Powerful Prayer

Mark 11:24--

"Therefore I say unto you, What things soever ye desire, when ye pray,

 believe that ye receive them, and ye shall have them."

Please read Mark 11:20-26, because I will be using all of these verses in this post.

This is the account of the fig tree Jesus cursed, and one of the times He told His disciples that they could move mountains if they had faith the size of a mustard seed. I often claimed verse 24 and believed God would give me what I asked for, but I was manipulating Scripture and not doing what the entire account said was necessary. In order to be able to get what we pray for, we must do certain things.

1. We must have faith in God (v. 22). We cannot be trusting in our prayer, our spirituality, even in the verse. We must trust the verse AS THE WORD OF GOD!!!! We need to trust the Bible because we trust the God of the Bible. It is not the words that are special, but the fact that they are God's words. It is the Being behind the words that gives them the power. In order to have faith in God, you must first know God. How well do you know God?
2. We must have complete faith (v. 23). We cannot doubt at all! It must be a full, sure-fire knowledge that God will do what He said. Again, this is about knowing God. If we know Him well enough, we will trust Him completely and will be able to receive what we pray for.
3. Stand (v. 25). This one, in all honesty, I am not sure about. It is said George Muller always knelt to pray, and he was the greatest prayer warrior definitely in recent history, most likely in all Christian history that we know of, but the Scripture says, "And when ye stand praying." I choose to stand when I am trying to get to the throne of God, but I do not know that you absolutely must to be able to get anything you ask for.
4. Forgive (v. 25-26). If you have a grudge against someone, anyone, if someone wronged you, or offended you, forgive that person. If you do not forgive, God cannot forgive you, so there will be a barrier between you and the throne of grace.

I always seem to end up here--prayer comes down to knowing God. If you know Him, you know what He can do, and what He is willing to do. You will get what you ask for, because you will ask for what He wants. The closer you grow to the Lord, the more you will see your prayers answered.

The answer to powerful prayer is simple--know God.