Prayer Structure

This post was written four years ago and gives a simple overview of the structure of EVERY prayer in the Bible. This post is getting "googled" A LOT because the Doctrine of Prayer is actually more complicated than people realize. It only takes a couple of questions to get people to realize they haven't understood their own beliefs about prayer! For instance, do you believe prayer effects things? Does it change God's Mind? If you are interested in a more recent look at the complex doctrine of prayer, please go to: "What is Prayer?"

First of all, you can and should talk to God about everything and anything. This is Fellowship with God. Prayer is specifically those times you talk with God when you make a request.

You know there is a difference between hanging out with a friend and specifically asking a friend to do something for you. You tend not to feel pressure when you hang out with your friend because there are no objectives. However, when you need your friend to do something for you, you feel pressure and respond by being intentional. You KNOW there is a right and wrong way to ask you friend for help.

Likewise, it is the same way with God. For a person to believe he can ask God for help in any manner he seems fit and God has to respond to him, is to actually see himself as HIGHER than God. If you humble yourself to your friends, than you REALLY ought to humble yourself to God. Saying that there isn't a specific way to pray (ask God for help) and continue to humble yourself to your friends when you need their help is to justify yourself...which is pride.

To that end...

EVERY prayer in the Bible that was answered consisted of four parts:
1. Praise (recognition of God)
2. Building of faith through experience or understanding
3. Reference to Justice
4. Request

When people pray something different than this, they are praying a prayer that is NOT in the Bible.

1. Praise (recognition of God)
We have to recognize God and God’s power through praise. Our focus is on God as the source. Remember, it takes faith to pray and this is the beginning of our building that faith.

2. Building of faith through experience or understanding
The second step is to reference something that proves our faith. Remember, faith comes through understanding and/or experience. This is a continuation of the faith building process. We may reference an experience we had that proves God’s ability or we can reference understanding, usually a Biblical passage that proves God’s ability.

3. Reference to Justice
We know the goal is to ask God for a value, which is the fourth and final phase. How can we justly ask God for a value? We need to bring justice into the prayer. The third phase of the prayer focuses on us either showing why someone deserves a reward or why someone deserves a penalty. Referencing justice completes the building of faith process. It serves as the final proof to us that we can expect to get a response from God.

4. Request
Now, we are ready for the part we are all familiar with: asking a value. The final phase of the prayer is to express our will and ask God for a value. This is where we have to be careful.

In the cases where we are requesting a punishment, when we request the value, we can’t pray a specific punishment because that would be witchcraft. We pray for a result. First of all, it is best to pray for a result because God might have a better way than ours to bring about the result.

More importantly, the process of prayer finishes with us turning the situation over to God. So it shouldn’t matter to us how God brings about the result. The decision to turn it over to God must be final and made by faith. When we turn the situation over, we are telling God we won’t try to take justice into our own hands.

God doesn’t move to invoke justice until we assure Him we won’t do it. This shows God’s mercy. If God did invoke justice before we turned it over, it would require us to get a punishment if we ended up taking justice into our own hands at a later date.

Prayer is the expression of our will with faith and has to be about things within our control. (The previous post showed that most people are actually practicing witchcraft when they pray!) This would include things that may happen to us in the future that are seemingly random. For example, we can pray that we won’t get sick. However, our prayer needs to be over things we can control. We can’t control our exposure to disease, but we can control our health. The prayer for this example should be to request a result that focuses on our health or protection.

This brings up another issue: we need to follow God’s example and ask for what we want (e.g., health), instead of what we don’t want (not sick). The Bible says God “…calls things that are not as though they were.” (Romans 4:17)

We are not supposed to ignore what exists. We can’t call things that are as though they are not. We can’t say, “There is no brick wall” and then try to run through it. When it comes to illness, the individual who is ill shouldn’t be saying, “I’m not ill”. He should say, “I am healed”.

When we pray, we can choose to have our reward now or for eternity. We can choose to have a reward for ourselves or a value taken away from the offending party. We cannot pray over someone else’s will. Also, if we are praying for someone else, they have to express their will to us in order for us to pray for them and it has to be over something that is within their will.

Every successful prayer recorded in the Bible follows this four part structure. There are prayers that don't follow this structure and the opposite occurs (e.g., David praying about Ahithopel). People who follow a different structure are inventing a prayer that does not occur in the Bible. They are following a man-made tradition in place of God's Doctrine...which Jesus said makes the Word (and Will) of God of NONE EFFECT!

Do people want to:
1. pray according to God's Word so that His Will is done on earth as it is in Heaven OR
2. pray according to man-made tradition in order to remain comfortable and in pride?

God sees what is ACTUALLY in the heart of every person by HOW/WHY they pray!

The next post will cover an example from the Bible using this four-part structure.

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