#1 Condition for an effective prayer

    A couple of years back I had done something I have never done in my life. I replaced a thermostat at the church.

    Now I had installed other things in the past, things like a new light fixture, or setting up a new TV. If those past experiences taught me anything, it taught me that the first thing I need to do is grab the instructions. Yes it has taken me nearly 40 years of my life to learn that lesson, but I have finally learned that it is better to read the instructions instead of trying to figure things out my self. 

    So that is what I did before I tried to figure out by trail and error how to put the thermostats in. I took a little time to read the instructions. 

    Now everything went fairly smoothly as I recall that is until I came to a problem. There was one thermostat that was giving me some problems. I had wired it just like the others and I had checked and rechecked what I had done with the instructions I was given. However, no matter what I did this thermostat was not working.

    It took awhile but I finally figured out what the problem was. It turned out that the furnace that I was trying to put the thermostat to was not compatible with that particular thermostat. You see there were conditions that were not met for the thermostat to communicate properly to the furnace to get it to turn on. You see I found out later that the thermostat that I had needed an adaptor to be plugged into the right power source. 

    When we think about prayer and specifically when we think about getting an answer to our prayers. We need to understand that there are certain conditions that must be met as well. One of the things we need to understand is that we need to get connected to the right power source. 

    There are a lot of prayers that people pray. Many different religions spend time in prayer, yet they are not connected to the right power source. So there prayers are merely words that people speak that are not heard by God.  

    Sometimes we as Christians will pray, and though we should be connected to the right power source. We sometimes are disconnected for one reason or another making the prayers we pray disconnected. This is why sometimes we may feel our prayers are not being heard. This is why we fail to see any answers come about through our prayers.

     So How can we get the right connection? Well listen to these words of Jesus Christ found in 

"If you abide in Me, and My Words abide in you, you shall ask what you will, and it shall be done to you" - (John 15:7) 

     Many times when we pray we pray with our own agenda in mind. We have our own ideas of what we need or what we think is best. Many times when we pray we rarely think about or consider what our relationship with God is when we come to the Lord in prayer. Many times we rely to heavily on our own power, strength and efforts. All of these things bring about connection issues when it comes to prayer. 

    What Jesus is saying in that passage is that there is a condition if you want your prayers to be heard and answered. You need to be properly connected to Jesus first. That is what abide means, it means to be connected to, plugged in, attached, unified with Jesus. 

    You see we can't come with our own agenda in mind, but our agenda needs to be aligned with Gods. We can't rely on our power, ability or efforts, we must surrender our control and rely on the power and ability of God!  We need to be completely and solely dependent on Jesus.

    So great we identified the problem so how can we fix it. Well it is simple by having and building a relationship with Jesus Christ. 

    We need to first, if we have not done it yet, put our faith and trust in the finished work of Jesus Christ to save us from our sins. 

    You see all of us are born sinners (Romans 3:23), we are born separated from God because of our sin and we sin because we have a sin nature. We are separated by God because unlike us God does not sin, He is sinless. The bible tells us that all of us (because of our sin) must answer before God. God must Judge our sin and the bible says that the judgment of our sin is death (Romans 6:23).

    However Jesus Christ, who is God in the flesh, lived a life we could not live a life free from sin. So that He could die a death we deserve, to offer us a life we could never earn. Jesus came and died for your sin, for your punishment, a punishment that you deserve. All so that your sins would be forgiven and having your sins forgiven you would have a real relationship with the one true God. It's that relationship with Jesus Christ that allows your prayers to be heard. 

  However its not just having a relationship with Jesus Christ that allows our prayers to be heard and answered. It building that relationship, it is daily drawing close to Him. It is daily getting into the word and leaning and growing your walk with God through Jesus Christ that allows our prayers to be heard. It is that daily growth that aligns our will with His, that leads us to rely on His strength instead of ours. 

    So before you pray, take some time drawing close to Him. Read his word. Sing His praises. Repent of the things that have separated you from a close relationship with God. Spend sometime thanking Him for all the good things He has done in you life and in the lives around you.  And then when you have done all of that go to God in prayer and see what a diffrence that will make in your prayer life. You will be glad that you did.