What If You Took Prayer to the Next Level? Part 2

You Don’t Have Enough “Prayer” For That

What Does Prayer Look Like to You? – Part 3.2

In the previous message we discussed the “What If You Took Prayer to the Next Level?” We provided several ideas on what it means to take prayer to the next level and why we should take prayer to a new level, next level. In this message, I’d like to dig just a little deeper into why we are teaching this new philosophy and what it will mean for you.

Your weak prayer has produced the results you’re seeing.
If a little, weak prayer produces these results what will prayer at a next level produce?

I know you’re feeling some kind of way when I say “your weak prayer.” That’s on purpose. You see if you’re like me, you’ll make the mistake of thinking you are doing a good job with your prayers when in fact it is just ordinary, average. You pray over your main meal when it is convenient or when you are not around others who you might be ashamed or embarrassed to pray. Normal. You might forget to pray over one or two meals. You might run late at times in the morning and skip prayer. You might even fall asleep at night and miss your time of prayer. All of this is normal. You might think as most do that you can only pray before a meal, in the morning, and at bedtime. You might make an assumption that you prayed while at church because you went today or this past Sunday. Weak prayer is normal prayer. By the way, there’s nothing normal about prayer when you actually think about what prayer really is.

Now allow me to help you think beyond normal. You should have more prayer hours logged than you do bath hours. How can we expect uncommon results when we’re unwilling to sow the uncommon seeds (of prayer) to yield such results? Yes, I’ll say it again… your weak prayer. This is next-level prayer!

Now for the good side of weak prayer. Weak prayer is better than no prayer at all, obviously. But if your weak prayer produced the results that you see, you should at least be happy with the results. You didn’t do much and still got some type of result. However, what would happen if you had strong prayer? What would happen if you took prayer to a new level? I like to say this to the prayer team that Pamela and I serve. If the prayers we’ve prayed have yielded the results we see in our church, what would happen if we took our prayer up one notch? If you thought the results you now see are so great, take your prayer effects to the next level and see what happens.

John Maxwell says “everything rises and falls on leadership.” I love John, however, I must say everything rises and falls on prayer. Now I could put those two statements together, but that might blow the minds of some of our traditional Christian followers who believe that prayer only happens in a church environment and is only done by church people. That too is a normal, average, and an ordinary belief about prayer.  Moving on.

You don’t have enough “prayer.”
I need to be a little churchie for just a moment. So my non-churchie followers bare with me. I need to tell a Bible story and use a very well known scripture for this next idea on next level prayer. I call this mustard seed prayer.

Jesus’ disciples attempted to heal a young boy who was demon-possessed. Their attempt failed. As I think about it. They more than likely tried a few things. They more than likely prayed for the boy. They may have next tried to command the demon out of him; speak to the demon like Jesus’ did. They may have laid hands on the boy like we see in church services. Regardless, everything they tried failed. So the father of the young boy took him to Jesus and Jesus did what Jesus does. The boys was healed.^[1]

The disciples decided to turn this experience into a learning opportunity. They wanted to learn how to take what they knew to the next level. Don’t miss this. You can stay where you are and have your prayers fail on you or you can do like the disciples and ask Jesus why couldn’t we accomplish this task. Why wouldn’t our prayers work? And this is what Jesus said, directly from the Bible.

“You don’t have enough faith,” Jesus told them. “I tell you the truth, if you had faith even as small as a mustard seed, you could say to this mountain, ‘Move from here to there,’ and it would move. Nothing would be impossible.”^[1]

Taking your weak prayer to the next level in two ways.
Now let’s use this same learning opportunity to take our prayer to the next level.

1. You might be using a small amount of prayer for a mountain size problem.
   That means you use your prayer in larger doses, sizes, but few and far between.
   We all like this scripture, because it reassures us that even if we have a small amount of faith, it has the ability to move a mountain. However, we failed to ask the question of those who say they have a small amount of faith, how many mountains have you moved? In other words, if prayer produces results then what results have you been getting? You should know the results of your prayers.
   This thought about mustard seed faith leads me to believe that on the average, a normal person, doesn’t even have even a small amount of faith. Before you checkout, Jesus was speaking to his disciples when he made this statement. Back to your weak prayer. Would you say you have more faith than Jesus’ disciples? This question helps us put our weak prayer into perspective. The indication that one doesn’t have mustard seed size faith is that the mountain is not moving. If you want to go to the next level, first we must learn how to get some mustard seed faith so that we can get some mustard seed prayer and mountain moving results.

    

2. You might be trying to skip praying small prayers to get to mountain size prayers.
   Now we’re about to learn how to use mustard seed “anything” like a farmer uses a seed.
   You might not be planting your prayers like a seed. There is a lot I can say here. I’ll give you two next level thoughts to explain this.
   1. A seed is meant to be sown.
      You might not see how this principle works in accordance with prayer. However, the law of sowing and reaping is a law that will work in any scenario, including prayer. Whatever you sow, you will reap. If you’re going to take your prayer to the next level, begin with learning how to sow seeds of prayer. The beauty of what God has given us is that we don’t need a lot or a huge seed, a small mustard size seed of prayer will do. In other words, have you considered praying a bunch of small prayers? Probably not, because the normal person tries to sow mountain size prayers or what I call thirty-thousand-foot prayers  before they ever attempt the mustard seed size prayers. For example, our first prayers and many times only prayers are for requests to remove like cancer; praying for miracles, mountains. There’s no wonder we see pitiful results, even the disciples had a challenge with such big asks. The process requires having faith the size of a mustard seed.
   2. Sowing small seeds always produces bug results.
      In another saying of Jesus, He references this mustard seed to give insight into how His kingdom works. In other words, He reveals a secret to having success that exceeds what’s normal. He implies that by planting a seed, even a small mustard seed, the results are humongous. When we treat our prayer like a mustard seed and sow many of them, the results we get in return are humongous. Rather than trying to sow one big seed in prayer, why not try sowing many small mustard-seed sized prayers into the field and see the results they produce. By the way, when we sow only one seed, it’s possible that seed might not grow. It might be the wrong seed or planted in the wrong environment or even have inadequate conditions to grow. But when you sow many, you can expect many of them to grow. This is taking prayer to the next level.

Take a moment and think about what you’ve just read. I want to leave an impression. The disciples of Jesus found themselves in a situation where they could not get healing for a demon-possessed young boy. So they asked Jesus, what did we do wrong? When you didn’t see the results you expected when you prayed, did you even ask, Lord, what am I doing wrong? If this isn’t a prayer you’ve prayed, then it is time to take your prayer to the next level.

Question: have you ever asked God, what am I doing wrong in how I prayed?

Reference #1: Matthew 17:14-20 NLT‬, Bible.com, accessed June 29, 2021, https://www.bible.com/bible/116/MAT.17.14-20.NLT

All Scripture references used by permission, see our Scripture copyrights.