Effective Prayer
Written by Trisha Khoo
"Now this is the confidence that we have in Him, 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 the petitions that we have asked of Him."
1 John 5:14-15
The Bible tells us in 1 John 5:14-15 that we have a prayer answering God. And while John writes about this confidence that we have, he quickly qualifies it with the important phrase in verse 14 – if we ask anything according to His will. The key to the effectiveness of our prayer is to pray in line with God's will.
We need a paradigm shift in the way we view prayer. If we come to God with our shopping list of wants and desires, we set ourselves up to be disappointed. Not that God doesn't answer them, but in His sovereignty He may hold back or in His goodness and mercy, grant some of these requests.
On the other hand, if we come to God with the objective to build our relationship with Him, to know Him and respond to His love and mercy, we will grow. It is out of this growth and this deeper intimacy with God that we begin to know and understand His will. And when we do, we would naturally be able to put God's Kingdom before ourselves, His will before our desires and His purposes before our plans. It is from this place of intimacy with God that we will be able to pray according to His will, with extremely effective results.
At Covenant Vision, we are committed to praying effectively. Covenant Vision Prayer Powerhouse meetings are held every Monday at 7.30pm. This prayer ministry began in 1991 as Rev Francis and a group of people decided to meet at his home every week to pray and the meetings have continued to this day. It is a platform to come together corporately to travail in prayer for the will of God to be done, not only in our lives, but more so in our families, in our marketplaces, in our church, in our nation and in the rest of the world.
Covenant Vision Christian Church's monthly Corporate Prayer meeting is held every first Monday of the month at 7.30pm with more of a focus on the church and the work that God is leading us to do. It is, likewise, an avenue for our community to prayer together corporately for God's will in our church and the lives of our people.
Through these meetings and other prayer initiatives, we have seen God move powerfully, bringing us through many dimensions of prayer, including repentance, confession, intercession, supplication, and celebration, just to name a few. And through prayer, we have been able to see God's hand move, impacting lives and events around us.