Jesus gave his disciples the authority to pray. When we ask for something in Christ’s name, we use his authority as ambassadors or representatives.

In that day you will not question Me about anything. Truly, truly, I say to you, if you ask the Father for anything in My name, He will give it to you. John 16:23 (NASB)

Many think of God mainly as our provider and treat prayer mainly as a submission of a needs list in the hope he will give us what we want, but prayer is much more than that. It is how we communicate with God and involves both listening and speaking. The Bible makes it clear that God can communicate effectively with us.

“To him the doorkeeper opens, and the sheep listen to his voice, and he calls his own sheep by name and leads them out.”  John 10:3 NASB2020

Every true child of God has been given the ability to hear the voice of the Holy Spirit. At first, we may be very unskilled at discerning what he says, but the more we grow in that area, the more clearly we can discern God’s voice.

Prayer helps us to grow in our ability to hear and respond to the voice of God.

Jesus told us that our Heavenly Father is the perfect provider who knows what we need before we even ask. (Mat. 6:32) Our Lord commanded us to seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, his rule and authority. If we do this, Jesus promised that all we need will be given to us. (Matthew 6:33)

Once we become convinced that God is our loving provider, we understand that He has given us authority to pray persistently and without shame.

Here is how prayer is designed by God to work. God has a plan (his will) with which He wants us to align. He desires that his will become our will. As we seek to discern and obey God’s will, His perfect provision will always be there for us; although, we may need to ask and believe for it.

If we wish to use our God-given authority to pray effectively, we must seek to discern and pray according to God’s will.

Here is what John wrote about this principle.

This is the confidence which we have before Him, that, if we ask anything according to His will, He hears us. 15 And if we know that He hears us in whatever we ask, we know that we have the requests which we have asked from Him. 1 John 5:14-15 (NASB) 

How do we know if we have prayed according to His will? There are no written guarantees that float down out of heaven to assure us when we have prayed a compliant prayer. To align our hearts with God’s, it helps to make a practice of delighting in him.

Under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, King David wrote the following promise.

Delight yourself in the Lord; And He will give you the desires of your heart.  Psalm 37:4 (NASB95) — 

As we delight in God, he will change our hearts so that we desire what he does. When this happens, we will quite naturally pray from the heart in alignment with his will.

We trust in God’s grace to help us in this area.

Here are some tips used by George Mueller, one of church history’s great prayer warriors, to help us pray according to God’s will.

HOW TO ASCERTAIN THE WILL OF GOD *

1. I seek at the beginning to get my heart into such a state that it has no will of its own in regard to a given matter. Nine-tenths of the trouble with people generally is just here. Nine-tenths of the difficulties are overcome when our hearts are ready to do the LORD’s will, whatever it may be. When one is truly in this state, it is usually but a little way to the knowledge of what His will is.
2. Having done this, I do not leave the result to feeling or simple impression. If so, I make myself liable to great delusions. I seek the Will of the Spirit of God through, or in connection with, the Word of God. The Spirit and the Word must be combined. If I look to the Spirit alone without the Word, I lay myself open to great delusions also. If the Holy Ghost guides us at all, He will do it according to the Scriptures and never contrary to them.
3. Next I take into account providential circumstances. These often plainly indicate God’s Will in connection with His Word and Spirit.
4. I ask God in prayer to reveal His Will to me aright.
5. Thus, through prayer to God, the study of the Word, and reflection, I come to a deliberate judgment according to the best of my ability and knowledge, and if my mind is thus at peace, and continues so after two or three more petitions, I proceed accordingly. In trivial matters, and in transactions involving most important issues, I have found this method always effective.

Although Jesus taught that whatever we ask for in faith we will receive (Mark 11:24), thankfully God does not give us everything we ask for.

You ask and do not receive, because you ask with wrong motives, so that you may spend it on your pleasures. James 4:3 (NASB) 

We often ask for things without comprehending God’s purposes and ways. Our prayers may even oppose God’s will at times because we see things from such a limited perspective. This happened to the apostle Peter when he urged Jesus to avoid going to the cross. Sometimes God’s will goes against what we desire. Unless we learn to delight in God, we may have great difficulty praying as Jesus did in the Garden.

“Father, if you are willing, please take this cup of suffering away from me. Yet I want your will to be done, not mine.”  Luke 22:42 (NLT) — 

Jesus fully embraced his Father’s will, which allowed him to pray effectively. He expects us to do the same.

It is easy for us to err if we overemphasize a principle of God without regard to other scriptures that properly balance things. Jesus’ promise that God will give us whatever we ask must be balanced with the necessity to be in alignment with his will or we may become quite disappointed or even disillusioned.

Faith does not give us unrestricted authority to get anything and everything for which we pray. Faith presupposes that we are faithful to the Lord and his will.

God saved you by his grace when you believed. And you can’t take credit for this; it is a gift from God.  Ephesians 2:8 (NLT) — 

Real faith always aligns with God’s will. It is a gift that comes from God and is always in agreement with His will. Otherwise, we might do all manner of destructive and selfish things using the power of prayer.

When we delight in and agree with God, we can pray with great authority and faith knowing that our Heavenly Father hears our prayers and will answer them. Therefore, prayer should be made with great boldness and the understanding that it is one of our great privileges as children of God who have access to his throne!

The Bible teaches us that through faith and persistence we obtain God’s promises. (Heb 6:12) Jesus gave us two parables to emphasize this principle. The first passage is Luke 11:5-13. Jesus praised the person who shamelessly and persistently asked his friend to get up in the middle of the night to give him some bread to feed his unexpected guests. In a similar passage found in Luke 18:1-8, Jesus praised the widow who shamelessly and relentlessly requested that the unjust judge grant her what she wanted. These two passages indicate that God wants us to demonstrate our faith through our persistence.

We can only be persistent if we believe that God will give us what we request. God wants us to come boldly and confidently to his throne to receive grace to help us in our time of need.

So let us come boldly to the throne of our gracious God. There we will receive his mercy, and we will find grace to help us when we need it most.  Hebrews 4:16 (NLT) — 

When we discern and pray in unity with God’s will, it allows us to partner with him to shape the future.

The Holy Spirit reveals to us what our heavenly Father plans to do so that we can agree with him for that future and pray it in. This is a significant part of what it means to intercede and links the gift of prophecy to prayer. Once again this emphasizes how important it is to first discern God’s will.

Prayer is the engine that drives the ship. It is powerful but hidden. Those who labor in prayer may not receive much recognition here on earth, but our Father in heaven sees and will reward those who are faithful to pray.

But you, when you pray, go into your inner room, close your door and pray to your Father who is in secret, and your Father who sees what is done in secret will reward you. Matthew 6:6 (NASB) 

* http://www.whatsaiththescripture.com/Fellowship/Mueller.Answers.to.Prayer.html

Click here to see the other articles in this series.

Questions for Further Study and Discussion

• What most encourages you to be bold and persistent in prayer?
• Are you yet comfortable exercising your God-given authority in prayer?
• Has God ever showed you what he plans to do so that you were able to agree with him in prayer?