By Faith Enterprises

Fervency in Prayer is the Forerunner of Answered Prayer

Tip! It opens the door for salvations. (Act 2:42) "And they continued steadfastly in the apostles' doctrine and fellowship, and in breaking of bread, and in prayers".

The motivation to fervency in our spirit before God is precisely the same as it is to be in continued and earnest prayer. While fervency is not prayer, yet it derives from an earnest soul, and is precious in the sight of God.

Fervency in prayer is the forerunner of what God will do for us by way of answered prayer. God stands pledged to give us the desire of our hearts in proportion to the fervency of spirit we exhibit, when we seek His face in prayer.

Fervency has its seat in the heart, not in the brain, nor in the intellectual faculties of our mind. Fervency therefore, is not an expression of our intellect.

Fervency of spirit is something that is far beyond any poetical fancy or sentimental imagery. It is something else besides a mere preference or the differences of like with dislike. Fervency is the throb and gesture of our emotional nature.

It is not in our power, perhaps, to create fervency of spirit at will, but we can pray and ask God to implant it. It is ours, then, to nourish and cherish it, to guard it against extinction, to prevent its end or decline.

Tip! Our Lord warns us against feeble praying. "Men ought always to pray," He declares, "and not to faint." That means that we are to possess sufficient fervency to carry us through the severe and long periods of pleading prayer.

The process of personal salvation is not only to pray, to express our desires to God, but to acquire a fervent spirit and seek, by all proper means and to cultivate it. It is never out of place to pray and ask God to produce within us, and to keep alive the spirit of fervent prayer.

Fervency has to do with God, just as prayer has to do with Him. Desire has always an objective. If we desire at all, we desire something. The degree of fervency with which we fashion our spiritual desires, will always serve to determine the earnestness of our praying. In this same idea, Adoniram Judson says:

"A travailing spirit, the throes of a great burdened desire, belongs to prayer. A fervency strong enough to drive away sleep, which devotes and inflames the spirit, and which retires all earthly ties, all this belongs to wrestling, prevailing prayer. The Spirit, the power, the air, and food of prayer is in such a spirit."

Tip! 'Intercession' is amplification in prayer; it is going out in broadness and fullness from ones self for others. Primarily, it does not center in praying for others, but refers to the freeness, boldness and childlike confidence in praying.

Prayer must be clothed with fervency, strength and power. It is the force that is centered on God and determines the outlay of Himself for our earthly good. People who are fervent in spirit are bent on achieving righteousness, truth, grace, and all the other uplifting and powerful graces which beautify the character of a genuine, unquestionable child of God.

God once declared, by the mouth of a brave prophet, to a king who, at one time, had been true to God, but, by the incoming of success and material prosperity, had lost his faith, the following message:

"The eyes of the Lord run to and fro throughout the whole earth, to show Himself strong in the behalf of them whose heart is perfect toward Him. Herein hast thou done foolishly; therefore, from henceforth thou shall have wars."

Tip! So when we ask Christ to carry out His works in our hearts we are fervently praying that our Father may be glorified in His Son.

God had heard Asa's prayer in early life, but disaster came and trouble was sent, because he had given up the life of prayer and simple faith.

In Romans 15:30, we have the word, "strive," occurring, in the request which Paul made for prayerful cooperation.

In Colossians 4:12, we have the same word, but translated differently:

"Epaphras always laboring fervently for you in prayer." Paul charged the Romans to "strive together with him in prayer," that is, to help him in his struggle of prayer. The word means to enter into a contest, to fight against adversaries. It means, also, to engage with fervent zeal to endeavor to obtain.

Tip! THE possibilities of prayer are gauged by faith in God's ability to do. Faith is the one prime condition by which God works.

These recorded instances of the exercise and reward of faith, allow us to easily see that, in almost every instance, faith was blended with trust until it is not too much to say that the former was swallowed up in the latter. It is hard to properly distinguish the specific activities of these two qualities, faith and trust. But there is a point, beyond all peradventure, at which faith is relieved of its burden, so to speak; where trust comes along and says: "You have done your part, the rest is mine!"