Lesson 26: Talking with God in Prayer (part 5)

Read: John 16:16-33 - www.bible.com/bible/59/joh.16.esv

Lastly, let's look at some of the conditions God places on us for a vital and real prayer relationship with Him. First, we must come to Him with our whole heart. In Deuteronomy 4:29 Moses told the people of Israel they were to “seek the Lord your God, and you will find Him if you search for Him with all your heart and all your soul." This same command is found in Jeremiah 29:13, as well as in 2 Timothy 2:22 where it adds the word "pure heart."

What does it mean to seek God with my whole heart or with a pure heart? I heard a woman once say of her husband she had chased him until he caught her. This has the same implication as God wanting us to seek Him with a whole heart. God wants us to seek Him, to long for Him, to yearn for Him until He has our complete attention. We haven't far to go to find Him because He is always with us; it is we who need to have our attention completely, totally, entirely fastened onto Him. There must be no distraction. We must have the same desire for Him those lovers we talked about in a previous lesson have for each other. Granted, there is not a physical relationship involved between us and God, but there is the same devotion we are to show Him. I am not saying this to make our relationship with God something it is not, I am only reminding us of the intensity with which we are to seek Him.


We must request only whatever is in accordance with God’s word and will. But how can we do so if, for example, we are praying for a friend’s healing from cancer? Do we know if it is God’s will to heal them or to let them suffer with cancer or to take them Home? We will rarely know those things. So how should we pray for someone who is ill? Look back a couple of lessons ago – what is God’s will for each and every person’s life? We pray for those things. We pray, in the case of a believer who is ill, God will be glorified through this person before all who are caring for this individual – doctors, nurses, hospital staff, visitors, and so on. If God then moves us to pray for physical healing, we must do so with complete faith, with no doubting at all, and remember to give God the glory when He heals (2 Samuel 7:21, 25-29; Nehemiah 1:8-10; John 15:7).

We must pray in obedience to God’s word. Isn’t this the same as what we just looked at? It should be, but sometimes it isn’t. Praying for what is in the will of God is usually praying for what we want. Praying in obedience to God's word, however, is praying for what the Bible says rather than for what we desire. For example, can you imagine anyone ever wanting to pray the prayer Elijah did up on Mount Caramel when he challenged the 470 priests of Baal? He had to know he would invoke the wrath of Jezebel, which is exactly what happened. But he prayed in obedience to what God had told him to ask (1 Kings 18:36; Psalms 119:145; John 15:7; 1 John 3:22).

*Think of a time you were suddenly burdened to pray something specific for a friend or relative – what happened?