THE POWER OF PRAYER

MK.11:22,24 – And Jesus answered and *said to them, “Have faith in God…..Therefore, I say to you, all things for which you pray and ask, believe that you have received them, and they will be granted to you.

Jesus is describing a supernatural life in this passage characterized by prayer. Notice what He says just before He gives them this amazing promise about prayer, He said have faith in God. This passage could be translated literally to say, “Have God’s kind of faith”. That is quite a huge challenge but is actually the key to answered prayer. We actually do have God’s kind of faith deposited in us by the Spirit at our new birth. This faith often lies dormant in us until it is awakened by the power of the Spirit. Jude challenged us in his letter saying that “we can build ourselves up in faith by praying in the Spirit”. So apparently our faith is awakened and enhanced by the Holy Spirit, especially when we are praying in the Spirit.
There are three basic things that happen when we begin to pray, empowered by the Spirit. First and most importantly we become aware of God. He has been with us all along we were just unaware of His nearness to us and our dearness to Him. When we begin to pray for extended periods of time in the Spirit we become aware of God in our lives.
The next thing that begins to happen for us is the Holy Spirit begins to bring revelation into our lives. It is as if we were stumbling around in the dark and someone switched on the lights. Not only does the Lord become more real to us, we also see the world from different eyes. We see the importance of the work of the cross, we see hurting people all around us, and we also see God’s clear purpose for our lives as an individual.
That brings us to the final thing about prayer I want to share with you. We may feel overwhelmed by our new perception of the world, the problems that are all around us, and God’s new direction for our lives. This brings us to a new desperation in prayer, the place where we receive a supernatural power enabling us to do the things the Lord is asking us to do. That’s why Jesus could say, “All things are possible to Him that believes.”