Jesus was the one who told me about this idea while I was pastoring in the local church.

I had been listening to people pray for years since the 70’s when I found myself smuggled into church. And with amazement I found myself pondering “what were they thinking?” We sat down one day to pray with a young upcoming singer/performer who was on the road for Jesus and I said “you lead off”. She started off with this crying and moaning sound in her voice quivering and going on about how God was too busy to hear from us “worms” here and on and on…and I stopped her. “Whoa stop that!” I said. Where did you get that stuff? She explained that all the people she worked with in the ministry did that sort of thing and she had just copied them because it sounded so spiritual. The problem she had mentioned when she came in was that her prayers never get answered. Now we knew what was wrong. How could God relate to that from one of His kids who should know better?

Another case was when I was with a group of men who had surrounded a hurting brother and they were really going on with intensity in prayer. One brother was leading the ministry and jumping from partial prayers with appeals to God to declarations to the devil and random summaries and ranting at demons and all over the spiritual map in one ten minute sentence. Quietly while I was watching intently and wondering what I could do to help I began a conversation with the Holy Spirit. Jesus was coaching me about the entire activity of protocol in prayer. Since I had no right to stop the process it became a school for me. This was prayer 101-how not to pray. I felt the Lord say “what would you do with that prayer if you were me?”

So what is the problem?
I think that we rarely understand how serious a thing prayer is to God. Jesus spent hours and hours of his earthly time in prayer to the Father. That impressed some of the disciples. Men are doers, we have to be doing something. We live in a nervous culture that demands entertainment 24/7 and we have difficulty with listening. Most of us don’t understand the difference between the kinds of prayer modes that have been laid out for us in the word.

The second is praying for God’s will on things he has already made clear in the word. For me to ask if it is his will to heal someone becomes ridiculous when we read the Word. If we are to believe that Jesus lives in us, and that same Jesus never turned away from any request to heal…what are we asking about?

We also missed how Jesus imparted healing. He only asked the father on rare occasions like the raising of Lazarus for any intervention. He usually just commanded the infirmity to obey his command. That is decree from the mouth of the King. We, who are kings and priests subject to Jesus should speak his words and get his results.
Infirmity, fevers, children, animals and unclean spirits have something in common- they know when you are serious and believe and intend to back up what you are saying. They know when you don’t really believe what you are saying or operating in fear.

One of the most subtle distinctions is the act of prayer vs. decree. Prayer is an appeal to a superior – The God of the universe. Hopefully you have learned to pray in Jesus name as he instructed. Hopefully it is worded in respect and as an appeal to our hope and our source of results. We are not commanding God in this act.
Decree is the work of a priest and king. Believers are priests and kings. We are here with power of attorney from Jesus to direct the powers of darkness who must submit to the word of the Lord. We are vice-regents, co-heirs and heirs of salvation. Paul told the Hebrews that angels were sent here to be directed by the heirs of salvation. That is you.

Against who?
I hear people say “lets pray against that”. Or “yeah, I’ve been praying against that situation”. What is that? Did you hear that? Those two words do not go together. Are we against God? Well, remember the only one we can pray to is God and I usually am in the mode of humility before him. We sure aren’t going to pray to the Devil, so what or who are we against? Ok, I know what they mean, but does the spiritual realm? Do angels work with our intention or our words?
I submit to you that all of the spiritual realm is based on the same relationship to the judge of the universe. Judges are required to act only on your words, not your intention hiding in your little head.

And the Devil knows these rules…he and his associates are the legal experts. He parses and dissects every syllable looking for a way not to obey. Just give him a loophole and he will take it to the bank! A good training ground is in the clinches of deliverance. When unclean spirits are speaking back out of the person you are trying to help. The spirits will try everything in their tool kit to talk you out of finishing the job of their removal. They will accuse and beg and lie and twist the scripture just like Satan did to Jesus in the wilderness. Demons will ignore you when you are either unsure in inaccurate about what you are doing. The real problem is when Satan wins in these cases, one of God’s kids looses and suffers pain until they are free.

Phony techniques & reality
Remember who taught tricks to Hollywood.
Emotions do not move heaven or hell, they only move us.
Acting and good diction does not move heaven or hell.
Loudness does not move heaven or hell.
Passion that comes from ego moves nothing.
Are we trying to impress man with our prayer skills?
Taking credit for prayer success may nullify all your work.

Tears often move God when shed for his people.
Travail moves God...it is real work.
When in doubt repent
Intercession will cost time but the rewards will appear