"I know whom I have believed, and am persuaded that he is able to keep that which I have committed unto him against that day" (2 Tim. 1:12).

Judging strictly by appearances, it might seem that the church of the Lord Jesus Christ is doing quite well in the area of prayer these days.

Pick up almost any church bulletin in any city and you'll find listed midweek prayer meetings, prayer luncheons, prayer requests, perhaps even a printed prayer for the week.

Walk into any church service and you'll hear at least one prayer, probably two or three, before it's done. Listen in on the conversations of Christians and you'll hear them say, "I need you to pray for me, Brother." And, no doubt, you'll hear the same response every time: "Oh, yes. I will, I will!"

One would think, with all this talk about prayer, the windows of heaven would be opened wide, spilling the blessings of God upon us. Jesus plainly promised that "whatsoever ye shall ask in my name, that will I do, that the Father may be glorified in the Son" (John 14:13).

So we should be swimming in waves of revival, prosperity, healing and miracles of every sort.

Our every conversation should be overflowing with joyful reports of answered prayer. The Church should be bursting forth with such earthshaking evidence of God's mighty delivering power, and sinners should be banging on our doors by the thousands, begging us to show them the way of salvation.

But clearly, that is not the case.

I do not mean to say we have seen no results from our praying. There have always been glimmers and even lightning strikes of the power and presence of God throughout the earth. There have been praying people and even praying congregations here and there who have moved mountains as they lifted their hearts to God, and every day their numbers are increasing.

Yet even so, we must admit that in our day, the Church as a whole has not experienced what the Bible has promised would come to us through prayer.

Corporately, we have not seen buildings shake under the power of God as we unite in prayer as the church did in Acts 4. Individually, we have not been able to speak with absolute certainty the words of the Apostle John: "And this is the confidence that we have in him, that, if we ask any thing according to his will, we know that we have the petitions that we desired of him" (1 John 5:14-15).

As a result, many Christians have allowed prayer to slip from their list of priorities. (One survey reported the average Christian invests less than two minutes a day at it.) Many others have struggled through the disappointments of unanswered prayer, trying to explain away their lack of results with theological arguments. "Well, " they say, "perhaps it simply wasn't God's will this time."

But I believe every true Christian knows deep in his heart that despite what the theologians may say, our problem is not that God is saying a loving "no" to many of our requests. It's that our prayers too often lack the depth that heaven requires.

They seem to come from the head, not the heart. Instead of being propelled from our spirit toward God with an earnestness and faith that cannot be denied, they often wobble from our uncertain lips and fall helplessly to the floor. They have a form of godliness, but they deny the power thereof.

In times past, we were fooled by that form. We were like the shopper standing in the department store who sees the mannequin out of the corner of his eye and, thinking for a split second the mannequin is real, the shopper turns to speak to it.

But, praise God, we're not being fooled any more. We've looked that prayer mannequin square in the face and said, "You're not the real thing!" We've turned our faces toward God and begun crying out as the disciples did two thousand years ago, "Lord, teach us to pray!" And He is answering us. He is restoring to us, not just the principles nor the mechanics, but the very spirit of prayer.

I Know Whom I Have Believed
It is that spirit we most desperately need. For although principles and formulas are valuable teaching tools, many times we have focused on them to the exclusion of God Himself. We have unwittingly grieved His tender Spirit by approaching Him almost as if He were a machine instead of a person.

We've followed step-by-step formulas as though by systematically pushing scriptural buttons and pulling spiritual levers, we could get Him to produce the results we desire.

Many of us have even recognized the truth-that it takes faith to receive from God. So we've studied the Bible, confessed particular verses over and over and memorized every key to spiritual success. Yet too often, instead of causing us to flourish in faith and prayer, our endeavors have left us dry and spiritless.

Why is that? It is because we can't have real faith just by knowing principles. Real faith comes from knowing the Person behind the principles. That's why the apostle Paul in his great statement of faith wrote, "I know whom I have believed, and am persuaded that he is able to keep that which I have committed unto him against that day" (2 Tim. 1:12).

Paul didn't say, "I know what I have believed." He didn't say, "I know the principles and steps I have believed." He said, "I know the person of the Lord Jesus Christ."

You see, real praying comes from the heart hungry to know God. It comes when we cry out, as David did in Psalm 42: "As the hart pants and longs for the water brooks, so I pant and long for You, O God. My inner self thirsts for God, for the living God (deep calls to roaring; deep at the thunder of Your waterspouts; all Your breakers and Your rolling waves have gone over me)" (vv. 1-2, 7 AMP).

When a person is hungry, the deepest part of his spirit begins to call out to God for something to fill that hunger. He might not even know what it is he is calling for, but God knows, and this cry touches the depths of His heart and causes Him to respond.

If we want true power in prayer, we must cultivate that kind of hunger. We must let the deep within us begin to call out to the deep in God. We must desire to know Jesus with such an intensity that every other desire pales beside it.

The fact is, however, that kind of desperate desire doesn't grow in the hearts of those whose relationships with God consist of simply going to church a couple times a week. It doesn't come to those who fellowship with God only at public gatherings of believers.

No, if we are to have true spiritual passion, we must develop a love affair with the Lord, and love affairs are never in public! We must seek out times of private, daily communion with Him, times of waiting before Him and worshiping Him. Instead of being content just to check in with Him now and then, we must learn to lift our hearts to Him continually, moment by moment.

You Can Pray Like Elijah!
Such constant and intimate fellowship is the key to vibrant and powerful prayer. For Jesus said, "If you live in Me-abide vitally united to Me-and My words remain in you and continue to live in your hearts, ask whatever you will and it shall be done for you" (John 15:7 AMP).

The word "ask" in that last verse has a far deeper meaning than most people realize. It implies you and God are so intertwined, your life and His life so closely joined together, that when you ask Him something, it's not really just you asking, it's Him asking, too.

That's the kind of asking that the Old Testament prophet Elijah did. "Oh, Sister Hammond," you say, "I couldn't possibly pray with the power of Elijah." Why not? The Bible says he was a human being just like we are (see James 5:16-18). He had all the same struggles and natural weaknesses we have.

Elijah is not set forth as an unusual fellow who lived off in the spiritual stratosphere somewhere. He is given to us as an inspiration and an example of earnest praying. Yet his prayers changed the course of nature. They changed people and nations. They projected God in full force to the world.

How was he able to do that? Read 1 Kings 17 and you'll find out. There we see Elijah coming boldly before Ahab, the wicked king of Israel, announcing, "As the Lord, the God of Israel lives, before whom I stand, there shall not be dew or rain these years, but according to My word" (v. 1, AMP).

Notice Elijah didn't just meander around. He didn't say, "Well, you know, I feel kind of impressed that it might be the Lord's will for rain not to fall around here for a while." No, he was firm and clear. He said, "Here is how it will be. Absolutely. Period. End of conversation."

Elijah reveals the reason for his confidence and power in the phrase "the Lord, the God of Israel, before whom I stand." That was the secret of Elijah's praying. He had stood in the power and presence of God. He didn't just make up those words he spoke to Ahab on his own.

Elijah received them from God Himself. In the times of fellowship, such as those he'd spent beside the brook Cherith alone with God, Elijah had come again and again before Him in prayer, and because he had stood in that place, he could speak and pray with world-shaking authority.

Make a Change
You and I have a far greater covenant than Elijah did. Through the precious blood of Jesus, God has opened for us a new and living way so that we can come boldly before the throne of grace to obtain mercy and find grace to help in time of need (Heb 4:16).

God has given us a freedom of access to Him the Old Testament saints never knew. He's made available to us all the resources and power of heaven. But what have we done with those privileges? For the most part, we've done very little.

We've been too busy making a living or watching television or perhaps even participating in church activities to take advantage of them. As a church, we have pacified our spiritual hunger with the junk food the world has offered us, while we've let the dust collect on our Bibles and the cobwebs grow in our prayer closets.

Right now you may be thinking, Yes, it's true. I have done that in the past, but I want to change it now. What can I do? Simply repent before God. Honestly acknowledge that you have desired other things more than Him.

You cannot pretend to be hungry when you are not. But you can begin to call out to Him and say, "Lord, please forgive me and make me hungry for You." You can, from this day on, say as David did, "Your face, Lord, I will seek" (Ps 27:8 NIV).

Set aside time to fellowship with God in prayer and in the Word every day, not out of a sense of religious duty, but because you want to whet your spiritual appetite and you know the fragrance of His presence as you meet Him daily in some quiet place will stir the hunger in your heart.

It will awaken the craving that sleeps within every true child of God. It will remind you of how empty you are without Him and cause you to cry out from the depths of your soul, "Lord, I want to know You!"

In the natural course of this earth, wherever there's a vacuum, that vacuum causes the air to rush in and fill its emptiness. Thus, the wind blows there. The same is true in the spirit.

If we'll empty ourselves of the distractions and desires of this world and crave Jesus alone, He will rush into our lives with the wind of the Holy Spirit. He will meet us with an intensity and an outpouring we have, until now, only read about in the pages of books.

We will know not just the form of prayer, but its power.

Source: One Word From God Can Change Your Prayer Life
by Kenneth and Gloria Copeland.
Excerpt permission granted by Harrison House Publishers