Mission Venture Ministries

This is the confidence we have in approaching God: that if we ask anything according to His will, He hears us. And if we know that He hears us—whatever we ask—we know that we have what we asked of Him. 1 John 5:14-15 

Our faith in God’s promise to hear and answer our prayers must have solid footing because Satan constantly assaults us with doubt that our prayers don’t matter. His goal is to get us to quit, while God’s goal is to get us to persist in prayer and to do so with faith. 

James, like John also states that we need to ask with unwavering faith. “But when you ask, you must believe and not doubt, because the one who doubts is like a wave of the sea, blown and tossed by the wind. That person should not expect to receive anything from the Lord. Such a person is double-minded and unstable in all they do” (James 1:6-8). 

Humans have the ability to have faith, to a certain degree. We get in a car trusting that it will start, and will take us where we need to go. We board buses, trains, and planes in faith that they have been well-maintained and have reliable operators that get us safely where we need to go. The list of examples of where we employ faith in daily living is endless. However, true faith “comes by hearing, and hearing by the word of God” (Romans 10:17), by which we believe the Bible to be absolute truth and is teaching us to surrender our life to Christ. 

Intercessory prayer requires a deeper abiding faith. And for us who believe in the power of prayer, the foundation of our faith consists of four attributes of God: 

God Cannot Lie: Hebrews 6:17-18 tells us; “So God gave His word when He made His promise. He wanted to make it very clear that His purpose does not change. He wanted those who would receive what was promised to know this. When God made His promise, He gave His word. He did this so we would have good reason not to give up. Instead, we have run to take hold of the hope set before us. This hope is set before us in God’s promise. So God made His promise and gave His word. These two things can’t change. He couldn’t lie about them.” 

We rely on prayers in the knowledge that God cannot lie and that, therefore, all the promises He gave in Scripture to hear and answer prayer are true and undeniable, meaning that He will never change His mind. 

God Is Omnipotent: Which is a theological word that comes from the Latin “omni” (all) and “potens” (able/powerful). The Scripture points us to this attribute through verses like Jeremiah 32:27, “I am the Lord, the God of all mankind. Is anything too hard for me?” 

God is Omniscient: We now know that “omni” means all. “Scient” is also Latin, and it means “knowing.” God is all-knowing. That is why Jesus told His disciples, “Your Father knows the things you have need of before you ask Him” (Matthew 6:8). 

Intercessors rely heavily on the omniscience of God because we often present situations and concerns to Him that are complex, uncertain in outcome, outside of human control; in other words, too big for us to understand. 

In addition our struggle is not against flesh and blood but against the forces of darkness in the heavenly places, where we need God’s superior knowledge to pray the right things. “In the same way, the Spirit helps us in our weakness. We do not know what we ought to pray for, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us through wordless groans” (Romans 8:26). Our faith rests in believing that the Spirit knows all things and guides our intercession through that knowledge. We tap into it by acknowledging that we don’t know the right things to pray and asking the Holy Spirit to guide us. 

God is Omnipresent: The omnipotence and omniscience of God are immediately available to us because of a third “omni” – His omnipresence. He is the only Being in existence Who is everywhere at the same time. Angels can’t do that, and evil spirits, including Satan Himself, certainly can’t. They are location-bound and usually work in and through people. But God is everywhere in the universe all at once, employing His omnipotence and omniscience. That is why we can pray about any situation anywhere in the world and expect action from the throne of grace. Paul gives us a glimpse of what the omnipresence of God means for us in Ephesians 4:6, where he says that there is “one God and Father of all, who is above all, and through all, and in you all.” 

Think about it for a moment; the Father, Who is present in us through the Holy Spirit, directs us to pray for a situation hundreds or thousands of miles away and many times delivers an instantaneous answer there! Not only does He know the situation because He is present there, but He is also able to work in it by His power. If God were location-bound, He would not be capable of doing that. 

The last three attributes become real to us because of the first; the absolute truth that God cannot lie and that there are no mistakes, untruths, or partial truths in the Scriptures that reveal to us Who He is. God’s truth about Himself holds it all together! 

God gives us access to His throne, works through our prayers, and guides us in what to pray because He is a Father Who loves His children. The Apostle Paul describes it like this: “If God is for us, who can be against us? He who did not spare His own Son, but delivered Him up for us all, how shall He not with Him also freely give us all things?” (Romans 8:31-32). 

God delights in our prayers because He loves the company of His children and their partnership in His kingdom work and as we read and study the Bible, we learn what God’s moral will is; and as we do, we should pray according to what is revealed. We can only be sure of things that are specifically set forth in the word of God. It is vital that you and I know the Word of God so that our prayers may be in harmony with biblical truth. 

There is nothing mechanical or magical about prayer. For it to be effective, however, the will of the intercessor needs to be in line with the will of God. Such conformity of wills is brought about only as the believer abides in Christ. 

The key to answered prayer is being in such close fellowship with God that we ask for the things that are on His heart. In other words, we take up His agenda with our requests and intercession. The spirit of true prayer is “Thy will be done” (Matthew 6:10) where Christ models the importance of submission to God’s will, and speaking to Him in a way which acknowledges it. Praying for what God wants to happen is to accept that His plan is right and good for everyone. 

We ask God to do for us through Christ what we can’t do for ourselves. Prayer is the open admission that without God we can do nothing; and when we pray we must turn away from ourselves and turn to God with the confidence that He will give us the help we need. In short, prayer is a declaration of our dependence of the Lord and must always be offered in submission to the will of God. 

Father, we thank You for providing us with your Word to increase our faith. There is no one like You. Help us to increase our faith to intercede for others through Scripture centered prayers, as we ask this in your beloved Son’s name, our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. Amen. 

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