Focused Prayer: Jesus and Effective Prayer
7 And when you pray, do not use vain repetitions as the heathen do. For they think that they will be heard for their many words.
Matthew 6, NKJV
8 “Therefore do not be like them. For your Father knows the things you have need of before you ask Him.
- Elements of Focused Prayer
- Focused on God, Not on Words
- Focused on Relationship
- Focused on Specific Needs
- Focused on Godly Outcomes
4 Where do wars and fights come from among you? Do they not come from your desires for pleasure that war in your members? 2 You lust and do not have. You murder and covet and cannot obtain. You fight and war. Yet you do not have because you do not ask. 3 You ask and do not receive, because you ask amiss, that you may spend it on your pleasures.
4 Adulterers and adulteresses! Do you not know that friendship with the world is enmity with God? Whoever therefore wants to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God.
5 Or do you think that the Scripture says in vain, “The Spirit who dwells in us yearns jealously”?
James 4:1–6 (NKJV)
6 But He gives more grace. Therefore He says:
“God resists the proud,
But gives grace to the humble.”
13 Is anyone among you suffering? Let him pray. Is anyone cheerful? Let him sing psalms. 14 Is anyone among you sick? Let him call for the elders of the church, and let them pray over him, anointing him with oil in the name of the Lord. 15 And the prayer of faith will save the sick, and the Lord will raise him up. And if he has committed sins, he will be forgiven.
16 Confess your trespasses to one another, and pray for one another, that you may be healed. The effective, fervent prayer of a righteous man avails much. 17 Elijah was a man with a nature like ours, and he prayed earnestly that it would not rain; and it did not rain on the land for three years and six months. 18 And he prayed again, and the heaven gave rain, and the earth produced its fruit.
James 5:13–18 (NKJV)
Devoted To You 