When You Pray (Entire Article)

By T. W. Barnes

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Mark 11:24: “Therefore I say unto you, What things soever you desire, when you pray, believe that ye will receive them and ye shall have them.”

 

These are concrete words and eternal words. Jesus will back them up because He said them.

 

Prayer: “Father, I pray prayer warriors will be charged to pray more and those who have not caught the vision of what a prayer life really means to a Christian will begin now to pray more and walk with you. You walked upon this earth for 33 ½ years and spend many hours in prayer that we might have an example to know if we pray right and believe right, we will come out all right. Bless all who read this in Jesus name. Amen.”

 

Prayer is one of the greatest privileges we have upon this planet earth. Before Calvary, man had to go through the priest to get to God, but since Calvary, the veil has been rent and there is nothing between us and God but a step of faith. Every person, every born again Christian can walk into the presence of God. Prayer is an invitation into the presence of the Almighty God to talk to the creator of all things. We should thank the Lord for the opportunity to pray.

 

We can find no better place to talk about our troubles than to the Lord. We can talk about our troubles to the psychiatrist or counselor, but so often they are unable to help us. They listen while we talk, but the problem is still there and in a few days it boils up again, so we go and talk about it again. However, when we talk it out to Jesus and He buries it under the blood, it is over if we leave it under the blood.

 

So often we run into people that hate themselves. They should hate the things they are doing wrong, but not hate themselves. We are all created in the image of God. When we become a son/daughter of God, we have a new father – a new relationship.

 

When you pray, remember what God said. “Whatsoever things you desire, believe you receive them and you shall have them (Mark 11:24).” The first part of the verse is a promise – “Therefore I say unto you whatsoever things ye desire, when you pray” – the rest of the verse is calling you to act your faith – “believe that you receive them and you shall have them.”

 

Notice what gets the prayer answered is not the promise; it is our receiving the promise. The promise is written and thousands read it and overlook it and pass it by and never get the blessing. The man or the woman, who after they pray, believe, and do not allow visible or natural things to alter their faith, brings this invisible promise to pass right from the spirit world. They believe when they cannot see, when they cannot feel; they know it is happening.

 

A man stood on the banks of a natural river in Arizona looking at the beautiful clear water. He said, “It can’t be; look at this desert. I see nothing but desert – no tree, no grass.”

 

The river is saying, “I am here, I am very much alive; I am the real thing.”

 

If the man never drank from the river, he would die on the banks of the most beautiful river glowing through that country. We can starve to death looking at the deserts, but if we are born again we always have the river of life flowing through us.

 

We have streams in the desert – beautiful, lovely wonderful rivers flowing for us to drink from day by day. When the storms of life are raging, remember, a flowing river gushes up our of your innermost being.

 

There are many different kinds of prayers. Some will not even reach the ceiling. The Pharisee prayed (and I paraphrase), “I thank you Lord that I am not like all these other fellows and this publican here. I do all these things; it is a great thing, God, for you to have a fellow like me.”

 

The publican – the sinner – could not even life his head because he didn’t have a thing in the world to tell God that he had done. All of his works had been bad. He just smote himself on the chest and said, “God be merciful to me a sinner.” The Bible tells us this man got his prayer answered and the other man, God just looked at him disgusted with his kind of praying.

 

Real praying is really “praying through.” We used to have all night prayer meetings and the old timers called it “praying through.” That meant we prayed until we got our prayer through. We know when our prayer gets through to Him. If we are born-again Christians, the Holy Spirit lets us know when our prayer has been hears. God will take care of the situation, maybe not right at that moment, but He will take care of it in His time, if we will only believe. If a crippled man has a good air conditioner in his home and it is not turned on, he needs to someways, somehow get to the switch to turn it on to have a nice, cool house. He goes on his knees crawling; finally he gets to the switch. The air conditioner then goes to work.

 

Nothing was wrong with the air conditioner; it was perfect; it just needed to be turned on and set for the temperature he wants. That is similar to praying. You finally struggle and work and pray until you touch Him. When you touch Him, He goes to work for you.

 

If we have been busy doing other things and have not prayed much, we wonder why ur 5 minute prayer doesn’t touch Him. The Lord knows we are not in earnest yet. We really need to pray a while until we get tuned up. When our faith touched Him, He automatically works for us.

 

I have a lamp by my bed. All I have to do is touch it and it comes on. Touch it a few more times and it goes off. So, when we touch Him, His powers flow. One of those rivers – the riverof faith, river of hope, river of love, river of healing will begin to flow when we touch Him.

 

We need to find our what God wants, and then when we pray, we will be sure He will answer our prayer. Where do we find out? In the Word.

 

We have people who go all our for prophecy (and that has its place), but unless that prophecy springs from the written Word, it has no foundation.

 

In a book I read, the author was against preaching doctrine. My Bible says doctrine is good – doctrine is the foundation – the runway. If a fellow in a country has only one airport and one runway, He would be a fool if he bombed his runway after taking off.

 

The runway is the doctrine, the foundation, something to land on. No one ever flies so high that the will not have to come back down. We are still earthly creatures. We may soar around awhile, but we are going to need a good landing place. Doctrine is a guide that tells is how to be saved, how to be healed, and how to be delivered. I do not care what we get while soaring; we must have a foundation. The Bible teaches man cannot look for another foundation. He said I built it; I laid the foundation; build on this one or else the floods will come and get your house and destroy it.

 

Let’s consider a good prayer. When I pray for myself one of the best ones I have found is the one David prayed: “Lord fix me.” Have you ever felt the need to be “fixed?” When a car will not crank it needs fixing, doesn’t it? Fix me Lord, so I can bring everything to pass Your Word promises. There are many promises in the Word. Prayer and fasting will bring them to pass in your home, in your life and in the church. God fix me so I can believe. Fix me so I can see; fix me so I can hear what the Spirit is saying. Make me sensitive to the voice of Almighty God. It is easy to get carnal and dull of hearing, dull of seeing, etc., but He can fix our eyesight; he has some salve to put on our eyes to make us see spiritual things.

 

A well-beaten path leads to the door of every man or woman who can get his or her prayers answered. A spring on the hillside has trails to it. The animals of the forest go there to drink. If the springs are dry, soon the trails are missing. As long as we are overflowing Christians, the spring is flowing and people are coming to drink. I continually get calls from men and women from different denominations: “Pray for me; put us on your prayer list.”

 

One lady the secretary of a large church, had a goiter on her neck. She was listening to me preach on the radio. I said, “I feel led this morning to pray for goiter to disappear.”

 

She called me later and said, “Brother Barnes, the goiter I have disappeared just as you said, but please do not tell anyone because I would loose my job here.”

 

She should have said, “Where that came from there has to be more, so I think I will go to that church.” Prestige in the world is so silly and ignorant if it keeps is from walking into the living waters where our soul can be blessed.

 

Prayer failures happen often, but the prayer warrior knows what to do. Edison had over 900 failures while working on the light bulb. He knew whatever the mind can see and believe, could be. He stayed with it and we have electric lights. When you know something is promised, if one prayer doesn’t do it, pray again. I find Jesus praying more than once. The Bible tells us that He prated more earnestly, more determined and stay with it because it is on its way if His Word promises it.

 

Let’s consider healing. If you are sick and you want to get well, ask yourself and honest sincere question: Do I need this disease?

 

Some people need the sickness for a crutch. They need the sickness to stay on welfare; some people need their wheel chair to keep drawing their pension. I have rather dig ditches any time than to ride in a wheel chair. The devil need not try to talk to me about it.

 

I was speaking on this one time in the Illinois camp meeting. After church a lady came to me and said, “I got a great miracle tonight.” I said, “I don’t remember you coming up for prayer.”

 

She said, “I didn’t. I went to the altar and repented of holding on to this disease to have my way. God forgave me and healed me instantly.”

 

When you get sick, ask yourself this question, “Do I need it?” If you really come to the conclusion you do not need it, then the next thing is, “I do not want it, and I am going to get rid of it in Jesus name. I want to be well.”

 

Change your thinking and you rise to a place whee you can get healed when you definitely know that disease is not the will of God. It never had been and never will be. Disease is the world’s biggest robber; it robs people of their homes, having to spend time in the hospital. It robs us of hours off from work. Just think of how many billions of hours a year is lost because of sickness.

 

Sickness is nothing but a thief and a robber. If keeps us out of church; it sometimes keeps the preacher from being able to preach. What is good about that? Let’s make up our mind we do not need it and get rid of it.

 

The Lord talked to me about many of our people being operated on for gallstones and kidney stones. The Lord challenged me; He said, “Do you believe with God all things are possible? Is anything too hard for me?”

 

I answered, “No, You can do anything.”

 

Consider Elijah’s prayer: “And it came to pass at the time of the evening sacrifice, that Elijah the prophet come near, and said; God of Abraham, Isaac, and of Israel, and that I am thy servant, and that I have done all these things at thou word. Hear me, O Lord, that this people may know that thou art the Lord God, and that thou hast turned their heart back again (1 Kings 18:36-37).”

 

When Elijah finished this little 60 word prayer, the fire fell. Notice this fire is very strange. The fire of the Lord is different from the fire we make in the fireplace. The fire of the Lord fell and consumed the sacrifice (our fire can do that) and the wood (our fire can take care of that) and the stones the altar was made of – this is strange; the rocks burned just like the wood burned. It would take a long time for our fire to burn up rocks. Here the rocks burned and the fire burned even the ground licked up the water. Water would put out our fire, but this fire just licked up the water in the trench. When all the people say it, they fell on their faces and said the Lord He is God.

 

If we exercise faith, the fire of the Lord can burn those gallstones and kidney stones and never even hurt the flesh. His fire is a strange kind of fire.

 

The Holy Ghost and fire can burn up a virus or germs; it just sweeps through us and germs are dead. Those cancer cells need the Holy Ghost fire. Doctors use x-rays, radium an all these things that burn the body, but God has a fire that can burn the cancer cell without harming anything else.

 

When we pray, we should be conscious of the fact we are talking to the creator of all things. He made the tiniest things – the atom. I read you can put ten million of them on the point of a needle and they still cannot be seen with the naked eye. That little atom has inside it electrons and neutrons and one of them has as much room inside the atom as a honeybee would have inside St. Paul’s cathedral. God made the tiniest of things and the biggest of the big. He made galaxies that man could never travel across. Traveling at our fastest speed for seventy years, man would not be out of the back yard of this universe. So when we talk to God, we are talking to the Creator, the builder of the universe. He put s here and thinks more of us than all else of His creation. He made us in his image. All His other creation, He just made.

 

All that He created, the billions and trillions of light years across is dropping down through space and turning as it goes. He keeps it together; it will never hit bottom because there is no beginning of space and no ending of space. God controls it all and keeps it all right up to “t.” The sun has never failed to rise and set in my almost 89 years. It is always on time. The only time it ever stopped, a prophet prayed and God stopped it for a little while so the prophet could win a battle.

 

He can speak the word and one of those galaxies would go out immediately. He can say come into being and they come into being. He can say disappear and they disappear.

 

So, when we talk to God, remember He has all power in heaven and in earth. He can just speak the Word and the cancer dies; He can speak the Word and those kidney stones or gallstones will burn.

 

The Lord created everything with words. He just spoke it into existence. The things he does not want, He speaks them out. We were made in His image and we either talk ourselves out of sickness or in it. We talk our self our of success or into it. For as a man thinketh – we think faith and pursue that thought of faith.

 

When Henry Ford decided he wanted unbreakable glass, he called in his older scientists who told him it was impossible. He then called in his young scientists who did not know it could not be done and told them to make unbreakable glass. They did. That is the difference. They did not know it was impossible, so they made unbreakable glass.

 

We are one thought away from success or one thought away from failure and disaster. Pursue the thought for faith. You are only one thought away from your miracle. Hold the thought of faith and kindle it with the Word. Keep saying it, believing it, and keep marching toward it. It will be yours. Only believe; all things are possible. When you pray, see it and receive it.

 

George Muller, an English man with the gift of faith had an orphans’ home. One night he realized they had no food for the children’s breakfast the next morning. He prayed.

 

The next morning at three o’clock, God woke a man who had a large grocery store in town. God told him to load his wagons and take the groceries to the orphanage. By daylight he was at the orphanage unloading groceries for nearly 2000 children. That is faith that knows if God told you to do something, it will work.

 

So, get ready saints, the wagons are on the way!

 

Pray this prayer: “In the Name of the Lord Jesus, I receive my miracle. I clam it; I stand on the Word. I will keep this faith thought ever burning in my mind until it becomes a reality in the natural world. I see it, Lord, in the spirit world; I see it by faith coming down; I see it by faith taking hold of me; I see it by faith moving into my body. Lord, I believe Your Word; I trust in Your Name; I know You are God; I know You hold all power in Your hands; everything obeys You and now I obey. Now I believe. Let that river spring up out of my innermost being – revers of faith, rivers of love, rivers of power, and rivers of authority. I stand as Your child today believing from the deep of my hear. Amen.”

 

The above article is from “If You Need Healing” by T. W. Barnes, pages 47-60.

 

The material is most likely copyrighted and should not be reprinted under any other name or author. However, this material may be freely used for personal study and research purposes.

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