1. Honesty
2. A humble heart.
3. Declaring the character and goodness of God before His throne.
4. Seeking not your own rights, but rather God's right to rebuke, reprove, and teach you in order that you might become more like His Son, Jesus Christ.
5. Time spent studying the way Jesus and others in the Bible prayed.
6. Declaring and pleading to God His own promises and His own will through prayer.
7. Confidence that if what you are seeking is God's will, then you can boldly claim it and have confidence in its answer. You must not doubt in your prayers.
8. Claim the authority you have over the enemy as a child of God in Jesus name and do it often. Do not be meek when wielding the sword against the enemy.
9. Willingness to wait upon your answer and not act until you are confident that God has revealed His will.
10. Praise, praise, praise!
Principle of Powerful Prayer #2: A humble heart
Ah....humility. How can I teach on that? I haven't it mastered at all. Adrian Rogers used to say the two most dangerous things to ask God for are patience and humility! He just might teach them to you. And, in fact, what little humility I posses has come from complete brokenness derived from NUMEROUS trips to the woodshed. I find it difficult to even suggest in instructing others that I have achieved humility for that sounds boastful and even saying that I don't want to sound boastful sounds boastful. Am I making sense? This is so hard.
If I recognize that God has given me some Spiritual insight that others may seem to lack, I am easily tempted to have Spiritual pride. In fact, for a long time I thought that my self pity and deep sense of guilt was God working in my life and yet, it took a form of pride because I was focused on my self. Again, I just say that this is truly a difficult thing to ascertain.
For I say, through the grace given to me, to everyone who is among you, not to think of himself more highly than he ought to think, but to think soberly, as God has dealt to each one a measure of faith. Romans 12:3
If I have attained any sense of humility and humbleness of heart it came last year, ironically, through my blogging experience. I had been "priding" myself in what I thought was an extra measure of discernment granted to me by God. I was just so certain that I could tell the truth from a lie. Then, as Beth Moore so aptly describes in her study,
"When Godly People Do Ungodly Things" I was "HAD". My mind was thrown into an utter state of confusion. I no longer knew who I was hearing: God or Satan. In my attempt to achieve clarity, I removed myself from blogging for about a month and over the next three months tried to get some grasp on what had happened to me. I was so embarrassed that I did not want anyone to know what happened. I was flabbergasted that "I" could be so duped by someone and God was disciplining me over my "Spiritual Pride" and my sinful tendency to go outside of the proper authorities in my life for Spiritual guidance. Needless to say, after many months of confusion, LOTS AND LOTS OF PRAYER, and LOTS OF REPENTANCE, God began to clarify what had happened and why He had allowed it. The end result was a beautiful thing and one that prepared me for the very trial that my church family and I are going through right now. God was teaching me that I cannot place ANY OUNCE of my faith and confidence in any human being that would supersede my FAITH IN HIM! He was also showing me just how prideful, arrogant, and man pleasing I had become. Who was I to be seeking to teach others anything, when I myself had so much lacking in true wisdom, humility, and knowledge of God.
Bondservants, obey in all things your masters according to the flesh, not with eyeservice, as men-pleasers, but in sincerity of heart, fearing God. Colossians 3:22
I have shared this to tell you a few things that I do believe God has revealed to me about Himself through this lesson. First of all, despite my arrogance, I still had a heart to please God and I was classically "ignorant" of what I was doing. Now, I didn't say "innocent" for we are responsible to seek God to reveal in us any evil or wicked way and then repent and obey. At that time I was seeking other people to give me wisdom rather than God. However, Jesus is a long suffering and loving God who intercedes before the throne, “Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they do.” and He patiently allowed me to be disciplined and suffer through this trial to teach me of HIS GREAT MAJESTY and my GREAT NEED of Him IN EVERYTHING!
"I am the vine, you are the branches; he who abides in Me and I in him, he bears much fruit, for apart from Me you can do nothing. John 15:5
Secondly, He taught me that the best way to guard against Spiritual pride is to continually remind myself through prayer and Scripture where ALL GOOD GIFTS come from. I have learned (the hard way) to continuously be grateful to God for ANY GOOD THING in me for without Him and His gifts I am a self-righteous, wretched, judgmental sinner. (And I don't mean that for pride or self-pity...it is just a fact!) I really don't want people to praise me because my tendency is to turn to pride and I honestly mean it when I say that if they see any good in me it is the Spirit of God and if they see bad it is my quenching of His Spirit and I am happy that they point it out. Now, sometimes my flesh doesn't react happy at first, but praise be to God BECAUSE He has given me His Spirit, it usually doesn't take very long and I recognize that they are right. That comes from Him because my natural tendency is to defend myself.
So I guess my advice to those seeking to have a powerful prayer life goes back to honesty before God about your "stuff". If you don't think you are prideful, then ask Him to reveal where you might be and honestly desire the lesson.
Search me, O God, and know my heart; Try me, and know my anxieties; And see if there is any wicked way in me, And lead me in the way everlasting. Psalm139:23-24Be warned: It may hurt and it may be confusing, but just cling to His Word in those times and it will produce the right result. It was funny, when I first announced on my blog that I was going to "take a break" and perhaps "quit blogging" in order to hear more clearly from God, I had someone criticize me for being too "pious" and "serious". At first I was upset by this and hurt until God began to teach me that it was just the enemy's last ditch effort to keep me from getting alone with Him. I looked up the definition of "pious" and found that the first definition given was "marked by or showing reverence for deity and devotion to divine". I decided that sounded a lot like Jesus and I was pleased to be insulted in that way. I decided that He was fairly pious when He shut out the crowd and went to a solitude place to be alone with the Father so I was in good company. So let no one tell you that you are wrong for wanting to block out man's interpretations of God's Word so that you can seek His face and His interpretation of His own Word for YOU! My friends, that is EXACTLY WHAT HE WANTS YOU TO DO!
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