Lesson 3. Fervent Prayer. Effective Prayer. Mary Alice Isleib shared what distinguishes fervent prayer from other prayer.
…The effective, fervent prayer of a righteous person has great power. James 5:16
We have seen the two components of powerful prayer—effectiveness and fervency. For prayer to produce results, both components are necessary; without either one, prayer will not be what we need it to be.
In the Epistle of James, we can find an example of a man who knew this and was able to put it into practice:
Elijah was a man with a nature like ours, and he prayed earnestly that it would not rain, and it did not rain on the earth for three years and six months. And he prayed again, and the sky gave rain, and the earth produced its fruit. James 5:17–18
Elijah was a man just like us, and the Bible says that he prayed very earnestly, so that as a result there was no rain. In His Word, the Lord revealed His plan to him, so Elijah prayed in agreement with the Word of God. And what an effect! That is powerful prayer!
In the Greek, the words “to pray fervently, earnestly” mean that Elijah gave himself completely to prayer; he gave everything he had. He was sincere—fervent and passionate. He had received a message from the Lord; he had the Spirit, the fire of God, and that power in the heart of a believer that is stronger than words—and it produced results, didn’t it?
This shook the entire nation! This is what effective, fervent prayer can do.
We have already seen what effectiveness is: prayer based on knowledge of the Word of God and certain rules and principles. Now let us look at what passion in prayer means. In Russian, this definition can be translated as fervency, intensity, passion, or the highest degree of emotional tension. It comes from a Latin word meaning “to boil.”
To pray with such fervency means to pray intensely. It also means surrendering your entire being to God and allowing Him to fill you with divine desire. The degree of your fervency is directly proportional to the degree of your spiritual desire.
Does what sets God's heart on fire also set your heart on fire? When you pray fervently, with all your heart, you completely surrender to the Holy Spirit within you and follow Him.
The best way to show you what such fervency looks like is with the example of ironing clothes. You placed the clothes on the ironing board and knew the iron worked well, but when you tried to iron them, nothing happened.
You can keep trying for a long time, but without results.
Many people work the same way: they pray and pray according to the Law of God, but the clothes remain wrinkled. The secret is that you need to turn on the iron!
When you supply enough energy, you do not need to labor, demonstrating religious obedience to somehow please God. In this case, the wrinkles disappear. It is the energy that makes it possible to do the work.
If you use the iron according to the instructions and plug it into an outlet, the wrinkles in the clothes will certainly disappear. This is a good illustration of effective, fervent prayer. What is fervency, or passion? It is like an iron that is switched on. It is the energy of your prayer.
Surrender to the Holy Spirit
You understand even more clearly what passion and fervency are when you understand the Person of the Holy Spirit within you. The Holy Spirit is a Person. He is real because He reveals the heart of the Lord to us. He is the expressive side of the Lord; He demonstrates the Lord's feelings.
James 4:5 says: “Or do you think that Scripture says without reason: ‘The spirit He caused to dwell in us yearns jealously’?” The Spirit of the Lord who lives in you is deeply passionate about you. God relates to you in the way the Spirit expresses it to you. He wants to maintain a close relationship with you.
Fervency brings your feelings and soul into submission to the feelings of the Holy Spirit. He is allowed to express Himself through your mind, will, and emotions as you pray.
When you pray, you are always under the control of the Holy Spirit.
You pray according to knowledge, but there is a part of the Holy Spirit that wants to communicate with you, work with you, and fuel your knowledge with enthusiasm, fervor, passion, and even the feelings of God.
As you study the Word of God, you understand that the Holy Spirit is multifaceted. We should not reject the manifold wisdom of God or be afraid of it. It is better to allow this fire and other manifestations to pass through our souls and be expressed in our prayers.
This is not a strange or incomprehensible way of prayer, but if you are not accustomed to it, it will be new to you at first. In the end, the Holy Spirit will express Himself in you, for example, as a spirit of power.
What a strong, authoritative, powerful manifestation! This is not the character of a dove! It is a lion! Surrender to Him! Swirl in Him like a whirlwind! We must be open to the Spirit when we pray. He lives in us! He wants us to take the initiative in prayer and be emotional, expressive, and aggressive.
I liked what a rather elderly Christian once said: “If the Holy Spirit does not move me, I move Him!” The more we learn to work with Him, the more we discover how He flows through us and how He wants us to use the attributes He has placed within us.
Sometimes He wants us to make sounds; at other times He leads us to speak out, and sometimes He simply wants us to remain quietly before the Lord. Most of the time, He waits for you to sense Him in hot, intense prayer.
If you lack simplicity and ease in your approach to prayer, you will never pray a hot, fervent prayer. Pray intensely, and do not allow a Christian who has turned away from Christ to “pour water” on the fire of your prayer. Ask the Lord for more fire!
In prayer, we must develop sensitivity to the Holy Spirit and an active relationship with Him. We study certain principles and should not be afraid to rise up; the Spirit is in us, or to yield to His manifestations in our prayers.
So, when you pray the Prayer of Faith, combine fervor with your prayer and allow it to come out of your spirit intensely and powerfully—not only in faith, but also in the spirit of faith,
The Holy Spirit is waiting for you to surrender to Him. He is waiting to express Himself in you as He desires. Passion means that your will, mind, emotions, and body are engaged, and all of this must be submitted to your inner person.
As you pray, listen to your inner person. Discover the life of God within you. Pray persistently and follow the flow of life that comes from the Lord. Whatever condition you are in when you pray, do so fervently, confidently, sincerely, and with all your heart.
The Person of the Holy Spirit is multifaceted in how He manifests Himself to you. We must recognize this and be open to all His manifestations. For example, He may be like a dove, very gentle. But sometimes His gentleness flows beyond our prayers. He can be very good and precious to us. If we do not understand this or prefer a particular side of the Holy Spirit, we may neglect Him:
“All right, I like it when I experience this particular feeling; I like it when His tenderness is present.” God wants us to love every aspect of the manifestation of the Holy Spirit, rather than being selective about the facets of His personality. He wants us to be strengthened in the Lord and in His mighty power (Eph. 6:10).
When you are involved in spiritual things, especially prayer, you must train yourself to be sensitive to how the Holy Spirit wants to work when you pray. He wants us to pray with power, even when it happens in silence. Silent prayer should not be melancholic or powerless, but should create an atmosphere of energy and life.
You know that you can sigh deeply or murmur quietly, but usually this happens quite forcefully. If you want to pray quietly, do so, but persistently, because the Holy Spirit is powerful.
Most Christians misunderstand the person of the Holy Spirit and the nature of the inner person, created in the Lord’s likeness. When these Christians pray quietly, they usually do so melancholically, sadly, and in depression, without creating an atmosphere of energy, perseverance, and intensity. And when someone prays loudly, it provokes a negative reaction in them.
I realized that we need to pray fervently from the very beginning of prayer; then we give it our full strength.
There are different levels and manifestations of this power, but we are not afraid of them. We are not afraid to pray loudly and fervently in tongues. We are not afraid to groan or sigh loudly during intercession. We are not afraid of any of this because we know the biblical principles behind it all and how the Holy Spirit works in each of these prayers.
Jesus—our example in fervent prayer
Jesus Himself is our example of strong, fervent prayer:
During the days of His flesh, He offered up prayers and supplications with loud cries and tears to the One who could save Him from death, and He was heard because of His reverence. Heb. 5:7
Notice the words “with loud cries and tears.” Jesus prayed this way. The Greek original refers to a period in Jesus’ life when He prayed with groans, cries, and shouts.
If Jesus prayed this way in the days of His flesh, we can too! We can do what Jesus did and cry out to God with a loud cry! No, we do not need a strange, incomprehensible prayer experience, but we should not be afraid to cry out to the Holy Spirit and pray fervently.
“…the mind governed by the flesh is hostile to God” (Rom. 8:7). A fleshly person is more likely to behave passively toward God.
You, on the contrary, be strong and do not allow carnal, rebellious Christians who have turned away from Christ to hinder your prayer life.
Yes, there is a time to pray quietly, but Jesus offered prayers with loud cries and tears. Jesus, as a man with a burning heart, and the Holy Spirit, with the emotions of the Father, worked together. And this came out of Jesus’ flesh in the form of cries and tears. He prayed very emotionally and was completely absorbed in prayer.
We too should pray expressively, with emotion, as Jesus did. It is necessary for our soul and body to unite with the spiritual person so that we may pray with all our heart and mind, with the emotions of God expressed through the Holy Spirit. Where does He live? In you. So allow Him to break forth.
Romans 8 says that the Spirit knows what is in the Father’s heart and mind. The Holy Spirit waits to present us to Him. It is from this emotion that you pray; it becomes yours, and you must express it openly when you pray. You pray by the fire of the Holy Spirit. This is how He is released in you.
Allow God to manifest Himself through you. The essence and purpose of the New Covenant is to bring out what is inside you. Let the life of God flow out of you! This is the spirit in which we pray. Yes, we are emotional; we can move, but fervent prayer does not begin with our emotions! They are born deep within us, where fire, fervor, and emotion arise—the emotions of the Lord, conveyed by the Holy Spirit. We must unite with them, yield to Him, and pray this way. When we do, His emotions become ours.
Now let me explain the nature of the God whom we serve. Isaiah 42:13 says that the Lord is a warrior. And warriors are very strong. The Holy Spirit is also a Warrior. Yes, the Holy Spirit is love, but as the same book says (11:2), He is also the Spirit of might.
This spirit of might and strength is the quality of the Holy Spirit to which we must yield most of all, because He wants to manifest Himself in this way in our prayers. He wants the spirit of might to be present in our prayers.
Once again, note verse 7 of chapter 5 of Hebrews: “During the days of His flesh, He offered up prayers and petitions with loud cries and tears to the One who could save Him from death, and He was heard because of His reverent submission.”
There was a spirit of reverence for the Lord in Jesus’ heart. He did not cry out simply to cry out or because it was the latest trend in Christianity.
Loud prayers are part of our Christian life, and we must embrace them, but at such times our hearts must be sensitive to God and reverence Him, as Jesus did. He prayed powerfully and loudly, with reverence, sensitivity, respect, purity, and honesty toward the Lord. This filled His prayers with substance.
Some people will say, “Amen, sister—tell them that they should revere the Lord,” but they do not even want to hear about strong, loud prayer. We take both sides into account. Others will say, “Amen! Strong prayer,” but they have neither sensitivity nor reverence. We combine both qualities of prayer. This is how Jesus prayed, and this is how we should pray as well.
Therefore, we pray effectively, in accordance with knowledge and principles. And we pray intensely, purposefully, with fire—with fervor and passion. The combination of these two qualities makes it possible to release the Lord’s power to change individuals, cities, and nations. And you, who believe in Jesus Christ, can do this! Powerful, result-producing prayer awaits you! Let it break forth from you!
End of lesson.
