Unlocking Your Biblical Prayer Potential

Have you considered unlocking your prayer potential with biblical prayer? So many people pray and pray, with hardly any results.  They know that God said, “Ask, and you SHALL receive.” So when  prayers go unanswered, some people just give up and stop praying.

But that means that the devil wins! The Bible speaks of many things that we do that impede our prayer power. Below are some prayer blockages that we should eliminate from our lives, IF we want our prayers answered.

1. Never pray for something without first asking for increased faith. Having faith in our faith is not good enough. Instead, we must have personal faith in Jesus Christ. And that faith needs to have certainty that God WILL do what we ask of Him, and not that maybe he will do it.

Hebrews 11:6: And without faith it is impossible to please him. For whoever would draw near to God must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who seek him.

2. Never pray with any doubt. Doubting Jesus guarantees that our prayers will not be answered.

Mark 11:22-24: And Jesus answered them, “Have faith in God. Truly, I say to you, whoever says to this mountain, ‘Be taken up and cast into the sea,’ and does not doubt in his heart, but believes that what he says will come to pass, it will be done for him. Therefore I tell you, whatever you ask in prayer, believe that you have received it, and it will be yours.

James 1:6-8: But let him ask in faith, with no doubting, for he who doubts is like a wave of the sea that is driven and tossed by the wind. For that person must not suppose that a double-minded man, unstable in all his ways, will receive anything from the Lord.

3. Never pray without first forgiving everyone, from your heart. Not to forgive someone from your heart means that you prefer the devil to Jesus Christ. Forgiveness from one’s heart is not only Christian, but it may prevent psycho-somatic illness.

Matthew 6:14-15: For if you forgive men their trespasses, your heavenly Father also will forgive you; but if you do not forgive men their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses.

Matthew 18:34-35: And in anger his lord delivered him to the jailers, till he should pay all his debt. So also my heavenly Father will do to every one of you, if you do not forgive your brother from your heart.”

4. Don’t be a grouch when you pray.

Psalm 37:4: Take delight in the LORD, and he will give you the desires of your heart.

5. Don’t ask for something without first adoring and thanking God first.

Matthew 6:9-13: In the Lord’s prayer, “Hallowed be thy Name” comes before “give us this day”

6. Keep ALL of the Commandments, and try to please God if you want your prayer heard.

1 John 3:22: and we receive from him whatever we ask, because we keep his commandments and do what pleases him.

7. Don’t pray if you have evil in your heart.

Psalm 66:18: If I had cherished iniquity in my heart, the Lord would not have listened.

8. Don’t pray to the Lord halfheartedly. Pray to God with every fiber of your being.

Jeremiah 9:11-13: For I know the plans I have for you, says the LORD, plans for welfare and not for evil, to give you a future and a hope. Then you will call upon me and come and pray to me, and I will hear you. You will seek me and find me; when you seek me with all your heart.

9. Don’t be unfaithful or unloving to your spouse.

1 Peter 3:7: Likewise you husbands, live considerately with your wives, bestowing honor on the woman as the weaker sex, since you are joint heirs of the grace of life, in order that your prayers may not be hindered.

10. Don’t give up praying if your prayers weren’t answered right away. St. Monica prayed for St. Augustine for 18 years before he turned from his wicked ways.

Luke 18:1-8: And he told them a parable, to the effect that they ought always to pray and not lose heart. He said, “In a certain city there was a judge who neither feared God nor regarded man; and there was a widow in that city who kept coming to him and saying, `Vindicate me against my adversary.’  For a while he refused; but afterward he said to himself, `Though I neither fear God nor regard man, yet because this widow bothers me, I will vindicate her, or she will wear me out by her continual coming.'” And the Lord said, “Hear what the unrighteous judge says. And will not God vindicate his elect, who cry to him day and night? Will he delay long over them?  I tell you, he will vindicate them speedily. Nevertheless, when the Son of man comes, will he find faith on earth?”

11. Stay COMPLETELY away from horoscopes, tarot cards, seances, fortune telling, & Ouija boards, even if you are just doing them for “fun”. They are an abomination in God’s eyes.

Deuteronomy 18:10-12: There shall not be found among you any one who burns his son or his daughter as an offering, any one who practices divination, a soothsayer, or an augur, or a sorcerer, or a charmer, or a medium, or a wizard, or a necromancer. For whoever does these things is an abomination to the LORD; and because of these abominable practices the LORD your God is driving them out before you.

12. Don’t pray only for selfish reasons, but pray specifically for God’s will to be done.

James 4:2-3: You desire and do not have; so you kill. And you covet and cannot obtain; so you fight and wage war. You do not have, because you do not ask. You ask and do not receive, because you ask wrongly, to spend it on your passions.

13. Do not be far away from God, and receive Holy Communion often.

John 6:56: He who eats my flesh and drinks my blood abides in me, and I in him.

John 15:7: I f you abide in me, and my words abide in you, ask whatever you will, and it shall be done for you.

14. Do not have any mortal sins on your soul when you receive Holy Communion. Go to Confession first and get absolution.

1 Corinthians 11:27-30: Whoever, therefore, eats the bread or drinks the cup of the Lord in an unworthy manner will be guilty of profaning the body and blood of the Lord. Let a man examine himself, and so eat of the bread and drink of the cup.  For any one who eats and drinks without discerning the body eats and drinks judgment upon himself. That is why many of you are weak and ill, and some have died.

15. Pray in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ. This does not mean just tacking on the words “In thy name we pray” at the end of the prayer. It means to have such a close relationship with Jesus in your heart, that you can actually invoke His name as your loving Father.

John 16:23: In that day you will ask nothing of me. Truly, truly, I say to you, if you ask anything of the Father, he will give it to you in my name.

16. Remove all spiritual pride from your prayers. God loves humility, and He despises the proud and arrogant.

Luke 18:9-14: He also told this parable to some who trusted in themselves that they were righteous and despised others: “Two men went up into the temple to pray, one a Pharisee and the other a tax collector. The Pharisee stood and prayed thus with himself, `God, I thank thee that I am not like other men, extortioners, unjust, adulterers, or even like this tax collector. I fast twice a week, I give tithes of all that I get.’ But the tax collector, standing far off, would not even lift up his eyes to heaven, but beat his breast, saying, `God, be merciful to me a sinner!’ I tell you, this man went down to his house justified rather than the other; for every one who exalts himself will be humbled, but he who humbles himself will be exalted.”

James 4:6: But he gives more grace; therefore it says, “God opposes the proud, but gives grace to the humble.”

17. Don’t always pray by yourself.

Matthew 18:19-20: Again I say to you, if two of you agree on earth about anything they ask, it will be done for them by my Father in heaven.  For where two or three are gathered in my name, there am I in the midst of them.”

18. Don’t disrespect your parents.

Sirach 3:5: Whoever honors his father will be gladdened by his own children, and when he prays he will be heard.

19. Don’t disobey the Church that Jesus Christ founded.

Luke 10:16: “He who hears you hears me, and he who rejects you rejects me, and he who rejects me rejects him who sent me.”

Matthew 18:17: If he refuses to listen to them, tell it to the church; and if he refuses to listen even to the church, let him be to you as a Gentile and a tax collector.

20. Don’t trust in yourself, anything, or anybody else – Trust in God alone.

Proverbs 3:5: “Trust in the Lord with all your heart, and lean not on your own understanding; in all your ways acknowledge Him, and He shall direct your paths.”

Sirach 2:6,8,10,13: Trust in him, and he will help you; make your ways straight, and hope in him.  You who fear the Lord, trust in him, and your reward will not fail; Consider the ancient generations and see: who ever trusted in the Lord and was put to shame?  Or who ever persevered in the fear of the Lord and was forsaken? Or who ever called upon him and was overlooked? Woe to the faint heart, for it has no trust!  Therefore it will not be sheltered.

Sirach 11:21: Do not wonder at the works of a sinner, but trust in the Lord and keep at your toil; for it is easy in the sight of the Lord to enrich a poor man quickly and suddenly.

21. Stop sinning, worship God alone, and do His will.

Isaiah 1:15: When you spread forth your hands, I will hide my eyes from you; even though you make many prayers, I will not listen; your hands are full of blood.

John 9:31: We know that God does not listen to sinners, but if any one is a worshiper of God and does his will, God listens to him.

     22. Don’t live according to the flesh.

Romans 8:7-8: For the mind that is set on the flesh is hostile to God; it does not submit to God’s law, indeed it cannot; and those who are in the flesh cannot please God.

23. Don’t give God lip service when you pray.

Matthew 15:7-9:You hypocrites! Well did Isaiah prophesy of you, when he said: This people honors me with their lips, but their heart is far from me; in vain do they worship me, teaching as doctrines the precepts of men.’”

Matthew 6: 7 :“And in praying do not heap up empty phrases as the Gentiles do; for they think that they will be heard for their many words.

24. Most importantly, always praise God first and give Him thanks before asking Him for anything.

Sirach 51:11-12: I will praise thy name continually, and will sing praise with thanksgiving. My prayer was heard, for thou didst save me from destruction and rescue me from an evil plight. Therefore I will give thanks to thee and praise thee, and I will bless the name of the Lord.

For more information on this topic and many others, check out Fr. John Hampsch’s great website.