Elevate the spirit above the flesh and the soul; that way, you can make your prayer more effective. Your posture in prayer can also enhance your prayer effectiveness, says Pastor Segun Adewunmi, General Overseer of House of Prayer Ministries. Excerpts:
There are things we do to make our prayers more effective. The most common of these observances is Fasting. Jesus Christ made it clear that we need to fast.
"And Jesus said unto them, Because of your unbelief: for verily I say unto you, If ye have faith as a grain of mustard seed, ye shall say unto this mountain, Remove hence to yonder place; and it shall remove; and nothing shall be impossible unto you. Howbeit this kind goeth not out but by prayer and fasting." (Matt 17:20-21).
We can now say what Fasting is and how it works.
Fasting is what we do to elevate our spirit above the two other faculties namely, the flesh and the soul. We abstain from food to deny our body of flesh, the usual nourishment. We are also expected to be sober and avoid any form of excitement to put our soul under discipline. The real spiritual warfare happens at sleep after we have fasted. At sleep, the two carnal faculties that consist of our body of flesh and our soul are not active. These two give us the consciousness or understanding of our physical environment but at sleep it is our spirit that is supposed to relate to our spiritual environment. Abstinence from food reduces our body density at sleep and gives more prominence to our spirit over the other two faculties. Indeed fasting empowers our guardian Angel to fight our battle.
"Behold, I send an Angel before thee, to keep thee in the way, and to bring thee into the place which I have prepared. Beware of him, and obey his voice, provoke him not; for he will not pardon your transgressions: for my name is in him. But if thou shalt indeed obey his voice, and do all that I speak; then I will be an enemy unto thine enemies, and an adversary unto thine adversaries." (Exodus 23:20-22)
Fasting is one of the prayer aids that are called Self-denial. We sometimes do the fasting that Daniel did for twenty one days.
"In those days I Daniel was mourning three full weeks. I ate no pleasant bread, neither came flesh nor wine in my mouth, neither did I anoint myself at all, till three whole weeks were fulfilled." (Daniel 10:2-3)
This kind of fasting is usually called white fasting. It is a situation when we break our fasting with unpleasant food. These are foods we cannot eat to our full satisfaction. We usually avoid eating salt, oil and pepper during white fasting. It is to avoid loading the flesh with food or being overfed, a situation that makes it difficult for our spirit to be active at sleep.
There are other observances that make our prayer effective. One of these is our position when we pray. Prayer consists of supplication and judgement. Supplication is a situation where we derive the needed authority from God to do the warfare while judgement is a process by which the authority is discharged. It can be illustrated as when a Policeman receives authority from his superior while standing erect with full subjection as against when he discharges the authority against an accused person with a commanding voice. Believers can kneel down, bow his head and do some other acts of respect and subjection before God to be well equipped for his spiritual battle but after receiving the needed power and authority he cannot pray on his knees. He will stand over and against the enemy. The above is to explain that our position at prayer is reflected in our spirit dimension and put us either at advantage or disadvantage against our enemy. Warfare prayer is not done on our knees but in demonstration of our superior authority and dominion.
Prophetic Act is usually a demonstrative prayer that comes from Revelation Spiritual gift of Words of wisdom. Prominent examples of Prophetic Acts are the healing of water by Elisha in 2nd Kings 2:19-21 and the cleansing of Naaman in River Jordan.
"And the men of the city said unto Elisha, Behold, I pray thee, the situation of this city is pleasant, as my lord seeth: but the water is naught, and the ground barren. And he said, Bring me a new cruse, and put salt therein. And they brought it to him. And he went forth unto the spring of the waters, and cast the salt in there, and said, Thus saith the LORD, I have healed these waters; there shall not be from thence any more death or barren land." (2nd King 2:19-21)
Believers can be led by the Holy Spirit to do a symbolic demonstration as a Prophetic Prayer act. Prophetic Prayer act is common among the African Instituted rechurches usually known as white garment church. Prophetic act is supposed to be performed only once as inspired by the Holy Spirit but it is wrongly misused and become a pattern of prayer that is replicated constantly. The example of this misuse is the bronze image of serpent that Moses erected in the wilderness for the healing of snake bites and which was turned into an object of worship until King Josiah destroyed it.
Mountain tops and flowing streams: these two provide ideal environment for prayer vibration. Jesus went up to the hill tops to pray several times. Same way a group of women led by Lydia usually gathered by the river side to pray.
"And on the sabbath we went out of the city by a river side, where prayer was wont to be made; and we sat down, and spake unto the women which resorted thither. And a certain woman named Lydia, a seller of purple, of the city of Thyatira, which worshipped God, heard us: whose heart the Lord opened, that she attended unto the things which were spoken of Paul. And when she was baptized, and her household, she besought us, saying, If ye have judged me to be faithful to the Lord, come into my house, and abide there. And she constrained us." (Acts 16:13-15)
Both mountain tops and River sides are natural environments that provide prayer vibration and make prayer more effective. In ignorance, anyone that prays by the river side is misjudged as worshipping the goddess of water. The above are some of the ways by which we make our prayers more effective.
To be continued
Source: Ways to effective prayer, by Pastor Adewunmi (http://nationalmirroronline.net/new/ways-to-effective-prayer-by-pastor-adewunmi/)