How to Get Prayers Answered

How to Get Answers to Your Prayers

To receive anything from God requires a knowledge of what is available from Him. It is also necessary to realize the extent of the power God can operate in our lives. The primary thing to realize and believe is that with God all things are possible. Jeremiah addressed God when he prayed for understanding with this statement: "Ah, Lord God! Behold, You have made the heavens and the earth by Your great power and outstreatched arm. There is nothing too hard for you. Jeremiah 32:17." Jesus proclaimed this same truth when teaching the disciples. He stated: But Jesus looked at them and said to them, 'with men this is impossible, but with God all things are possible. Matthew 19:26."

The second ingredient necessary to receive anything form God is to believe. Believing is the key to receiving from God those thing He has available for us. Jesus taught this principle when instructing the father of a boy that he delivered from demon possession: "So he asked his father, How long has this been happening to him? And he said, from childhood. And often has thrown him both into the fire and into the water to destroy him. But if you can do anything, have compassion on us and help us. Jesus said to him, If you can believe, all things are possible to him who believes. Mark 9:21-22." Receiving healing for the boy rested on his father believing the ability of God. Jesus instructed the Apostles in believing after the fig tree he cursed died overnight: "So Jesus answered and said to them, Have faith in God. For assuredly , I say to you, whoever says to this mountain, be removed and be cast into the sea, and does not doubt in his heart, but believes that those things he says will be done, he shall have whatsoever he says. Therefore I say unto you, whatever things you ask when you pray, believe that you receive them, and you shall have them. Mark 11:22-24." Just as believing appropriates the results promised by God; anxiety, doubt, and fear block your receiving from God because they are the opposite of believing. When Jesus was rejected by the people of his home town, Nazareth, he said: "But Jesus said to them, A prophet is not without honor except in his own country and in his own house. Now he did not many might works there because of their unbelief. Matthew 13:57-58." In the epistle of James this principle is expanded on, "If any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask of God, who gives to all liberally and without reproach, and it will be given him. But let him ask in faith (here the Greek word, pistis, literally translated is believing), with no doubting, for he who doubts is like a wave of the sea driven and tossed by the wind. For let not that man suppose that he will receive anything from the Lord; he is a double-minded man, unstable in all his ways. James 1:5-8." Doubt is unbelief. Unbelief appropriates the result of no answer to prayer and is in reality negative believing. Fear also is negative believing. Job in the Old Testament came to this realization when he said, "For the thing I greatly feared has come upon me, And what I dreaded has happened to me. Job 3:25." The final factor defeating belief to receive is asking for things that are not going to be best for you. James, in his epistle states, "Yet you do not have because you do not ask. You ask and do not receive, because you ask amiss, that you may spend it on your pleasures. James 4:3-4." Asking amiss is asking for things that are not available or for things that would be harmful for you.

The final ingredient for getting an answer to your prayer from God is to claim what He says you have available. If God's Word says something is available for you it is available and the answer will be yes from God. "But as God is true, our word toward you was not yea and nay. For the Son of God, Jesus Christ, who was preached among you by us, even by me and Silvanus and Timotheus, was not yea and nay, but in him was yea. For all the promises of God in him are yea, and in him amen, unto the glory of God by us. 2 Corinthians 1:18-20." As Jesus taught the disciples and told them in Mark 11:24, "Therefore I say unto you, whatever things you ask when you pray, believe that you receive them (that you have them), and you shall have them." Don't limit God's ability. God who created the heavens and the earth has no limits. In the epistle of James, chapter 5 verses 16-18 it says, "Confess your faults one to another, and pray for one another, that you may be healed. The effectual fervent prayer of a righteous man availeth much. Elias was a man subject to like passions as we are, and he prayed earnestly that it might nor rain: and it rained not on the earth by the space of three years and six months. And he prayed again, and the heaven gave rain, and the earth brought forth fruit." If God would stop the rain on the whole earth because of one man's prayer, should you have any doubt in His ability to hear and answer your prayers? NO!!! God is a loving Father and wants to provide good things for His children. He wants to provide good things for you. All you have to do is ask Him in order to receive.