Ask According to God's Word | Derek Prince

 8. Ask According to God’s Word

The last of the basic conditions for answered prayer is praying in accordance with the Word of God. This is intimately related to the previous condition—being directed by the Holy Spirit.

You see, the great issue in prayer is the will of God. If I am praying according to the will of God, then, as we have seen in Scripture, I know that God hears me. And if I know that God hears me, I know that I have the petition that I ask.

How do I know the will of God? Where is the will of God revealed? The answer is in His Word. The great revelation of the will of God is the Word of God. And the Word of God is packed from beginning to end with divine promises. The apostle Peter calls them “exceedingly great and precious promises” (2 Peter 1:4). And do you know what those promises are? The promises of God are the will of God.

Thus, when you find a promise that relates to your situation and meets your need, that promise is God’s will for you. God never promised anything that was not His will; anything else would be inconsistent. Suppose you came to Him and said, “Lord, You promised.” He would not say, “Yes, I promised but

I don’t want to do it.”

This last condition, then, is the great secret that clinches our life of prayer: We pray according to God’s will as revealed in His Word.

Let’s look at two examples that illustrate this. The first is in the Old Testament; the second is in the New Testament.

In 1 Chronicles we find an incident in the life of David. At this juncture David was established in his kingdom. He was victorious in battle, he had peace, he had abundance, he had a beautiful house to live in. As he sat in his beautiful house and thought about things, this idea came to him: Here am I living in this beautiful house of cedar, but the Ark of God is still in a tent (see 1 Chronicles 17:1).

So he said to the prophet Nathan, “I’m going to build a house for the Ark of the Lord.” Nathan said, “That’s a wonderful idea. Go ahead and do it.” But that night God spoke to Nathan and said, “Go and tell my servant David: You are not to build a house for Me; your son is going to do that. But do you know what I’m going to do for you? I am going to build you a house.”

Is that not wonderful? That is also an example of “exceeding abundantly above.” David tried to think of the greatest thing he could do for God, and God responded with something greater. You understand that the word house in the Bible does not mean primarily a building, but a family, a household. God was promising David that his posterity and his line would endure, and also that one of his sons would sit upon his throne and rule over all Israel and over all nations forever and ever.

When he got the message, “King David went in and sat before the Lord” (1 Chronicles 17:16).

I like that picture of sitting before the Lord. I do not know how it is with you, but if I kneel too long I get distinctly uncomfortable. There is nothing in the Bible that tells us we can only pray kneeling. In fact, on the Day of Pentecost when the Holy Spirit fell they were sitting.

So David came and relaxed before Almighty God and said something on this order: “God, You have been so good to me, I want to take a little time to appreciate You and thank You for Your goodness.” Then David said this: “And now, O Lord, the word which You have spoken concerning Your servant and concerning his house, let it be established forever, and do as You have said” (17:23, emphasis added).

Those five short words of one syllable each contain the essence of effective praying. Do as You have said. Lord, You said it; please do it. If God has said He will do it and you ask Him to do it, you can know He is going to do it. His promises are the revelation of His will.

Do you see the beauty of this prayer? Let the thing that You have spoken, Lord, be established. I did not speak it, Lord; I did not think of it. It is far above what I can think of, wish for or ask. But, Lord, You said it; please do it.

Notice also that David had the right motive in praying. In verse 24 we read: “Let it be established, that Your name may be magnified forever.” David did not ask that he would be glorified, but that the name of the Lord would be glorified. This is a perfect pattern prayer. “Let the thing that You have spoken be established. Do as You have said, that Your name may be magnified forever.”

This is the great key to answered prayer. If we do not know what God has promised in His Word, how can we go to Him and say, “Lord, You promised; please do it”? We must bring the Word and the Spirit together in our prayers, because then the whole creative power and ability of Almighty God is available to us.

Think about it: this is how God brought the universe into being. “By the word of the Lord the heavens were made, and all the host of them by the breath [or Spirit] of His mouth” (Psalm 33:6). The Word and the Spirit of God together brought all creation into being. When you and I bring the Spirit and the Word together, then He will do exceeding abundantly above all that we can ask or think.

Here is a New Testament example. I sometimes ask people, “Apart from the personal events in the life of the Lord Jesus, what would you consider to be the greatest single miracle that ever took place in the life of a human being?” I have received a variety of answers. Sometimes people say, for instance, the experience of Lazarus being raised after four days in the tomb. I would not argue with any of the answers, but my personal feeling is that the greatest single miracle that ever took place in the life of an ordinary human being was when the Virgin Mary conceived in her womb and became the mother of the Son of God.

And how did it come about? When she said one simple phrase.

The angel told Mary what was ordained of God. He then explained that the power of the Holy Spirit would overshadow her and said, “For with God nothing will be impossible” (Luke 1:37). In the margin of my Bible is an alternative translation: “No word of God shall be without power.” Or it could be rendered: Every word of God contains within it the power for its own fulfillment.

Mary received the word of God brought from the angel. And as she received it, she received the power that brought fulfillment. Here is her response, and our pattern for prayer in the beautiful King James Version: “Behold the handmaid of the Lord; be it unto me according to thy word” (Luke 1:38, kjv).

With those words the greatest miracle in human experience was ushered in. You and I can pray on this level as well. If we want the great things, the “exceeding abundantly above all that you can ask or think” things, the answer is to pray according to God’s Word.

These two prayers of David and of Mary are intimately connected with the coming of the Lord Jesus. David was the Lord’s great ancestor, the one God promised would always have a son on the throne. The promise was fulfilled through the birth of Jesus, conceived in the womb of the Virgin Mary.

In each case the key to answered prayer was the same. “God, You said it; You do it.”

You will never pray a higher or more effective prayer than when, guided by the Holy Spirit, you go to the Word, find the promise that relates to you and your situation and say, “Lord, You said it; You do it.” If you do this, having met the previous conditions for prayer, you will discover the secret of effective praying.