The Power of Positive Praying

John R. Bisagno

• Publisher: B&H Books
• Year: 2015
• Print ISBN: 9781433685804
• eBook ISBN: 9781433685811
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: Religion

Jesus was our model and teacher in prayer. By His life and His lips our Lord's constant fellowship with the Father pointed to the necessity of ours. But Jesus didn't pray merely as an example to us. For thirty-three years, He lived as a man, tempted in all points like as are we. He prayed because He had to pray. He prayed because He must. In this 50th anniversary edition of The Power of Positive Praying, Dr. Bisagno expands this classic work with eight new chapters on prayer. If the Son of God prioritized prayer, how more must we? And His prayers were answered as will be ours, if like Him we pray in His Will, in His Word and in Faith. For that's the power of positive praying.

Chapter 1

From My Bible

You can live in a state of constant abiding in Christ, with powerful answers to positive prayers you may have never experienced before, because you can know God’s will unquestionably and pray positively.

The key to answered prayer is the divine formula:

God’s will to bestow + my faith to believe = answered prayer.

Two major factors in knowing His will are hidden in an often quoted but easily overlooked treasure from Romans 12:1–2:

I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that you present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable to God, which is your reasonable service. And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, that you may prove what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God. (nkjv, emphasis added)

The Beloved Apostle sets forth two important factors in knowing the will of God:

1. The first is a disciplined, consecrated body. The Bible has much to say about the body. The spiritual condition of the believer can be closely related to their physical condition.

Your body is the temple of the Holy Ghost.
(1 Cor. 6:19 kjv)

I keep under my body. (1 Cor. 9:27 kjv)

The relationship of body and soul may be far more important than we have ever imagined. God cares about the body He indwells. If you would sincerely know the will of God, first offer Him your body as a living sacrifice. Do everything you can to present it, the best possible specimen to God, keeping fit by exercise, sleep, healthy diet, and avoiding tobacco, alcohol, and drugs. The prize is worth the price.

Offering your body as a living sacrifice also includes the careful training of a keen and alert mind, a well-guarded tongue, and consecrated eyes and ears that speak, see, and hear only that which glorifies the Father.

2. The other key is a separated life. “Adulteresses! Don’t you know that friendship with the world is hostility toward God? So whoever wants to be the world’s friend becomes God’s enemy” (James 4:4).

Do not love the world or the things that belong to the world. If anyone loves the world, love for the Father is not in him. (1 John 2:15)

Worldly believers have clouded minds, divided hearts, and rebellious wills that can never clearly know, let alone do, the Father’s will.

We also know God’s will by “knowing Him.” The apostle Paul longed to live a life of constant fellowship with the Lord. He wanted his desires, his ambitions, his will to cease to exist. He literally wished Paul might die and rise spiritually—a new Paul, totally yielded to the Father—that he might experience what was potentially his in Christ. “But I make every effort to take hold of it because I also have been taken hold of by Christ Jesus” (Phil. 3:12).

To enter into such resurrection oneness with Christ, he said, “I must be resurrected spiritually and so, first must die.”

To die and live again like this, he said, is to “know Him”—“That I may know him, and the power of his resurrection” (Phil. 3:10 kjv).

In Genesis, we find the words, “Adam knew Eve his wife; and she conceived, and bare Cain” (Gen. 4:1 kjv).

In Luke, the angel told Mary she would give birth to a child. She used the same term. “How shall this be, seeing I know not a man?” (Luke 1:34 kjv).

To know obviously means “to be in union with.” The relationship of the believer to Christ is as the relationship of husband and wife. They have the same name, the same bank account, the same possessions. What belongs to one, belongs to both. Legally, they are one. Emotionally, physically, mentally, spiritually in marriage, they are one. The union of two bodies becomes the physical instrumentality through which that union flows. Paul’s prayer was to enter into the same deep union with Christ.

Have you ever known a couple, perhaps your grandparents or great-grandparents who have been married sixty or seventy years, who talk alike, act alike, think alike, and even look alike? Now that’s scary! They have been one for so long, their desires and actions have been melted into perfect unity. Ask one what the other likes, thinks, feels, or believes, and they will know. Just so, to know God is to know His will.

And if you are not absolutely sure that you know Him, go talk to your pastor.

With Jesus, as with husband and wife, time plus proximity equals sensitivity. And security. I don’t need to know where she is or what she’s doing when she’s out of my sight. After sixty years of wonderful marriage—not to worry—I know she’s coming home. Like the disciples, we’ve walked together “side by side.”

“Following Jesus” doesn’t mean walking single file in a line behind Him. It means to honor Him, listen to Him, hear His teachings, and obey them.

And how could they hear twenty, thirty, forty feet in back of Him on a windy day by the sea?

I chuckle when I do so, but as they went along, I sometimes wonder if they, like Uldine and I, ever sang:

Oh we ain’t got a barrel of money,
Maybe we’re ragged and funny.
But we’ll travel along, singin’ a song,
Side by side.
Don’t know what’s comin’ tomorrow,
Maybe it’s trouble and sorrow.
But we’ll travel the road, sharin’ our load
Side by side.
Through all kinds of weather
What if the sky should fall.
Just as long as we’re together,
It really doesn’t matter at all.
When they’ve all had their quarrels and parted,
We’ll be the same as we started.
Just travelin’ along
Singin’ a song,
Side by side.
—Harry M. Woods

Just so, through constant fellowship and daily communion with the Father, we can know how He thinks, what He desires, and what He wills because we know Him. Our union with Jesus has made us one.

And you can know the will of God by a deep, intuitive sense of knowing called discernment. It is a wonderful spiritual gift to the body of Christ, and some have it more than others. I call it “a holy hunch.”

How do you know when you’re hungry? You just know. How do you know when you’re sleepy? You just know. The Quakers call it “minding the checks.” In the depth of your spirit, God sometimes puts a holy hesitation. You’re at peace or not at peace, and you just know to do it, or not to do it.

Isaiah 30:21 is God’s special gift in our journey to find His will. “And whenever you turn to the right or to the left, your ears will hear this command behind you: ‘This is the way. Walk in it.’”

Jesus said, “My sheep know My voice.” It is a soft and gentle voice—not an audible, vocal voice but a deep, peaceful impression in the soul, “This is the way. Walk in it.”

Take delight in the Lord, and He will give you your heart’s desires. (Ps. 37:4)

This, my favorite verse, is set in a context of several important words: commit, trust, silent, wait.

Take delight in the Lord, and He will give you your heart’s desires. Commit your way to the Lord; trust in Him, and He will act. Be silent before the Lord and wait expectantly for Him; do not be agitated by one who prospers in his way, by the man who carries out evil plans. (Ps. 37:4–5, 7)

The Hebrew word translated “give” means to set—to hand to—to put. So if you’re absolutely crazy about Jesus and feel in your heart He really wants you to do something, go for it. He put it there. He’s the One who put “the put” in your “go.” Is that cool or what!

As two streams become one river, our spirits will become one. And His will becomes one with our will. His desires, our desire. I don’t have to ask Uldine whether she wants to go n...

Table of contents

• Introduction: Jesus’ Priority in Praying
• Section 1: Finding
• Section 2: Form
• Section 3: Further
• Conclusion: A Final Word
• Notes