Discover how to perform a prayer requesting God for comfort and strength

In situations of anguish and pain we pray to God asking for his intercession for a solution. However, it happens that we do not receive what we ask for and we deny God. But this is because we ask in the wrong way. In this post we will see what the prayer of request to God is about.

What is the Prayer of petition to God?

The Bible is explicit in pointing out how to direct a prayer to God, so it is possible to be guided by it to achieve it.

However, it should be noted that in our prayers we should not exalt the earthly aspects and their passions, as this leads us to be enemies of God.

Our petition prayer must be full of praises to the Lord, exhorting his Son Jesus Christ to intercede for us before God the Father.

Hence the importance that when making our prayer, in which not only the appropriate words should be used, but also Christ should be involved, pray for others, not exalt the things of the world and ask for our need with humility. 

Sometimes our requests are not fulfilled due to the way of placing the order.

Remember at all times to end the prayers to do it in the name of Jesus Christ, who is the mediator between God and men, in this way our prayers can reach the Father.

Also, for our prayer to be answered by God the Father, it is necessary to take into account certain aspects and be able to address ourselves effectively to the Lord. Let’s see what they are:

• Pray sincerely to the true God . The true God was the one that Christ revealed to us as Matthew 11:27 points out, when he rebukes the disciples who already know Him and as he says that whoever knows Him knows the Father, then the words that He addresses to them they are those of the Father who dwells in Him.

It is to that true God that prayer should be directed, speaking honestly and sincerely as a son would with his father and in that prayer always glorify the Lord, as John pointed out in 17:1 and as also exemplified by Matthew in 6:9-13 when he recites the Our Father, which are the words that please God.

From the Old Testament itself, that God to whom we must pray was revealed, just as Isaiah said in 45:22-23 where he expresses there is only one God to look to to be saved by his justice that will always remain.

The true God has power and glory without limits, for which when we kneel and raise our hands in prayer towards Him, He will bless us in each of the words that we pronounce praising Him even without seeing Him.

He is the great guide of all nations, who dominates the climates and man according to his holy will and from whom all things of creation come, as expressed in the first letter of Corinthians 8:5-6.

This true God to whom we pray is a Father full of love, who heals the sick, comforts the afflicted, who teaches how to keep the ten commandments, who is in heaven from where he watches over our well-being, depending on how we address Him. : with true fervour, humility and sincerity.

The apostle Paul also describes the true God as the one who made the world and all things, who does not dwell in human temples, but in heaven and on earth, who does not need the honor of men, since he is the one who gives life to all and from one blood I create the human lineage so that they may inhabit the whole earth. This he expressed in Acts 17:23-26.

We must make sure that we pray specifically to this God and not to another, so when we begin to pray, we must be inspired by this true God and worship him consciously.

• Study the Bible. The Holy Bible offers us all the information we need to pray to the true God. It offers us the knowledge about the Lord and how to serve him and how to address him to worship him, as well as the necessary instructions to live according to the biblical precepts.

The Holy Scriptures present us with all that information that we need to know about God and about how to conduct ourselves in our spiritual walk, information that we will hardly find in religious services or reading the verses in isolation.

In such a way that in order to know God, know how to conduct ourselves before Him, understand His holy will and know each and every one of His promises, it is essential to study His word embodied in the Holy Scriptures, which contain all His inspiration, teachings and blessings.

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Experts who study biblical texts recommend beginning the reading of the Bible with the book of Matthew, which is the first of the New Testament.

They suggest reading it carefully, slowly, making notes about doubts or aspects of personal interest and paying attention to the examples of sentences outlined there that received an answer.

For those interested in the full knowledge of the Holy Scriptures, it is pertinent to highlight that it is possible to corroborate that the prophecies of the Bible have been fulfilled or are in that process, for which it is required to be a good connoisseur and interpreter of the biblical texts. to prove that God keeps his promises.

This leads us to point out that when reading specific promises from the Bible, it is wise to ask the Almighty to grant us his blessing and then confidently pray that he grant them, just as Jesus and the apostles did.

We must be guided by the infinity of examples of fulfilled promises in the Bible that were requests made with faith, which serve as inspiration to obtain what we asked of God.

It is recommended not to use memorized sentences, without emotion or meaning. On the contrary, be inspired to make your own prayers based on the teachings that the Word of God in the Bible gives us, which teaches how to pray and what to ask for.

• Really repent of sins. In the Holy Scriptures it is clear that God grants favors to those who obey him and undertake to proclaim his message. This is also how he commits himself to the one who cries out to him for requests in urgent situations.

In this regard, we often hear complaints from people who question God’s behavior in the face of requests that have been made to him to intercede in urgent and painful situations that humanity has experienced and that resulted in much hardship and pain for a large number of people. people.

So we have the example of the horrors of war whereby people ask: “Where was God when the holocaust happened in Europe, in which hundreds of thousands of people died?” “Where was God when so many Jews, Danes, Czechs, Dutch and Poles were murdered in the famous gas chambers?”

The Word of God answers, even from the Old Testament itself when Isaiah replied in 59:1-2: “ Behold, the Lord’s hand is not shortened, that it cannot save, nor his ear heavy, that it cannot hear; but your iniquities have separated between you and your God, and your sins have hid his face from you so that he will not hear .”

We also find it in the New Testament when John spoke to us in 9:31 about God’s attention to all his children, even if they are sinners, but if he fears the Lord and obeys him, He forgives him.

To know why we have not been granted any request made to the Lord, we must ask ourselves if we worship the true God, if we fulfill his will, if we keep the commandments, if we are really sorry for the sins we have committed, if we do things that are pleasing to him. . The answers to these questions will tell us why we have not received what we asked for.

If we really want our prayers to have the answers we want, it is essential to be repentant and keep the commandments, as God requires. Likewise, it is necessary to accept Jesus Christ as the Savior, as requested by Acts 2:38.

We count in turn on the coming of the Holy Spirit, to whom we give ourselves every day with which we allow Jesus Christ to live in us.

As the grace and knowledge of Jesus Christ grows within us, He will live fully within us, making it easier for us to have our prayers answered than ever before.

• Forgive others. It is a mandate from the Father that we forgive our brothers who have offended us. And he clearly expresses it to us in the prayer that he left us as a general teaching, which is the Our Father.

This is the example to follow, because it teaches us how to behave and address the Lord and, in addition, in that prayer we ask him to forgive us our offenses, just as we forgive those who offend us.

Just as he limits them to us in Matthew 6:14-15, a verse in which he says that if we forgive men their offenses, God also forgives us, but if we do not forgive others, He will not forgive us either.

The Old Testament also tells us that in order to ask for the Lord’s intercession for us, we should not oppress our fellow men, nor be aware only of ourselves.

This is what the prophet Isaiah tells us in 58:9-10 when he tells us that if we do not accuse others, if we remove the yoke and speak of vanity and help the hungry and the afflicted, we will have light in the darkness and there will be no darkness.

Such is the message of Jesus who points out that we must reconcile with our brothers, before presenting any offering to Him, as expressed in Matthew 5:23-24.

For the Lord, our repentance, forgiveness and humble attitude are very valuable in order to count on his blessing and grant us our requests.

• Seek the will of God. The best way to please God is to do things according to his will.

It is an action that we can develop through the constant study of the Bible and the surrender of Christ, so that he is always within us and thus we will be able to know and do his holy will.

Of course, that will be reflected in the way we pray and direct our prayers to Him. We will be more attentive to his call, to the understanding of our neighbor and to genuine repentance for the faults committed.

That is why we should not pray only for our own good, but for that of others as well and thus be able to say with conviction and sincerity that his will be done and not ours, as Luke pointed out in 22:42.

Just as the Our Father also expresses it when we pray it and say that his will be done on earth as it is in heaven, as reflected in Matthew 6, because the best thing for everyone in the long run is what God has determined for us to be. our good.

There are many expressions that the Bible offers us about the promises that God left us that if we pray with faith He hears us and that if we act according to his will he will respond to our pleas and petitions. This is the trust we must have in Him.

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• Have faith in God. Reading the Holy Scriptures strengthens our faith, which is essential to be able to please God. Before a prayer of request made with fervent faith, the God of heaven responds gratefully and ready to grant the requested request. Just as Hebrews tells us in 11:6, where it is asserted that without faith it is impossible to please God.

We must profess a true faith, genuine, without doubts, so that God proceeds to respond with favor to the prayers that are made to him. Let’s not be like the wave of the sea that James describes in 1:6-7, which is dragged here and there by the wind without definite direction.

To develop this faith, we must surrender to Jesus Christ so that He may live in us through the Holy Spirit. Reading the Bible gives us the opportunity to assimilate the examples of faith experienced by the great men and women who lived for and for God.

Through these examples we “feed” our faith in Jesus Christ, with which we can come to think like Him and desire what He desires. All this thanks to the Holy Spirit, who lives in us and makes us grow spiritually.

The Holy Spirit uniting us with Christ strengthens our confidence that God the Father will hear our prayers.

Mark in 11:22-24 reflected the strength of faith that no matter how small it may be, if it is true, it can move mountains and adds: “ Therefore, I tell you that whatever you ask for in prayer, believe that you will receive it, and it will come to you ”.

Reading the Bible daily increases the living faith that the Holy Spirit produces within us and through him, God gives good gifts to all his children who require him.

God only wants us to ask with fervor, great faith and humility the right things for our neighbor and for ourselves. It must be asked continuously and trusting in the promises of God.

We must learn to believe that God is real, that he has knowledge, wisdom and infinite love for his children and that for them he will fulfill all his promises. The call is to strengthen faith, giving glory to God. This is the attitude we need to have in order to receive answers to our prayers.

• Be persistent. When the Holy Father is asked, He wants to see that we really want it deeply and if, after it is granted, we are going to respect and adore it.

Through that need or desire that we propose to God, He attracts us spiritually and thus we concentrate on His will, aware that what is best for us and others.

If we ask for something capriciously and then forget about it, we are telling God that it is not a genuine request and that he does not need to grant it or if he grants it it will be something superficial that will not produce in us neither gratitude nor adoration to God.

When we deeply desire something, we must cry out to God day and night, without giving up, since He wants us to be persistent, to constantly walk with Him, talk to Him continuously, day after day and as the apostle Paul said: ” Pray without ceasing ” in 1 Thessalonians 5:17.

It is important, therefore, to learn to pray regularly, dedicating the due time to familiarize ourselves with God and his ways of acting and acting. Pray as long as possible without interruption as, according to the Scriptures, Jesus used to do, who spent long hours praying to his Father (see Mark 1:35).

King David was also persistent in his love for God and prayed constantly up to three times a day, as noted in Psalm 55:16-17.

Be persistent in prayer, doing it regularly and with enough time, since this helps communion with Jesus Christ and with the Father. It can be noted that one’s life depends on frequent prayer to the genuine God.

• Pray with the heart. This is a very important aspect, since it depends on God listening to the request and acting accordingly, since it is not about reciting a prayer from memory.

The vehemence and fervor that we impart to our petitionary prayers pleases God, because it indicates to him that what we ask for is really what we require from the heart.

That lack of fervor in prayer, of not doing it with all our being, is one of the reasons why the answers to the prayers we make to the Lord are not received, because we do not pray with the heart.

Let us remember Jesus, who sacrificed his sleep to be able to pray with his Father, since this was vital for the mission that brought him to earth and his desire was to fulfill humanity.

Christ addressed God the Father with great passion, with great clamor and on several occasions with tears, so that God himself would feel his pain and desire to be heard.

To make the prayer, a private place is suggested, alone, where we can present our supplications to the Creator to help us and free us from difficulties and temptations.

We must make a fervent, intense prayer to God the Father, asking for his support, his love and solution to the vicissitudes we are going through and, as we have already pointed out, pray with the heart, full of great fervor and passion.

• Ask God to form us according to his will. In order to get our request from God, it is necessary to submit totally to the will of the Creator.

By seeking God’s will and not our own, we are adopting an attitude of total submission to the Father.

This is of real importance, since it depends on it that we obtain timely and firm answers, as Jesus pointed out when, praying to the Father, he said that he did not want his will to be done, but that of the Father, as we can read in Luke 22:42.

It is important to pray in dialogue with God, reflecting on how we can submit to and honor him more fully. We must constantly ask for his intercession in order to be able to fulfill the purpose for which we were born.

The purpose of all prayer is to focus on God, to surrender to his will in order to achieve a mutual relationship of trust. You can pray for material things within certain limits, but the important thing is in the conversation with the Lord.

In this way He becomes more real for the human being. This implies that some ideas or perceptions that we had in the past about God and religion must be modified.

The prophet Isaiah in his verse 55:8-9 tells us that God says: ” For my thoughts are not your thoughts, nor are your ways my ways… As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than yours. ” ways, and my thoughts more than your thoughts .”

We must, in short, learn to walk with God, converse with him, share thoughts with him during the daily journey, asking him to form us according to his image and likeness.

The attitude when praying is to seek to immerse ourselves in God, in his word, to submit to his designs, to ask him to correct us, to form us. This is key to praying with true power.

• Praise and thank the Almighty God . To achieve the answers we want to our requests, it is vital to praise God the Father as the creator of everything and thank him for it and for all the blessings he always gives us, even when sometimes we do not perceive them or do not appreciate them properly.

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It is required, then, to orient the adoration to the Almighty God who is the center of the universe and creator of everything we know and not pay idolatry to human heroes and idols, which is a sin, because many of these human beings have inappropriate behaviors, are rather shameful and, worse still, they reject God.

God deserves all our worship for having created outer space, the stars and planets. He made the Earth and put man on it in his image and likeness. He made us his children. We must value sunrises and sunsets, all natural and artistic works of art, such as musical, visual and literary. All of this came from God.

It is important that we thank God for everything he gives us day by day, for his help and blessings and not lose control due to the emotions generated by movie idols, sports figures, rock stars or any other “idol” human.

Our gratitude must be total to God and praise and adore him because he gives us life, forgives our faults, guides us, lifts us up when we fall and proposes us to share eternal glory with us. Let us learn to love him as he loves us.

• Pray in the name of Jesus Christ . As children of God we have the power to approach God through prayer and worship.

There is no lack of intercessors, because we already have the indicated mediator who is Jesus Christ, so we must invoke Him every time we raise a prayer of petition to the Most Holy Father.

This is how it was instituted by Him when He instructed His followers, according to John 16:23-24: “ Assuredly, I say to you, whatever you ask of the Father in my name, He will give it to you. Until now you have asked nothing in my name; ask, and you shall receive, that your joy may be full .”

Jesus of Nazareth died for us on the cross, with which he redeemed our sins and for this reason today true Christians can directly access the Father. This is how Hebrews transmits it to us in 4:16 when he tells us to approach God with confidence to obtain mercy from him and timely help from him.

However, the name of Jesus should not be abused, since sometimes he is mentioned in vain, teaching doctrines that are rather human orders, that do not abide by divine precepts.

In order to invoke Jesus, it is imperative to obey him and ask according to his will, since only those who do so will enter the kingdom of heaven, according to the words that he pronounced in the sermon on the mount.

The ten commandments bequeathed to us by Jesus must be obeyed in order to honor his Word and invoke his name and practice true Christianity, which teaches us everything for which he lived and died.

To really get closer to God we must know and keep the commandments as a way of life, so that Jesus can live in us and be able to invoke him when we require his blessing and help.

So also to know God we must grow and live the experience of the divine character that is generated from the ten commandments.

It is of vital importance to truly know God and his way of life in order to approach properly before Him and in the name of Jesus Christ. However, God can, in his infinite mercy, listen to the prayer of a sinner as long as he comes truly repentant, that his ignorance is not in bad faith and that he seeks God from the heart.

On the other hand, in order to receive constant answers to our requests, we must serve and obey the true God, who is good and merciful to all his children.

This approach to God must be made through obedience to his mandates and precepts and through fervent and frequent prayer made in the name of Christ.

Likewise, the Lord asks us to invoke the Holy Spirit to guide us on this path and give us his gifts for the glory of God.

There is no doubt that prayer is effective and makes it easy for us to communicate with the Father through Christ Jesus, which implies that we are fulfilling several aspects; namely:

• We pray to the true God
• We feed on the scriptures
• We obey and practice his teachings
• we forgive others
• We profess a deep faith
• We are persistent in our faith
• We learn more and more about the Creator
• We worship God with all our hearts.

By invoking Jesus Christ when we pray to the Lord, it brings us into a direct and intimate relationship with Him, in which we can not only express our needs and tribulations, but also our concern for our neighbor.

This greatly pleases God and he is pleased that we are not selfish, but merciful as his son was when he was among us.

Let us learn to direct our petitions to God, following the indications given, as it may result in prayer being effective and we will be able to get what we want, always with the intercession of Christ Jesus.

• God listens to the unsaved . We all know of the humility of God, which he imparts to everything and everyone. He has no distinction with his children, even with the unsaved.

And who is an unconverted? In religious terms, this is an unbelieving person, who does not believe in the contents of a certain religious doctrine.

Within Christian belief, an unconverted person is one who has not placed his faith in Christ Jesus and, therefore, does not practice the Christian life. Of course, he does not keep the commandments and he does not live according to the precepts of God.

It is possible that they are weak people, whose spirit is blind to the glory of the Lord, but without fully knowing the Word of God, they humbly pray to him, for which the Holy Father sends them his message and his call. He has responded to them and will continue to do so to many more around the world.

God in his infinite mercy listens to their prayers and seeks to send them his message of love so that they convert to faith, since they are people not cultivated in religion, they do not know it properly and, therefore, they do not practice it as it should be. .

Now, it is appropriate to note that God does not respond to the prayers of those who adopt bad attitudes, sin deliberately, pray to idols or false gods, because He knows their true intentions. They cannot be classified as unconverted.

But if the person shows genuine repentance and expresses his willingness to convert to the Christian faith, God’s mercy may be granted. God knows and sees everything and knows when the conversion is sincere and will not answer them if they intentionally disobey his Word or adopt a bad attitude.

This case of the unconverted is very well illustrated in the book of Psalms in verse 107:23-24, 27-31, which very explicitly states: ” Those who go down to the sea in ships, and do business in the many waters, they they have seen the works of the Lord, and his wonders in the depths.

They tremble and stagger like drunkards, and all their science is useless. Then they cry out to the Lord in their anguish, and he delivers them from their afflictions. Change the storm into calm, and its waves subside. Then they rejoice, because they calmed down; and thus guides them to the port they desired. Praise the mercy of the Lord, and his wonders toward the sons of men .”

What we shouldn’t ask for

When making our prayer request to God there are certain things that cannot be asked, because they contradict what the Word of God says. That is why some requests are indicated below that God does not accept and, therefore, does not grant. So you can’t ask:

• Destroy a marriage blessed by God for the sin of adultery, as it goes against divine precepts.
• Help to commit crimes and any criminal act such as stealing, which cause harm and damage to others, even if the criminal crosses himself before committing his crime.
• Pray to kill someone.
• Somebody die.
• For someone to do poorly in a project, on a trip, at work.
• Take away someone’s husband/wife.
• Cheating for personal gain.

We cannot ask for something that is not among the precepts that God has allowed us in his Word, which is clear, precise and forceful in that sense.

Hence, the Word of God asks us to pray for the soul and the redemption of enemies and for those who wish us harm, so that they repent and achieve salvation. Just as he asks us in the first letter of Timothy 2:1-2.

That is why we have been told to send our blessings to those who curse us and leave everything else in the hands of God, who will take care of those people. We should not ask for things to go wrong for these people.

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