The Principles of Prayer

James 4:3

The Bible provides guidelines for receiving answers to our prayers. Here are five NT principles for praying properly. As we look through this checklist, we might be surprised to discover why some of our own petitions are unanswered:

1.   When we pray, we are to ask in faith, “But let him ask in faith, with no doubting, for the one who doubts is like a wave of the sea that is driven and tossed by the wind” (1:6)

2.   When we pray, we are to pray with the right motives. “You ask and do not receive, because you ask wrongly, to spend it on your passions” (4:3)

3.   When we pray, we are to pray according to God’s will. “And this is the confidence that we have toward him, that if we ask anything according to his will he hears us” (1 John 5:14). James himself tells us to say, “if the Lord wills” (4:15).

4.   When we pray, we are to be in right relationship with others. “What causes quarrels and what causes fights among you? Is it not this, that your passions are at war within you? You desire and do not have, so you murder. You covet and cannot obtain, so you fight and quarrel. You do not have because you do not ask” (4:1,2)

5.   When we pray, we should have already confessed the sin in our lives. “If I had cherished iniquity in my heart, the Lord would not have listened” (Ps. 66:18)