10 Keys To Powerful Prayer | Paul Washer

I recently came across the following quote and sermon by Paul Washer that challenged my view of prayer. I share it with you here for your edification and exhortation.

Now let me ask you a question. When people hear you pray do they hear someone who knows God? Do they hear the rhythm of the religion? Do they hear words that have been taught to you by other men? Do they hear form? Do they hear intellect? Or do they hear a man or a woman or a child who spends much time in the presence of God?

Has anyone ever come to you and said, “Teach me to preach like you preach”? Well, that may be something to boast about, but not before God.
Has anyone ever come to you and said, “Teach me to administrate like you administrate”? Has anyone ever come to you and said, “Teach me to pray”?

I am not much of a man, but I have had the privilege in my life to be in the presence of many men used by God. And the one thing that I noticed. They had very little in common except one thing. When they bowed their knee, something unusual happened.

There is a saying. When someone achieves a certain thing he may look over and with a twinkle in his eye say, “You can’t learn that. You have got to be born with that.”

You can’t fake prayer.

Jesus was a man of prayer and when he prayed people saw the difference.

Now I want to look for a moment at the idea that Jesus was a man of prayer. And I have just scribbled down here a bunch of verses and I am going to kind of read a hodge podge of verses that you might come to understand the importance of prayer in the life of Jesus Christ and then come to understand that if prayer was so important to the incarnate Son of the living God, then how much more important should prayer be to us? How much more should we depend upon prayer?

~Paul Washer