- John 14:14-15 You may ask for anything in my name, and I will do it. “If you love me, keep my commands.
“Prayer is work.” This statement is the secret to making prayers come true. You have to pray with realization of this secret. Then the hard work you put in to pray will not be in vain. As people live their lives, they do work, right? Doing work is difficult and tiring. However, through [doing work], problems get solved and you gain things too.
Praying is like doing work as one lives his life. Just as problems get solved when one does work, when one prays, problems get solved. However, [You see], things don’t get solved overnight just because you are doing the work.
It is difficult because you have to solve it through working hard and enduring hardships for a long time. However, as long as you do the work, you will fulfill the purpose even though you may go through hardships. In this way, prayer too is hard to do because it must be done for a long time to solve problems. However, as long as you pray sincerely to God in the name of the Lord until the end, it will surely be fulfilled because both God and you made the investment.
Work too – you do the work with a purpose and finish it by doing it until it is completed, right? Prayer too – just as you would work toward a purpose, you solve problems by praying steadfastly until it is fulfilled. When building a house, you have to work for six months or a year to complete the house, right? If you have the goal of building a house, you work every day until the house is completed. The same is true with ‘the work of praying.’ Whether you are praying for healing or praying for a certain purpose, don’t finish after [praying] just once or twice, ten times, or twenty times.
Instead, you should pray until it is completed and until it is fulfilled. Some work requires three years or five years of work to finish, right? Some work requires ten, twenty, or thirty years of work to finish, right? The work of prayer too- you have to work like that to fulfill it. Some prayers come true twenty years later. It is because you have to grow/mature for it to come true.
Also, while praying, you should not just wait ‘until the time it is fulfilled’ but must do ‘the work that pertains to that.’ Managing your health too- you shouldn’t do it just once or twice. If you want to manage your health in order to make your body strong, you have to pray and do the applicable management continually and steadily for 3 months, 7 months, 1 year, 2 years, or 3 years just as you would work on building a house for six months or a year. Then when your health is restored, from that point on, you should continually exercise in order to maintain your health. The same is true with prayer. You have to pray continually and steadily for a long while in order to fulfill a specific purpose. As you pray, you must also do the work that pertains to that. Then when the prayer is fulfilled, from that point on, you have to keep praying in order to maintain the things you have gained and to exist.
When you are praying, you should not finish after praying for just an instant like you would gulp down water in an instant. You have to do ‘the work of praying’ like you would tend to your crops for an entire year. [Of course] there are ‘things you should do just once or twice’ like you would fetch water. Such works are ‘works with small purposes.’ If you want to do work with great purpose, you have to do the work multiple times and do it steadily.
The amount of hard work and the type of work you do change by whether you are making a 10m path, 100m path, or 1000m path, right? The same is true with the work of praying. Depending on the purpose with which you pray, The amount of hard work of praying, the content of prayer, and the duration all change.
The Holy Spirit said, “Pray with a correct understanding of what you must do in order for prayer to be fulfilled.” Just as you have to invest while doing the work in order for it to be fulfilled, you have to invest that much while praying in order for it to be fulfilled. And, even if you have made the investments while praying, [the Trinity] will give you [what you’ve prayed for] at the right time. When you are cultivating fruits too- the trees don’t bear fruit right away. Right? You have to work and invest that much. And even if you have invested while doing the work, you can pick the fruits only when ‘the time’ comes.’ The same is true with prayer. Of course, small things sometimes are fulfill in a short time. But [in all cases], ‘the time’ has to come. Even though you have prayed as much as you should pray, it will come true only when ‘the time’ comes. Therefore, you have to pray until the time you receive it.
When building a house or doing some work, it is even harder if you do it on an empty stomach, right? As much as you work, you eat a lot, gain ‘strength’ from it, and then work. The same is true with the work of prayer. If you just pray, it is hard. You should build up righteousness by listening well to and taking action on the Word, which is the spirit’s food, receive strength from that, and then pray powerfully with that strength and power. Just as you build a house or a building before the winter comes, just as you build a house or a building until it is fully completed, you should pray maniacally until the time [of fulfillment] comes and you should do it to the extreme until it is fulfilled.
If your prayer stops along the way, it is like stopping to build a house in the middle of construction. If prayer stops along the way, it is like stopping to build a road in the middle of construction. If that happens, you have to complete it by doing construction continually whether it takes 10 years or 20 years. If you stop building a house in the middle, you cannot rest comfortably in it. And if you stop building a road in the middle, you can’t travel on it. That is why you have to work on it boldly(!) night and day(!) when you are doing it.
Prayer should be done in this way. If you don’t pray, you will crumble no matter how strong you are. You have to protect yourself from Satan, slanderers, and tribulations by praying. You have to pray – Then you will become smart, sharp, and detailed and thus realize well, receive answers, and gain by taking action quickly. Whenever we are doing anything, there is always ‘someone who blocks us and interferes.’ Every time we do that work, [they] keep blocking us and interfering with that work. Even during times of trials, persecutions, and tribulations, Satan keeps working in ways that pertain to that. At times like that God does not just stand still. Instead, He always protects us from ‘Satan’s attacks’ and helps us. Therefore, you have to focus and earnestly ask. If you don’t pray, even if terrible suffering comes, you will be left alone to go through that suffering.
You have to make sure and pray! God answers your prayer after receiving ‘the condition of prayer.’ Why? It is because you, yourself, have to pray in order for you to know that God heard your earnest prayer and answered it. That is why you must pray. Nothing will work out unless you pray. It is ‘the power of prayer.’ If you want to be cured of a sickness, average prayer will not do. Like you are building a house, you have to pray for a long time and invest ‘the power of righteousness’ into your prayer! You have to do this no matter what purpose you are praying with.
[Of course] there are times when you receive replies easily and gain things quickly and easily by praying. Sometimes God gives you things quickly to give you the conviction that ‘things will happen if you pray.’ And even if you did receive things quickly and easily, you still gained them because you prayed. Even if you gained things quickly and easily, you still gained them because you prayed. And even if you gained things by waiting until [the right] time came and invested for a long time, you still gained because you prayed. If you want to gain something good and if you want things to go well, you have to set your mind and pray. You have to cling to God while praying.
You, yourself have to work that hard. Then God will also do it for you. If you’re given something just because you prayed a little bit, then you will not know its value and you will forget it right away. So that He does not get deceived by people, God makes people pray while continually and steadily doing righteous deeds. Therefore, when praying, I hope you will consider it ‘a process of becoming a person who goes into God’s domain and lives there’ and pray continually and steadily while doing righteous deeds. You have to know just how great it is that God does something for you with His power. You have to pray knowing that!