Obviously, there’s some effort involved in praying the true prayer of faith.
It takes more work to pray that kind of prayer than it does just to fall on the floor crying and begging God to do something. But such work is very scriptural. The Bible tells us to do it. Reminding us of the Israelites’ failure to believe God in the Old Testament, it exhorts us to labor and exert ourselves and strive diligently to enter the rest of faith.
Our flesh doesn’t like to hear that because it is naturally lazy. Carnally speaking, we don’t want to have to labor for anything—including faith. We want a formula. We want a quick fix. We want a spiritual bullet that will bring answers to our prayers without requiring us to apply much effort.
Too bad. There is no such thing.
It takes time and energy to develop our faith. It takes renewing our minds to the written Word of God and fellowshipping in the spirit with the living Word Himself, our Lord Jesus Christ.
To get to the point where we’re truly believing and not just pretending, we must spend precious minutes and hours in personal interaction with God over His Word. Instead of rushing through a few verses of Scripture, we must watch and wait for the Holy Spirit to reveal to our hearts what those verses truly mean. We must roll up our spiritual sleeves and spend some time at work in the Word.
Scripture Reading: Hebrews 3:7 – 19
On the chilly March night in 1972 when Lynne Hammond took her first step into a life of Spirit-led prayer, she had no idea what was about to happen. All she knew was the hunger in her heart for God wouldn’t let her sleep. In the few short months she’d been born again, her desire to fellowship with Him had grown so strong she could hardly contain it. “Help me, God!” she cried. “I want to know you. I want to be able to talk to you. Please, teach me to pray!”
Suddenly, a heavenly presence flooded the room. Lynne sensed waves of spiritual fire sweeping over her and a beautiful language began to flow like a river from within her. Although she’d never heard of the baptism of the Holy Spirit, she knew instantly, without a doubt—this was God!
What began that night soon blossomed into a life of prayer that ultimately became a ministry of prayer when, in 1980, Lynne and her husband, Mac, founded Living Word Christian Center in Minneapolis, Minnesota. Under Lynne’s leadership, the prayer ministry at Living Word has become an internationally recognized model for developing effective pray-ers in the local church.
A teacher and an author, Lynne publishes a newsletter called Prayer Notes, has written numerous books, and currently serves as the national prayer director for Daughters for Zion. Her passion for inspiring and leading others into the life of Spirit-led prayer continues to take her around the world to minister to believers whose heart cry, like hers, is “Lord, teach me to pray!”