Guidelines for Answered Prayer

I thought it would be good to post some guidelines for answered prayer. I'm not sure where I got these, but they've been proven in the testing field of life, so I recommend them for you.

1) Envision a Clear-cut Objective - Be Specific!

Too many people pray for "everything and everyone;" in generalities. You know, like "God bless everyone in the whole world!" So how do we know if God has answered that prayer? It would take quite awhile to ask everyone to find out!

When we pray, we should ask for exactly what we want God to do. "God, heal John of cancer," etc. Be specific in your prayer requests.

2) Develop a Burning Desire for the Objective - See it Accomplished!

Often, I've found we pray for things we don't really care about. And if we do care about them, we certainly don't act like it. Imagine a little kid asking his father for a new bike. He's going to ask his Dad once and leave it at that, right? HA! Yet we often ask God for something ONCE and then drop it. Sounds like we really care about the subject . . . ya think?

Remember the woman and the judge in Scripture? She got what she wanted because she never stopped coming to the judge with her request. Or how about the guy who kept knocking on his neighbor's door for food to feed his family? Knock, knock, knock. God is looking for this kind of persistence. If at first you don't succeed and all . . .

While we're developing a burning desire, we should envision our objective actually accomplished. See your prayer in your mind's eye having been answered. Believe it has already happened.

3) Pray for Assurance - The Rhema Word!

Once we see our objective accomplished in our mind's eye, we should then start asking God to give us the assurance that he WILL answer this specific prayer. In short, that's called the Rhema Word (Greek). Once we get that assurance, it's all over but the shouting . . . and that's the next point:

4) Start shouting it out!

Act as if it has already happened. If you'd like- because it WILL happen- God has said so (remember step 3 above?) and you KNOW it deep in your spirit (Gotta LOVE that Rhema Word!).

Now to be sure, without God's assurance (Rhema), don't move on to number four. Prayer is not magic, nor can you force God into doing your will. If you start proclaiming the end result without any assurance that God has given it to you, you're going to be disappointed.

There you have it- some nice proven guidelines for answered prayer. Try it- it works!