One of my strong beliefs is that the amount of time that I give to God in prayer will determine how much power I have with God when I do pray. Not everyone who prays is heard by God, in fact probably not very many are heard. An interesting verse is in Hebrews 5:7 and it says;

“In the days of His flesh, He offered up both prayers and supplications with loud crying and tears to the One able to save Him from death, and He was heard because of His piety.”

“He was heard because of His piety.” You might have thought that He was heard because He was God’s son. His influence with the Father was based on how He lived His life, not based on who He was. Jesus was not heard by God the Father based on position or relationship, and we are not heard because we are children of God or Christians.

So for yourself fill in the blank, “I am heard by God because_________. There are about a dozen factors mentioned in Bible that determine how much God listens to us. I also believe that there is in our inner person, our heart, a sense that we are being heard or not. As that sense of being a person that God is paying attention to grows, our desire to pray will grow as well because our praying will be making a difference, and we will know it.

An example of one of the 12 factors determining our prayer power is in 1 Peter 3:7 “You husbands in the same way, live with your wives in an understanding way, as with someone weaker, since she is a woman; and show her honor as a fellow heir of the grace of life, so that your prayers will not be hindered.”

“Our prayers will be hindered” This passage is saying that if we are poor husbands God doesn’t hear our prayers. If that is me being rude to my wife, when the “Five days of prayer” rolls around I am going to find a dozen other things to do instead of pray.

So, if you find yourself being one of those people who struggles to make it to prayer, make that the motive that you use to motivate yourself to come. When you go to prayer and give God some time you will begin to see and understand what is your problem, what are the barriers that are keeping you home instead of in the prayer room,

I want to be a person of influence, a person of power. When I gather with the Body of Christ to pray I will begin to see my own flaws, blind spots, and character deficiencies, and I will be motivated to do something about it.