5 Principles For Praying Prayers That Get Answered

Welcome back to part 4 of our 7 part series on How to Pray. Today we are on an exciting topic: How to pray prayers that get answered! Whether you’re a new believer just learning how to pray, or someone who’s known the Lord for years, i believe today’s keys will help shine light on an often misunderstood issue.

1. Pray according to God’s will

Let’s start with the basics. If you want to pray prayers that get answered, there are few foundational principles you have to understand. For the first principle let’s look at 1 John 5:14-15 “This is the confidence we have in approaching God: that if we ask anything according to his will, he hears us. And if we know that he hears us — whatever we ask — we know that we have what we asked of him.”

The key phrase in that scripture is “according to his will”. I’ve seen people ask for some pretty crazy things from God that are completely contrary to his nature. For instance, after the presidential elections one year I saw several self-proclaiming Christians quote the Bible passage that instructs us to pray for our president. They then followed that up by saying that they were indeed praying for the president… to die!

Well, obviously that is not a prayer that God is going to answer. If you are praying prayers in an attempt to bring destruction, shame, death, disease or anything else that is contrary to the nature of God then you should not expect that prayer to be answered! Instead, pray for wisdom for the president, or even for conviction of sins that he may repent and walk in the ways of the Lord. These are prayers that we know line up with the will of God, and we can confidently trust that He will answer them.

So the first step is to learn the will of God, and the best way to do that is by reading God’s words – the Bible. He wrote you a massive love letter and He included all sorts of stories and parables to reveal His nature and His character to you. Psalm 37:4 says, “Delight yourself in the Lord; and He will give you the desires of your heart.” To know Him is to love Him! As you begin to learn about the Lord, and delight yourself in Him, the desires of your heart will be for His will.

2. Pray from a place of right standing with God

For the second principle let’s look at James 5:16 which says “…The earnest prayer of a righteous person has great power and produces wonderful results.” Notice that it says that the prayers of a righteous person has great power. Another scripture that carries this principle is John 15:7 “If you remain in me and my words remain in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be given you.” Notice there is a qualifier for the pay off of God giving us what we wish. IF we remain in Him and His words remain in us, then we can ask whatever we wish. The second key to praying prayers that get answered is simply developing a close relationship with God.

Imagine with me for a moment that you need someone to co-sign with you for a car loan. So you call up the CEO of a major company and ask him to help you out. If he doesn’t know you what do you think he’s going to say? He would say no. However, if that man’s son or daughter called him up and told him that they needed help getting the loan then he wouldn’t think twice about co-signing. What’s the difference? Relationship. You are a child of God! Take advantage of that and spend time developing a relationship with your loving, heavenly Father.

3. Let go of all unforgiveness

The next principle we’ve already touched on in an earlier video, but it’s so important that I feel the need to mention it again. If you want to pray prayers that get answered then it is absolutely crucial that you let go of all unforgiveness. Jesus said in Matthew 6 that if you don’t forgive those that have wronged you then He will not forgive you. There’s a popular phrase that goes, “To forgive is to set a prisoner free, only to realize that the prisoner was yourself.” That phrase is so true, especially when you realize the eternal consequences of unforgiveness. Allow God to exchange the hurt you’ve experienced with life-giving love. He gives beauty for ashes, strength for fear, gladness for mourning, and peace for despair.

4. Persistence in faith

There’s another principle that Jesus talked about in a parable in Luke 11, and that principle is persistence. However, I’m going to be talking more about that principle in the next video. So you’ll have to stick around for the last installment for us to break that one down.

5. Pray expectantly

If you will put these four principles into practice in your life: 1) Pray according to God’s will. 2) Pray from a place of right standing with God 3) Let go of all unforgiveness and 4) Persistence in faith then you can confidently trust that God will answer your prayer the minute that you pray it! Which is the fifth and final principle I wanted to discuss – praying with expectancy. We discussed in an earlier chapter how doubting when you pray makes you a double-minded man who should not expect anything from God, but when you put these principles into place you can put away doubt for good!

Now that we’ve learned the keys to praying prayers that get answered let’s pray a very simple prayer together. God guarantees to answer this prayer when prayed sincerely from a faith-filled heart:
“Dear Heavenly Father,
Help me to love you Lord, with all my heart, soul, mind and strength. Help me to love my neighbor as I love myself.
in Jesus name,
amen”

That simple prayer can change the world if enough of us will pray it!
Thanks for watching! Stay tuned for the next video on what to do when our prayers seem to remain unanswered!