The Aim of Prayer

Kenneth Copeland

Early in my ministry, I learned a vital lesson: For any effort to be successful, it must be backed by prayer. Effective praying is the key to success in every area of life. Your aim in prayer is to be effective. Jesus is the perfect example of One who knows how to pray and get results. He spent hours separated from people, praying and fellowshipping with His heavenly Father. The time He spent in prayer prepared Him to minister effectively.

As a believer, you can achieve the same results Jesus did during His earthly ministry – and more. Jesus said, “He that believeth on me, the works that I do shall he do also; and greater works than these shall he do; because I go unto my Father” (John 14:12). These “greater works” can be accomplished today, but only by believers who have a deep, sincere prayer life with God. With a solid foundation from The WORD of God, you will understand the basic principles of prayer: its purpose, how to pray and how to get results.

What Is Prayer?
As the foundation of every Christian endeavour, prayer play a vital role in living a successful and fruitful Christian life. Time spent with God is vital to your success. Study the lives of the great men and women of God from the past, and you’ll see the strong emphasis they placed on prayer. Without prayer, they never would have been able to achieve such tremendous results.

But what is prayer exactly?

Prayer is not an emotional release or an escape valve. It is much more than just asking God for a favour. Most important, prayer is not a religious exercise. God responds to faith, so just repetition and beautiful words do not get the ear of God. Jesus said in Matthew 6:7, “But when ye pray, use not vain repetitions, as the heathen do: for they think that they shall be heard for their much speaking.” Prayer is an attitude. It is communicating and fellowshipping with God. You can live in an attitude of prayer every moment, being in constant contact with your heavenly Father.

You may say, “But I can’t spend all my time in prayer!” Yes, you can! In 1 Thessalonians 5:17, the Apostle Paul instructed the Church to “pray without ceasing.” Luke 18:1 says, “Men ought always to pray, and not to faint.” The No. 1 priority in God’s heart is to spend quality time with us daily. We need to be able to hear His voice and follow the promptings of His Holy Spirit. Living in continual fellowship with Him is possible every day for the believer.

The Blessing of Fellowship
The more time you spend in God’s presence, the more you will act and think like Him. He has already given you His nature. Fruit bearing comes through prayer. Jesus always separated Himself from people to spend time in prayer. Spending time with the Father in fellowship and prayer kept Him in tune with the Holy Spirit. Fellowshipping with God will cause your desires, attitudes, actions and beliefs to line up with His. Then, when you pray, you will simply by voicing His will. The reality of God will burn into your consciousness. You will not be crying out to a God who is 92 million miles away. He will be right there – closer than a brother (Proverbs 18:24). As you draw nigh to God, He will draw nigh to you (James 4:8). No danger, no circumstance, no problem in this world can come near you with God Almighty by your side!

Fellowshipping with God will give birth to a deep, strong faith and trust in His ability. Your prayer life will take on new meaning.

Plus, prayer is vital for our fellowship with one another (Ephesians 4:14-16). Compare the Body of Christ to a brick building. The bricks would topple if they were not joined together. Mortar forms those bricks into a solid, impenetrable wall. It is held together, or made useful, by the effectual working of every part. In the same wat, the power of love, through prayer and intercession, is the mortar which knits the Body of Christ together. Each member, or “brick,” contributes his part by building up the Body and strengthening it through prayer. If one is injured or weakened in some way, the others are able to stand in prayer and make up for that weakness.

Boldly Before The Throne
In order to get results in prayer, you must be convinced that God wants to answer your prayers. In fact, He is as ready and willing to answer you as He was to answer Jesus during His earthly ministry. This may be difficult to believe, but it is true. I remember how amazed I was to learn about God’s willingness to answer my prayers because I had always thought of myself as unworthy. Why would God bother to answer my prayers? Ignorance of His WORD kept me from receiving His best in my life. Once I realized the importance of The WORD of God, my attitude changed. I realized God does not see His children as unworthy. Notice how Jesus prayed: “…that the world may know that thou hast sent me, and hast loved them, as thou hast loved me” (John17:23). Just think! God loves you and me as much as He loves Jesus! We are worthy!

Knowing God is ready to answer your prayers will make you serious about your prayer life. Because you are a child of God, you have an open invitation from Him to come into the throne room at any time.

Never take this prayer privilege lightly. You do not have to enter His presence crawling on your hands and knees. You can boldly stand before God without a sense of guilt, shame or condemnation. Hebrews 4:16 says, “Let us therefore come boldly unto the throne of grace, that we may obtain mercy, and find grace to help in time of need.”

The Role of Faith
It pleases God to answer our prayers, but He can only manifest Himself in the earth through believers who are operating in faith. Faith makes prayer effective and it pleases God (Hebrews 11:6). However, there will be no strong faith without deep and intimate fellowship with the Father. This is the very heart of a successful prayer life. Fellowship is the mother of faith because you can only put your faith and confidence in God to the extent you know Him. Just as in any relationship, spending time in fellowship with your heavenly Father is the only way to become personally acquainted with Him.

Not long after I became a Christian, I asked a minister to pray for me. I was expecting to hear a long, beautiful prayer – one that would cause people to fall on their knees in repentance before God! What I heard was just the opposite. He laid his hand on my chest, bowed his head, and said, “Lord, bless him. Meet his every need.” He then turned and walked away. I was left standing there thinking, How could he do that to me? I have big problems. It should have taken at least 20 minutes of hard praying to cover everything. The major difference separating that minister and me was the degree of faith at work in our lives. He was operating in faith, praying exactly what he meant. I was a baby Christian, looking for a physical manifestation of some kind. The length of time or how hard you pray makes no difference. When you pray in faith, you have confidence in God’s willingness to use His power to answer your prayer.

The man who has confidence in God is very difficult to defeat. He knows, regardless of what comes, he can pray and God will move in his behalf. The key then, to success in prayer, is expecting results. Many Christians think, I’ll pray and maybe something will happen. They say, “I’m just hoping and praying.” If you are only hoping to get results, you will never receive from God. “Hoping to get” is not the same as “believing you receive.” The promise of God bring hope in hopeless situations. However, hope has no substance by itself. “I hope to get healed someday.” You hope to receive someday, but someday never comes. Faith brings hope into reality and gives it substance. Hebrews 11:1 says, “Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.” The object of hope becomes a reality through faith. Hope is always in the future. Faith is always now.

Faith causes you to receive from God. The believer who is operating in faith believes God’s power went to work the moment he prayed. As a born-again believer, you have everything you need to succeed in this life. When you pray in faith and confidence, all of heaven’s resources are at your disposal! Determine in your heart you will maintain consistent, intimate fellowship with God so your prayer life will be based on personal knowledge of Him. Then let your journey begin!