for that person.”

Now you know that you have become a worker with God in your prayer.

Cooperating With God

I want you to realize that God and man always work together. I want you to understand this very clearly.

What does God do in the earth? I am going to be covering this in a full study of its own on the sovereignty of God and the will of man. But I am just going to give you a simple little introduction. This is after all Bible Doctrine Made Easy.

God has authority in the earth. He created the earth and He made it the way He wanted to and the way He saw it. We covered that under the Doctrine of the Creation. But then God made Adam, and He put Adam in charge and in control of this world.

What God did then is He stepped out and left Adam to run things. And Adam in fact became the God of this world. Whatever happened in this world was under Adam’s control and was no longer directly under God’s control.

God still ruled the universe and the planets and all the things that are out of man’s control. And God came to speak to Adam every day, to give him instructions and advice on how he should run the earth. But God left Adam in control. Adam named the animals and he did whatever happened in the earth, and God did not interfere.

God set in motion a principle which He has adhered to all along. God will not interfere in what takes place in people’s lives upon this earth, unless somebody – some human being – gives Him the permission or the authority to do it.

That just goes against the whole idea that God is God. He can do whatever He wants to. Yes He can, but He has chosen to limit what He does in the world, and has chosen to restrict Himself to whatever we work with Him on. In other words God always works with man. He works together with man and never independent of him.

What God does in the earth, He does with and through man. So if God is going to work in the earth, He needs a man to come in line with Him and to say,

“We are going to do it.”

When God wants to work in the earth, what He does is He looks for a human being. He looks for someone who will pray and release the authority, and release His Word into the earth.

Sending Forth His Word

Do you remember when God made the creation? He spoke and He said,

“Let there be.”

He sent His Word into the earth. And as His Word went into the earth the Holy Spirit went to work and created it.

Well God still sends His Word into the earth to create and accomplish things that take place in our lives. I want you to know that when God sends His Word into the earth now, He always sends it through human lips. It is not very complicated.

God looks down and He says,

“I want to do this in the life of a person. Now I need somebody to authorize it, to speak my words into the earth so that I can do it.”

When God looked down on the earth and He was angry with the whole of humanity, He wanted to destroy mankind. But He did not violate what He had set in motion. He looked for a man who could give the authorization for Him to destroy the world.

He found that man in Noah. And we read in the New Testament that Noah obeyed God, built the Ark, preached the Word of God and told the people that God was going to judge the world.

Noah gave God the permission. The Scripture says that Noah condemned the world. Noah gave the authority. He gave the license by working with God, for God to step in and destroy the earth and to save Noah and his family in the flood.

You will see this throughout the Bible. This is a very big subject and it goes into a higher level of prayer called intercession. We are not going to get into that right now though.

But I want you to understand that when you come to pray for things to happen in this world, when you pray especially for other people, you are working as a partner with God in the life of that person.

And so when you pray for other people, what you don’t do is open your big mouth and pray what you think you should pray. Don’t just pray for what you think they need or what they say they need. Rather come to God first and say,

“Okay Lord, what are you planning to do in the life of this person? And what do you want me to do? What part must I play in it? What words do you want me to speak, and how do you want me to pray?”

Then when you hear the, pray only what He tells you to pray. Don’t add your own ideas about what you think.

He may say to you,

“Don’t pray because I have it in hand.”

If God says that then keep quiet and leave that person alone.

You say, “But they have a need. I can see that they have a real problem. I really feel for them.”

I don’t care. God must give you the go-ahead to pray and get involved in their situation. But He may have already used somebody else to do that, so keep your nose out of it. When it comes to praying for other people, be very careful that you don’t try and pray on them your will and desire.

Chapter 08

Praying in Group

Chapter 08 - Praying in Group

In the last chapter I shared about how to pray alone. But praying in a group takes on a whole different mechanic. You see it is not you praying alone anymore. There are lots of other people praying with you.

Jesus made a very special promise to us. He said that if two of you are gathered together in His name, He is going to be there right in the middle.

That means that when two or more people come to pray together, something special begins to take place. There seems to be a greater power that takes place when a group of people come together and pray to God together, provided it is done in the right way.

We must be gathered together in His name, in one heart, one spirit and one mind – all flowing together in harmony. But how often does that happen?

Experience will show you that when a group of people get together to pray, there are some extra, complicated problems.

Complications of Group Prayer

Firstly how do you hold a conversation as a group? Imagine the real scenario. You are sitting in a circle, and Jesus is sitting in the middle and you are holding a conversation. Imagine that this is a normal social event and visit. And imagine that the Lord Jesus is a real person, which He is.

Now we know that He is the greatest person and He is far above all of us. But we are in a situation where we are holding a conversation. So how would it go? It would go like this.

Firstly everybody would sit there with their eyes closed and their hands clasped, trying to get in the spirit. Their voices would take on that new tone – you know that deep, spiritual and religious tone where we have to speak to God as a father.

We have to get so intensely close to Him and change the way that we normally speak. And we don’t sound like human beings anymore. We sound like robots.

Have you seen it? When people get into a group prayer meeting they suddenly become sub-human. They change their language, the tone of their voice – everything. And it is no longer a conversation.

What is the difference between having conversational prayer when you are in a group, to having it when you are alone?

The main difference is that when you are alone there are only two of you. It is you and the Lord. When you are in a group there are more than two of you. There are two or more of you and the Lord. That is the only thing that has changed.

One at a Time

Here then are some simple ground rules. Firstly only one person can talk at a time otherwise there is confusion. In fact if you are in a group conversation and two of you are trying to talk at the same time, one of you is being plain rude.

Well we know that the Lord can hear both people at the same time. He is the Lord. But what we can all do at the same time when we have a group prayer meeting is we can all praise Him at the same time.

“Thank you Lord. We thank you and praise you for everything that you have done. Praise you Jesus.”

We can all do that at the same time. It doesn’t matter. It is between you and the Lord and you are each giving Him your love. But when it comes to the other kinds of prayer, firstly the prayer of repentance of sin should not be done in a group meeting. You should have done that before you came.

So we can praise the Lord and worship Him together, and then we can bring our requests to the Lord, one at a time. But we can do it in the same way that we hold a conversation.

Competing in Prayer

Now imagine a conversation in a group where we say,

“Okay we are now going to have a conversation with the Lord. You can go first.”

So this person takes their turn and they pray and pray. They bring their whole shopping list to the Lord.

They pray for the Christians in Communist China and what is happening around the world. They pray for their nation. They pray for the President and the leaders.

They pray for the pastor of the church, for the sick and the poor and the needy. In fact they pray all around the world for about 15 or 20 minutes, and now they have had their turn.

Well if you are still awake; if you are still not bored, perhaps you think,

“Okay, I’ll take my turn now.”

But what is there left to pray for?

You think, “I can’t just pray a simple prayer. This person has prayed a really fascinating, very spiritual prayer showing how committed they are; what a heart of love and care they have for the nations and the poor.”

So you have to try and compete with them and see if you can also pray a very nice spiritual prayer. But maybe you have to pray something that is a bit more original. So what are you going to pray for? I don’t know.

Maybe you are going to pray for the children in the schools. People do stupid things in prayer. But what has happened? You are no longer really praying. Rather you are competing with one another to see who can pray the best prayer.

And really who are you talking to? You are not even talking to the Lord. You are talking to each other and trying to impress each other with how great you can pray. It is no longer a conversation. You didn’t even take the time to stop and listen to what He wants.

Let me show you what sometimes happens in a normal conversation. People love to talk about themselves don’t they? And they do the same thing. They talk and talk about themselves. And while they are talking what is in your mind? You are thinking,

“If you will just shut up now and give me a turn, I can talk about myself.”

And so you wait patiently and you are not even listening to them. Their words are going in one ear and out the other. Then you say,

“Now let me talk about myself.”

That person is now saying,

“Yes, yes, yes.”

It is all selfish-oriented isn’t it?

Sometimes our prayers are exactly the same. And actually you are not even listening to the prayer that the other person is praying. All you are doing is waiting for them to shut up so you can have your turn.

Do you suppose those prayers have any effect? Do you suppose they even reach beyond the ceiling? No they don’t.

Praying Correctly As One

Our prayer should be us talking to the Lord in each other’s presence, but we should be talking to Him like one person. We should be in one heart and mind and soul; all thinking the same thing.

How can you do that? You could begin the group prayer by saying,

“We’ve had a prayer request from so-and-so. They have a deep financial need. The husband lost his job and they don’t know what they are going to do. You see he doesn’t have another job lined up and they are not going to be able to pay their bills. We need to pray that God will intervene here and do something.”

Now we all have one picture in our minds. And we are saying,

“Oh isn’t that terrible. Oh Lord we want you to do something here.”

Our hearts of love begin to knit together and we begin to bring that need to the Lord. We say,

“Lord you know what these people are going through right now. We just ask you to reach out.”

You express what is in your heart. Then you keep quiet and let somebody else express what is in their heart. Somebody else is praying and they are thinking,

“If I remember correctly that person is qualified in this career. You know what? I have a friend who is looking for somebody just like that in his business.”

Then you pray,

“Lord I have a friend who is looking for somebody who does a job similar to this guy. I wonder if perhaps you could open the way for me to introduce them, and maybe he can get a job there.”

We are kind of holding a conversation with each other and holding a conversation with the Lord at the same time. Together we are trying to come up with a solution to the problem, but the Lord is right in the middle.

Then we feel the Lord speaking back and somebody says,

“I feel that God wants us to do this. I believe that what the Lord wants us to do right now is to take up a bit of an offering. Let’s give them a love gift for their finances until he finds a job.”

So the whole prayer time becomes a time of standing as one to find a solution with the Lord’s help. Your prayer takes on a whole new meaning now doesn’t it?

The Prayer of Agreement

The Bible speaks about the prayer of agreement. And Jesus said that if two people will agree concerning anything that they ask; if two people will join their hearts together as one and fully stand in agreement with what they are asking, the Lord says,

“I’m going to combine with that and I am going to make it happen.”

So what does that mean? It means that when somebody prays you don’t compete with their prayer. You wait and you say,

“Yes, I feel that is of God. I agree with that.”

You add to their prayer. You don’t need to re-pray their prayer. As they are praying you say,

“Yes Lord I stand in agreement. Yes, I believe that is what we should do. Do it, Lord.”

We are standing and backing one another in prayer, covering one another and standing in the prayer of agreement. And we know that as we do that, we are actually combining the power of our spirits together and bringing the Lord Jesus into the situation to bring change.

Do you know how wonderful it is when you have had a prayer time like that? At the end of it you feel that you have accomplished something in the spiritual realm. You know that somewhere along the line, God led you and told you how and what to pray.

Letting God Show You Requests

When it becomes even more exciting is when you didn’t have a prayer request at the beginning. In fact this is the sort of situation you will have most of the time.

You come to pray, and while you are praying with the group God brings somebody to your mind that you haven’t thought about in a long time. You stop right there and you share it with the group. You say,

“As I was praying, the Lord brought this person to my mind.”

If it is somebody that only you know, just pray it by yourself. You can say,

“Lord you brought this person to my mind, and I ask you to do whatever you want to do in their life.”

But if it is somebody that everyone knows, you can stop and say,

“God brought this person to my mind. Now I don’t know if she is going through a problem right now or what it is that God has for her, but I see her so clearly in my mind. Do you think we could stand together in agreement and just pray for her?”

Everybody jumps in and says,

“Yes let’s do it. Lord, reach out and bless her.”

“Lord, touch her.”

So instead of each person having their little moment of power; of praying for half an hour and impressing everybody, we all pray.

It is like in a normal conversation where each person has a turn to say their piece, shut up and then give somebody else a turn to say their piece. Before you know it you have a lively conversation going. And at the end of the evening everybody thinks,

“Wow, I had an awesome time tonight. I really felt so at home chatting to everybody and listening to all their stories.”

We should feel the same way when we have had a group prayer time with the Lord. It should be so exciting that we say,

“Wow, God showed us so many awesome things tonight. And I really believe that as we prayed something happened. I believe that we released the power of God to move in the lives of people and we are going to see some change.”

Instead of one person dominating the prayer, we have all participated and become an active part of what God wants to do.

That is how group prayer should be carried out. I daresay you haven’t seen much of that. If you have ever been to a church prayer meeting you know how boring and dull it can get. But it is time we change it. And it is time that we keep it simple and easy.

You know just put a bunch of kids together, tell them to pray and watch them do it. They are not caught up in our adult thinking and confusion. And sometimes we need to do what Jesus said and become like little children again. We need to just come into His presence and have a chat with dad; all get on his knees and make a fuss.

If we can do that, our praying for others will take on a whole new dimension. And we are going to see Heaven moving upon this earth and changes taking place in the lives of people.

Now there is only one subject left to cover on prayer and it is a subject that not many people understand much about, and not many people have actually even tried.

The Bible often speaks about prayer and fasting. So in the next Section I am going to share on this subject. I will share about how to use it in prayer, how it affects our prayers, and how we can use it to pray more effectively.

Section 04 – Prayer and Fasting

Chapter 09

What Fasting is

Section 04 – Prayer and Fasting

Chapter 09 – What Fasting is

This final section on the study of prayer is a subject that is not often taught on. It is seldom understood, and in fact often totally misunderstood. So as we come to the end of our understanding on prayer, I want to share about prayer combined with fasting.

The Bible often speaks about fasting and prayer, and those two are tied together many times. Fasting started way back in the Old Testament already, but it also continued into the New Testament.

Fasting is a very powerful form of prayer, and I believe it is also a kind of prayer that the enemy does not like. For that reason it seems that some of the newer translations of the Bible have taken it upon themselves to leave out the combination of fasting and prayer in some of the key Scriptures in the New Testament.

If you look in some of the newer Revised Versions, you will see that the word fasting is missing from some of the key verses that we used to use in the King James Version.

I don’t know whether that is correct or not or whether the new versions are the correct ones, but it doesn’t really matter. Fasting is still an important principle. And I would like to explain this to you so that you can learn how to use it in combination with your prayers.

Walking in the Spirit

Why is fasting so important? I want to start by going back to understanding what it means to walk in the Spirit.

You will remember the illustration we used of spirit, soul and body. We have seen that God’s order for us is that the spirit should be first, then the soul and then the body. That means that we are being influenced and controlled by the spirit within.

So to walk in the Spirit means that your spirit is in control, that your soul is bringing your body into subjection, and that it is allowing the spirit from within to flow out and influence our lives.

When we walk in the flesh it is reversed. The body exercises its influence over the soul, and we squash the spirit and block all of its influences. So for us to be effective in our spiritual lives we should always be walking in the Spirit.

How do you go about doing that? Well the most important part involved is the soul because that is where our choice or our will lies. Your soul must choose to submit to the spirit deep within, instead of submitting to the body on the outside which has a much stronger influence.

Ever since the Garden of Eden, and the fall of man and the original sin, we have that seed of sin in us. This is a very strong and powerful force. Because of this the effects of our body tend to be a lot stronger than the effects of our spirits.

So as we saw it makes it much easier for us to walk in the flesh, with some help from the world and the devil round about us. It makes it much easier to walk in the flesh than to walk in the Spirit.

So how do you go about making it easier to walk in the Spirit? That is quite simple really. You simply need to disable the body.

If we can reduce the power and strength in the body, it makes it easier for us to bring the body under control, and then the spirit can rule and reign. Can you see that?

Fasting is one of the quickest and easiest ways to do just that.

Limiting the Flesh

You will remember that there are three desires of the body, not just food. But food is one of our strongest desires.

You can look at the sexual passions and see that that is a very strong driving force. But you know you can get by with having sex once a day - and most people don’t get that much. But you can’t get by with one meal a day. You usually need three or more.

Food is a very strong need and drive in the body. And when people are hungry you would be amazed at how forceful they can become in order to get that need met. They will spend the last money they have because they are hungry. Hunger is probably one of the strongest driving forces in the body.

And so the first thing involved in fasting is to limit the food that your body eats. If you can stop that strongest desire in the body, you can bring the body under control.

But hunger for food is not the only desire. There is food and there is the desire for sexual release. And then there is the defense mechanism of the body, which causes us at times to be very aggressive and strong.

True fasting involves helping our bodies to come under subjection, so that we can start walking in the Spirit. And to do that, if you want to put the full force of fasting against it, fasting does not only involve staying away from food. It involves avoiding food, avoiding sex, and taking upon you a more humble and non-aggressive approach.

In Bible days they took it to an extreme and they would wear sackcloth and ashes on their body. It was a sign of humbling themselves and not exalting their self. It was like a total sign of submission.

They brought their body so under subjection that they didn’t even dress in normal clothes. They just put ashes all over themselves to keep their body dirty. It was like putting their body about as low as you could get it. That is one of the best ways to get into the spirit.

Fasting for Wrong Reasons

Now if you didn’t have the Holy Spirit already living inside of you then that would be no use whatsoever. If you were not already born again by the Spirit of God, then going through those processes would be worth nothing.

But you see there are people in the world, and there are certain religions like the Buddhists for example, who feel that if they can deny the body then they can come closer to God.

There is a big theological word for that and I am going to give it to you quickly. I didn’t plan to give this in my teaching, but I want you to see it. It is called asceticism. Asceticism is denying all of the bodily desires on a permanent basis.

Now these Buddhist monks and so-called holy men take a vow of poverty. They refrain from being married or having any sexual contact. They reduce their food so they are eating the most plain of foods, and they deny their bodies everything that the body enjoys.

Paul had to correct this amongst some of the Christians who were caught up in it. He said,

“People are giving rise to doctrines of demons, forbidding to marry and abstaining from certain foods.”

People are often caught in this idea and they say,

“If I do these things, somehow I will win God’s favor.”

But fasting doesn’t win God’s favor. This is the first mistake that many people make. They think,

“If I fast when I pray, I am going to put a bit of pressure on God and He will be more willing to answer my prayer.”

It is not true at all. I want you to understand that from the beginning. Fasting does not change God’s mind and make Him now want to answer your prayer. What fasting does is put you in a position where you are more under the influence of the spirit within and you can hear the voice of God. It is so that when you come to Him in prayer you can pray correctly.

We looked at how important it is to hear from God in our prayer and to find out what He wants to do. So when we deny the body through fasting in that way, we bring ourselves into this place where the body is brought under control. And we now begin to walk more strongly in the Spirit.

Walking in Step With the Spirit

So that is the first important thing in fasting. It gets you to walk in the Spirit, and that is a very important stage in praying with power.

Here is a very good picture of walking in the Spirit. Imagine a bunch of soldiers walking in step, and someone is saying,

“Left, right, left, right.”

Walking in the Spirit means basically that you are walking in step with God’s Holy Spirit. So when He says,

“Go left,” we go left.

When He says,

“Go right,” we go right.

If you want to bring the Lord Jesus into it so that you can see and hear, imagine that you are walking down the street. Jesus is by your side and you are walking in step together. Jesus turns left and you turn left. Jesus turns right and you turn right. Whatever He does you follow. Isn’t that what Jesus said?

He said, “I do only what I see my Father doing.”

We should be doing the same. Well we can’t see the Father, but we can see Jesus.

So if you are to walk in the Spirit, it is simply a matter of doing what you see Jesus doing. It is not very complicated. And if you are not sure about anything, you need to just stop and say,

“Lord, what do you want me to do here?”

You meet somebody and you want to share with them. You want to help them or do something and you say,

“Lord, what do you want me to do here?”

If you can hear His voice He will tell you what you should do in that situation.

Now it is exactly the same in prayer. When you come to the Lord in prayer and you are walking in the Spirit, Jesus is there and you can say,

“Lord, what do you want me to speak into the earth? What do you want me to pray and say? Lord, what words do you want to send into the earth through my lips right now?”

When He tells you, you speak those words out, and that is when your prayer has the greatest power.

Increase the Power

The next thing you need to do is somehow increase that power. If you can make that spiritual power stronger and stronger so that it starts to spread throughout your entire being, then you are going to have a far greater impact when you speak those words into the earth. They are going to go out with God’s power like dynamite.

If you don’t do this your prayer will be like a little pea shooter. You are praying against a great big mountain that is standing in front of you, and you will be shooting with a little pea shooter. It is going to take a while to wear that mountain down.

So you must increase the power of your spirit and it will increase the power in your prayer. Then when you come to pray against the obstacles in your life you are going to get them moving a whole lot easier.

Reducing the Energy Drain

Now the power of digestion alone is one of the biggest energy drains in our lives. Do you know how much energy it takes for your body to take the food you have eaten, and to digest it into the energy that you need?

Scientists have found through statistics, that that energy actually shortens your lifespan. And they have proved that if you fasted on a more regular basis, you would in fact live longer. Okay they started by trying it out on animals, but many human beings have been doing the same thing.

They found that if they could get a better control of their body appetites and eat less so that the body doesn’t wear itself out using all of that energy for digestion, that the energy is available to build up your health, to maintain that health, and to make you live longer.

Eating less can increase the amount of energy that is available. And if you have all of that energy available, you can devote it completely to your prayer time and into doing what God tells you to do.

Now what is one of the biggest excuses we give for not praying? We say,

“Well I would love to pray more, but I really don’t have much time.”

Well how long do you spend eating? Cut out one meal a day and you would be amazed at how much extra time you have for prayer. Instead of eating lunch, take that same time and use it in prayer.

So fasting allows you to have more time available, because the time that you would normally use for eating every day you can now use for prayer. And you have reduced the amount of energy that is being used.

It is kind of like a generator. You know here in Mexico our power often goes out, so we ended up buying ourselves a generator that runs on gasoline. The generator only puts out a certain wattage of power, and we have found out how many different appliances we can connect to it at a time.

The more devices we connect to it, the more the power gets drained. And if we put too many things on, we start to see the lights beginning to go dim because it is straining and taking all the power.

Well we have a bit of light. But if we want the lights to get brighter, we just disconnect a few of the devices and suddenly there is more power available to pour into making those lights shine brighter.

Now it is exactly the same thing. We have so many things that drain us and our resources. And eating and concentrating on eating and giving the body all of its desires, is one of those things that drains our spiritual resources.

So what fasting allows you to do is to switch off some of the things that are connected to your inner generator. It allows the full power to now be available to pour out when you pray. Now when you pray you are praying on full volume and with full wattage. You are going to have available the greatest possible power that you can have.

These are the reasons why we should fast. It is firstly so that we can walk in the Spirit. And secondly it is so that we can increase spiritual energy. We will increase our energy and also be walking in the Spirit so we can hear from God. And now we are in a position to increase the power of our prayer.

Does that change God? No it doesn’t. God never changes. Does it make God now want to answer our prayer, whereas before He didn’t want to answer? No it doesn’t. He has always wanted to answer our prayer.

The reason our prayers don’t get answered is because we pray wrong. We didn’t hear His voice properly because we didn’t speak with faith and hope and love and release the power of the Spirit as we will see later.

Fasting allows us to come to that place where our prayer is the most effective of all. And that alone is a very good reason to fast.

Chapter 10

Types of Fasting

Chapter 10 – Types of Fasting

I think I have convinced you enough that you should fast, so what is the next question that you are likely to ask me? It is probably this: How do I fast?

You say, “Well that is easy. Fasting means you don’t eat food, right?”

That is a simple answer. Tell me how to go about fasting. Most people are confused on this. They go and look in the Bible and they see that Jesus fasted for 40 days and 40 nights and they think,

“That is impossible. You could not go for 40 days without food. Obviously I am one of those people who is just not capable of fasting.”

And so you give up the idea. Some of us actually battle to miss one meal, and to fast for a day is a nightmare. Imagine having to go for 40 days. It is impossible. You will die.

Fasting to Twist God’s Arm

But that is the problem. You see fasting means bringing the body under control. Fasting does not mean going for as long as you possibly can without eating anything.

People have the mistaken idea that if they fast God is more willing to answer our prayers. And not only that, they think that the longer they fast He will be even more willing to answer. So they say,

“Okay I’ve decided to fast and that is going to help my prayer. But if I really want God to answer my prayer I will keep fasting for as long as I can. The longer I can fast, the greater possibility there is that God will answer my prayer.”

It is a lie, and sometimes the enemy will push you to fast for too long so that your body resources are weakened. This causes your body to become open to attack with germs and viruses and you end up sick. Then you are no use to the Lord at all. You can’t pray because you are lying in bed sick.

So get rid of this idea that fasting changes God and puts pressure on Him. And forget the idea that fasting needs to be for a long time.

I am going to give you various possibilities here that exist when it comes to fasting. Firstly there are two main kinds of fast. You could probably extend that slightly, but there are two main ones.

The first one is what we call a partial fast. The second one is called a full fast. And there is a third one but it is not practical at all. We could call it a complete fast, but it is not even in the running. I will mention it though in case you want to take it into account.

So what are these three fasts?

The Partial Fast

The partial fast means that you do not stop eating altogether. It means that instead of cutting out all food, you cut out only specific things from what you eat.

You see this kind of fast way back in the Old Testament with Daniel and his friends. The king wanted to give them all the different foods, but they said,

“No, just give us ordinary water and vegetables.”

Also Daniel himself went on a 21 day fast where he said that he didn’t eat any meat or wine or anything fancy. He ate only basic foods; just enough for him to survive. At the end of that 21 day fast God answered him and an angel appeared to him. His prayer was very effective.

The partial fast is probably the only fast that you can do that will allow you to fast for extended periods. And if you have never fasted before, the partial fast is a very good way to start. So you could do a partial fast by saying,

“Okay I am going to cut out all the things that I love – all the chocolate and the steaks, the pastries and cakes.”

Cut out whatever it is that you are physically addicted to that your body really craves. Because you see the idea is to deny your body and to bring those bodily desires under control.

The problem with a partial fast is that it is like going on a diet. Anybody who has ever gone on a diet knows that this is a fatal statement to make:

“I’m not going to eat bread anymore,”

If there is something you want to eat 24 hours a day it is bread. So it is a very difficult kind of fast to do in that it takes a lot of self-control to see it through.

The Full Fast

If you go on a full fast, it means that you don’t eat any food. You only drink water.

There is a kind of in between or a kind of semi-fast where you don’t eat any solid foods. You only drink liquids like hot beverages and things like that. But the full fast means you don’t eat any food and you only drink water.

The advantage of that fast is that within a day or two your hunger actually leaves. Then it becomes easier to not eat. The only thing you have to fight is the thoughts in your mind of those beautiful meals on the table.

You start to visualize yourself going out to a restaurant and indulging in your favorite foods. That is the only problem that you face. But your body in fact reaches the point where you are no longer hungry.

Now it is possible to do a partial fast indefinitely, provided you are giving your body the nutrients that it still needs. A full fast is limited, and I believe that the longest you can actually fast on a full fast is 40 days, which is why it is the number that we see in the Scriptures.

What happens is your hunger leaves after 4 or 5 days. But after about 40 days, depending on your health, it comes back. And when the hunger comes back, if you don’t start to eat then you go into full starvation and you can die.

But you don’t need to go for 40 days. Those who went for 40 days in the Bible went for a very specific purpose, and most people only did it once in a lifetime.

We read of Moses who went on a 40 day fast. And we see that Jesus also went on a 40 day fast. Those were unique circumstances, and I don’t believe that it is normal for any one of us to go on a 40 day fast.

The Complete Fast

A complete fast is when you don’t eat or drink anything – neither food nor water. The longest you can go on a fast like that is probably about three days, because your body cannot go longer than that without water.

It is really not the kind of fast that you would choose. But it is the kind of fast that may take place under very extreme circumstances. It is where the circumstances are so severe that you actually just stay in your room for three days.

You are so overwhelmed in prayer and in coming to the Lord with whatever situation you are facing that you don’t even eat or drink. But it is very unnatural and very abnormal.

Moses is the only one who went on a complete fast for 40 days, but he was divinely protected. He was in the presence of God, and I think all of his body processes were suspended during that time. He was in a kind of suspension in the spirit in the presence of God, so that was certainly nothing normal and natural.

So I don’t think the complete fast is an option for us. The full fast is most definitely the more powerful and effective fast. But if you can’t do that a partial fast can still be very effective. So those are the two ways that we can fast.

Chapter 11

Practicalities of Fasting

Chapter 11 - Practicalities of Fasting

The next question that I’m sure is in your mind right now is this: How long do I fast for?

I have already said to you that I don’t think 40 days is a normal length of fast. So what a lot of people do is they will aim for shorter periods: 7 days, 10 days, 14 days or 21 days.

Now why would you want to go on a longer fast? Quite honestly I don’t know why, because I find no Scriptural basis for it or any reason for it whatsoever.

Fasting for One Meal

So let’s start at the bottom. What is the shortest fast you could possibly do? It is one meal. And if you have never fasted before that would be a good place to start. Pick a meal like maybe your midday meal or your evening meal and say,

“Okay instead of eating, during that meal I’m going to spend the time in prayer and in the presence of the Lord.”

It is a good way to start, and it is still very effective and it will add power to your prayer. You will find that when you come to prayer, as you make that sacrifice and refrain from eating, you will sense a greater power in your spirit.

Fasting for One Day

The Jews had a different kind of fast where they would fast from morning until evening – a complete day. In fact to them the day began in the evening. So if they fasted from morning until evening, when evening came they could eat again.

That meant that they went 24 hours in their fast. Because you see they went from the night before, all the way through the night and now all the way through the day without eating. Then they ate an evening meal.

So that is another kind of fast you could try. You can go right through the whole day without eating and spend a lot of time in prayer and in the presence of the Lord during the day. Then later in the evening you can have your evening meal before going to bed so that you don’t go to bed hungry.

You can also do it the other way around. If you want to extend beyond a day, it is better to start your fast in the morning. You see when it comes to the evening and you are really feeling hungry, if you can make it through the night you have a whole 12 hours of fasting during the night without having to suffer or think about it. You are not thinking about food because you are asleep.

So there are various different ways of doing this. You may want to start by leaving the evening meal and then going through the night. So a one day or a 24 hour fast is quite a good fast to move to once you have done the one meal fast, and you will find that it is quite effective in your praying.

Fasting for Three Days

I would say that the most common, most powerful and most normal full fast is a three day fast. You will find examples in Scripture of people fasting for three days.

I have found through personal experience that I have seldom needed to fast for longer than three days. I have tried and I think the longest I have gone is for seven days.

I don’t think I made it to 10 days because my body started to throw a tantrum. And eventually I broke my fast and felt very condemned because I had broken my commitment to fast. This is one of the times I learned that it is not how long I fasted that counted. It is what I prayed while I was fasting. That is what made the difference.

I have found that a three day fast is very effective, because what happens is after the first day you start to feel just a little dizzy; a little fully not there in your body. You get this feeling of your body not being fully in control and you kind of feel locked up inside.

It is a strange effect that it has. It has the feeling of making you draw into yourself because the world round about you becomes a little hazy.

I have found that by the second day of the fast, I am in a position where I’m feeling the power when I begin to pray. And every time I have tried extended fasts, in most cases I didn’t even need to reach the third day, because I began to see an answer to what I was praying for by the second day.

If the answer didn’t come by the second day I would push through until the third day. And if nothing happened by then I would end the fast, because very often the answer will come only after you have finished.

So for most people who want to do a full fast, I would say they don’t need to fast for longer than three days.

When to Fast

We come now to the final question and that is: When do you fast?

You say, “Okay I agree I am with the fasting thing. I’m going to give it a try, so when should I start and why?”

In Serious Situations

Firstly fasting can be good when the circumstances are really serious. You are in a crisis situation, and you really need to get into the presence of the Lord and release the power in your prayer.

When you reach a crisis in your circumstances, it is a good time to say,

“Okay from today we are fasting. We are going to pray until we get an answer or for three days – whatever the case may be.”

I have found that it is very powerful you can very quickly get the answer you are looking for.

When You Need Direction

You may need to fast when you need to make a major decision in your life. You will see this also in the New Testament. They waited on the Lord with prayer and fasting, as they were trying to get direction to know which way God wanted them to go.

It allows you to be more open to the Spirit of God, to receive revelation and direction from Him. And so when you need direction from the Lord, fasting is a good way of helping you to get that.

To Increase Your Spiritual Power

Then you need to fast when you feel that you have a lack of power in your spiritual life. You feel as though the Lord is just not that close to you anymore. You really want to move into His power. You want to be used by God, you want to do things for Him and you just feel so weak and powerless.

Set aside a time of prayer and fasting and get into His presence. Pray for long periods in the Spirit and come into that fellowship. Charge up and charge up, and before you know it you will have amazing power in your spiritual life that you didn’t have there before.

When God Tells You To

The final, and probably the most important time that you should fast, is when God tells you to. You will find in most cases that usually the reason for your fasting is not for your needs. It is for the needs of others.

The most powerful form of fasting of all is not when you are praying for yourself and what you want to receive. It is when God has put on you a burden of prayer and care; a strong burden where you are so concerned about the need of somebody else and you just want to give all that you can to see God meet that need.

So you get into His presence with prayer and fasting. You increase your prayer power right up to the highest level that you can. And you release and speak God’s words into the earth until you see God begin to do wonderful things in the lives of others.

We come now to the end of prayer. We have seen all the different ways of praying and the importance of prayer. And now finally we have seen a way to increase the power of your prayer, to walk in the Spirit and to get to that place where your prayer has the fullest power of all.

Prayer and fasting is a very powerful method that God has given us. Give it a try, use it often, and you will find that your prayer will go to a whole new level. Then you will be able to pray effectively and accomplish what you want in your spiritual life.

Table of Contents

Section 01 – Conversational Prayer

Chapter 01 – Basics of Prayer

Chapter 02 - Unbelievers and Prayer

Chapter 03 - Ways to Hear Him Speaking

Section 02 – Types of Prayer

Chapter 04 - Praise and Worship

Chapter 05 - Intimacy With God

Chapter 06- Bringing Your Requests

Section 03 – Praying for Others

Chapter 07 – Praying Alone

Chapter 08 - Praying in Group

Section 04 – Prayer and Fasting

Chapter 09 – What Fasting is

Chapter 10 – Types of Fasting

Chapter 11 - Practicalities of Fasting