Prayer has been upheld and is undoubtedly Man's most crucial point of access to his creator. Outside prayers there is relatively no other point of accessing the Father.
In order to make sufficient contact with divinity, Man's most available and conscious tool is the art of prayer.
If you must know victory, open the testament of his/her family, shut the doors opened to the devil and command power and authority, walk in the spirit realm and attain the needful intercourse with divinity then you must give yourself to prayers.
Prayers that warrant the aforementioned privileges are not in the context of the contemporary form. Prayers here refers to that as seen and depicted by Prophet Elijah which James in James chapter five (5) and verse seventeen (17) records.
To the prayers Elijah prayed we see an adverb qualifying, giving more meaning and insight and that is "earnestly".
Christians actually pray but they do not pray enough to strike a chord in the spirit. They come into the secret place and before God gets the entire scope of their prayers they've exited the secret place. This leads us to the first point as to why the prayers believers render are not weighty enough to creste maximum impact. I am talking about the reasons prevalent for weightless prayers on this article.
1. CONSISTENCY
This is the major reason why our prayers do not carry weight. We lack consistency. The average believer is embattled with so much worries from home, school, career, business, finance and so on that he barely has time for God talk more of seeking God's face on a consistent basis.
I have noticed that most believers do not know the secret place for themselves. They show so much energy and perform various forms of gymnastics when corporate prayers are observed but it ends there as prayers for them is an action to be undertaken when people are around.
Little wonder why despite all the spiritual gymnastics we carry out, sweating profusely during prayers, speaking tongues so that the next person is unable to hear him/herself pray and so on we are still tossed back and forth by the devil like pendulum bobs.
It is important to note that as much as corporate prayers is good in fact it is needful when you sense your prayer fire going down you need to know the secret place for yourself. You would have to be a consistent fellow abiding in the secret place.
Consistency demand that over a matter you pray for months unending until change occurs. We easily weary out and give the devil room to perpetrate ills in the face of all that Jesus Christ has done for us.
Why is consistency needed to facilitate weighty prayers and bring about the desired victory?
To answer the above question I'd show you a mystery built upon consistency.
There are certain things in your family which took years to be entrenched. What I mean is that, there are certain ordinances which took the devil years to establish in your family and over your life.
Hope you know that before a pattern can be orchestrated and established there must have been a conscious or unconsious string of actions taken and observed consistently.
Consistency is what establishes patterns and instills the workings of the spirit which sponsors that action. It takes time for a pattern to take full effect.
Certain actions where CONSISTENTLY taken consciously and unconsciously to entrench the pattern which your family is battling with and if you must break the pattern then you must pray your way through consistently.
You must pray prayers sufficient enough to usurp the devil's investment in the securing of the pattern and instill God's divine pattern for your family. The key lies in a consistent prayer life.
You would have to pray in a measure as decided on by God before you can check the devil out of the way. God holds the scales and records of the spirit realm and on the basis of righteousness Him alone decides when your prayers have reached the point which makes them capable of usurping every satanic manipulation at work in your life and family.
You may want to ask, how does God measure prayers or what proof do I have concerning the fact that prayers can be measured?
John's Revelation gives us an insight into the nature of storing prayers.
Now when He had taken the scroll, the four living creatures and the twenty-four elders fell down before the Lamb, each having a harp, and golden bowls full of incense, which are the prayers of the saints — Revelation 5:8 (NKJV)
From the scripture text above we see that prayers are stored in golden vials or bowls. They are stored up as measurements concerning particular issues for which the prayers are offered for. God is the determining factor, deciding the amount of prayer that must be channeled before He acts on an issue.
The system operational here is that when prayers concerning a particular issue fills up a bowl, the prayers which are not stored as words but odours (perfumes) leave the bowl and as perfumes and air freshners saturate our houses so the prayers saturate God's sanctuary and He becomes compelled to act.
Understanding this prayer principle is enough to make you decide to pray until God decides to act. You would need to pray until God decides to answer. If He doesn't answer you don't stop praying.
Another example supporting my claim is the reference to Prophet Elijah I made as found in the book of James.
"Elijah was a man subject to like passions as we are, and he prayed earnestly that it might not rain: and it rained not on the earth by the space of three years and six months." — James 5:17 (KJV)
Before Elijah showed up to tell Ahab that there would be neither rain nor dew in 1Kings 17:1, he (Elijah) had settled it all on his knees. In my opinion, what took Elijah seconds to declare took him hours to establish. As a prophet before you make prophetic declarations make sure you've settled and establish those declarations in the spirit.
One of the reasons why many of our faith declarations fall to the groung oftentimes is because we have not established it in the spirit realm. Christians would quote and recite the promises of God in His word yet they remain under the yokes of sickness, poverty and so on. Before anything takes place in the natural world, it has long taken place in the spirit realm.
Through consistency we can stamp certain things in the spirit realm and cause them to become natural realities. The only way we can establish God's will and purposes over our lives, families and territory is by maintaining a consistent prayer life.
2. NO STUDY LIFE
The second prevalent reason why our prayers are mere noise carrying no weight for significant impact is due to our lack of concise and diligent study of the word of God.
There is a form of imbalance which is prevalent in the Church today and it is captured in this second point. Most believers tilt more to the direction of prayers and allow their study lives to suffer. Others do the opposite, maintain a good study life and allow the prayer fire to quench. The church is beset with praying machines who are not worded. Worded people exist who do not have time for prayers.
This form of imbalance gives the devil a foothold to exert upon us despite our manner of godliness and fervour in carrying out spiritual activities
The duo; prayers and the word of God are inseparable. The one is not efficient without the other. For your study life to thrive effectively well, you must give yourself to fervent prayers and if you must be fervent in prayers then you must be diligent in studying the word.
A good knowledge of the word of God aids prayer and is effective for spiritual warfare. If your prayers are going to bring you the victory you desire you must mingle them with God's word. How can this be when you do not study the Bible?
For effective spiritual combat you must be worded. The word of God and prayers can be likened to bullets and a gun. The word of God as the bullets and prayer as the gun. We know what is obtainable from a gun loaded with bullets — The perpetration of great harm.
But standing alone, a bullet is no more than a harmless piece of metal, a gun, though can be used for combat on its own without bullets, cannot effect any harm. A gun and bullets standing alone can do little or nothing and so it is with the Word of God and prayer. They both cannot yield effect without each other.
The Apostles understood the principle of the Word and prayers and that was why they chooses to give themselves continually to prayers and the ministry of the word urging the people to choose deacons (Acts 6:1-5).
This understanding they possessed gave birth to strange and mighty dimensions they operated in.
The effectiveness of your prayers is tied to your understanding and the right application of God's word. Not on how many hours you spend praying, neither on the manner of tongues you speak, nor the kinds of worship songs you sing but in the strength of your study life. If you must pray and find worthy resultant effects then you must have a good study life.
3. WRONG STATE OF THE HEART
This point is on the heart. Your heart is the foundation of every kingdom function. The state of your heart when you pray determines if your prayers would get past the ceiling of the room where you are praying in.
The place of the heart in the art of prayer can never be overemphasized. Not only in prayers, your heart is the epicentre of every kingdom activity. Everything you would want to do in your walk with God is based on the state of your heart.
David, the Psalmist, understood that the state of his heart was a deciding factor in his walk with God and he needed to keep of in spirit-operational conditions.
Through Psalms you see various points when David prayed for his heart. My favourite Psalm on this subject matter is Psalm 139:23-24
"Search me, O God, and know my heart: try me, and know my thoughts:
And see if there be any wicked way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting."
Another is in Psalm 26:2
"Examine me, O Lord, and prove me; try my reins and my heart"
David expressed sincere concern over the state of his heart. He was always conducting heart checks, tests and examinations just so he maintains the right state of heart. Little wonder why God called David a man after His heart.
The state of a man's heart is very important because it is God's definition of a man. If I am asked to define my mentor I'd likely say things like He is a faithful man of God, seasoned in prayers, fasting and the word, and he is a true and accurate apostle of Christ.
As correct as it may be, if God decides to define my mentor he takes a look at my mentor's heart. The prophet, Samuel, almost fell for this deception in the definition of a man when tried to anoint Jesse's first son, Eliab as King after God rejected Saul due to Eliab's countenance and stature.
Here God shows us His perspective in the concluding part of 1 Samuel 16:7
"...for the Lord seeth not as man seeth; for man looketh on the outward appearance, but the Lord looketh on the heart "
The state of the heart is an important system for effectiveness in every given kingdom function from prayers to fasting to Bible Study to evangelism and so on. Everything that is encapsulated in true Christianity is a product of the configuration and state of your heart.
At all times, we must strive to keep our heart in check. David was given to this art and found favour with God despite his frequent slips into sin.
In Proverbs we see a charge concerning the heart;
"Keep your heart with all diligence; for out of it are the issues of life" — Proverbs 4:23
When your heart is defilled your whole being is defiled and in that state all you'd be doing in the name of prayers would just be noise making.
The more reason why serious attention must be given to the heart is found in Proverbs 23:7;
" For as he thinketh in his heart, so is he..."
You conform involuntarily to the state of your heart. What your heart is about is what your entire being would be about.
As often as you pray always do heart checks. Psalm 139:23-24 and Psalm 26:2 are helpful scriptures in performing heart check exercises. Always run frequent heart checks so you are able to maintain the right heart needed for the performance of kingdom functions.
Conclusively, you must not be carried away by shouting and sweating during prayers or by all the spiritual gymnastics we perform when we pray. True power in prayers lies on the sincerity and alignment of your heart.
Even before every other reason listed in this article, this one comes first. Your heart is key. Guard it, keep it, maintain a right state for it. Only then can our prayers be effective.
No longer would you pray weightless prayers in Jesus name. Amen!!
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