PRAYER IS ASKING AND RECEIVING

This book titled, “Prayer is asking and receiving” is written to enlighten the readers about what prayer really is, the importance of prayer and how to pray. When we pray, we are joining forces with God to combat all issues, to attack and bring to obedience all life’s issues. It is having fellowship with God to exalt, praise, magnify and glorify God and His Name. In the book we discussed how we are supposed to pray as Jesus directed us to do before He left this earth. Following the directives of Jesus, we looked at the preliminaries of prayer noting that we do not have to jump into prayer without proper preparation. We must come to God fully prepared. In the book we looked at the main act of praying following the guidelines as given by Jesus as He directed us to do in “The Lord’s Prayer” and as the Lord directed the children of Israel to do in the wilderness.

After deciding what you really want from God then you must go into the Scriptures and search the Scripture to see if the need falls in line with God’s will. We must be definite and exact in what we ask for. There should be no repetitions or tautology. A very important point that was emphasized in this book is the statement that Jesus made in Mark 11:24 where He said that when we pray, we must believe that we have received what we prayed for while praying (not later) then we will receive it. What He said there is that we must pray in faith and not in hope. This is important because most Christians pray in hope not in faith. They pray believing that they will receive their answer sometimes later.

In this book we discussed the different kinds of prayer, when each type is used and how it is used. Prominent among the types discussed in this book are the prayer of agreement, the prayer of petition or request, united prayer or prayer of unity, prayer of importunity or persistence, the prayer of consecration and dedication, the prayer of commitment, prayer of worship and the prayer of intercession. We looked in detail at the prayer of intercession which is a prayer in which one takes the place of another in prayer. That is going to God for somebody. That somebody could be a person, a ministry, a church, a nation or even the Kingdom itself. That is standing in the gap between that somebody and God.

Another important topic that we covered in the book is the use of the Name of Jesus in our Prayer. Jesus gave us two separate instructions as to how we should use His Name in prayer. However, most of us Christians do not differentiate the two. We tend not to know the difference. The Name of Jesus is the key that unlocks Heaven. All authority has been vested in that Name. We tend to use the two instructions that Jesus gave concerning the use of His Name interchangeably but wrongly most of the time. The ways we use the Name in our prayers tend to show that we do not know the power that is vested in the Name. Perhaps that is the reason why the answers to most of our prayers do not manifest physically. The right use of the Name is thoroughly explained in the book and examples are cited as to how the disciples followed the instructions of Christ in the use of His Name. We ought to follow in their footsteps.

We also discussed the subject of, “Praying in the Spirit” in the book. We depend on the Holy Spirit in order to be able to pray in the Spirit. The Spirit makes intercession for us according to the will of God because we know not what to pray for sometimes. We also noted that if we want quick answers to our prayers then our prayers must be loaded with worship and praise, exalting the Name of the Lord God lives in the praises of His people.

In this book we also looked at and discussed in detail how to conduct spiritual war-faring in prayers. the enemy's armor and the weapons at the disppsal of the Christian. We can see that for prayer to be answered does not depend on how loud we shout but how much interaction we have with the Holy Spirit.