{"id":3242,"date":"2026-05-29T16:25:14","date_gmt":"2026-05-29T16:25:14","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.bwbministries.com\/?p=3242"},"modified":"2026-05-29T16:25:14","modified_gmt":"2026-05-29T16:25:14","slug":"the-power-behind-answered-prayer","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.bwbministries.com\/?p=3242","title":{"rendered":"The Power Behind Answered Prayer"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Acts 9:36-41 There was a believer in Joppa named Tabitha (which in Greek is Dorcas). She was always doing kind things for others and helping the poor\u2026she became ill and died. Her body was washed for burial and laid in an upstairs room. But the believers had heard that Peter was nearby at Lydda, so they sent two men to beg him, \u201cPlease come as soon as possible!\u201d So Peter returned with them; and as soon as he arrived, they took him to the upstairs room. The room was filled with widows who were weeping and showing him the coats and other clothes Dorcas had made for them. But Peter asked them all to leave the room; then he knelt and prayed. Turning to the body he said, \u201cGet up, Tabitha.\u201d And she opened her eyes! When she saw Peter, she sat up! He gave her his hand and helped her up. He called in the widows and all the believers, and he presented her to them alive.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

I have prayed for two people who I saw raised from the dead. But I\u2019ve prayed for many others who weren\u2019t. I asked the Lord why? He said, \u201cI told you to pray for the two, but I never told you to pray for the others!\u201d I was praying in my own \u201cpower\u201d which, without the Holy Spirit, is useless! I guess you could say my prayers<\/em> were dead! Peter didn\u2019t pray for Dorcas until he prayed and got instruction from God.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Acts 16:16-18 is another example. Luke writes: O<\/em>nce when we were going to the place of prayer, we were met by a female slave who had a spirit by which she predicted the future. She earned a great deal of money for her owners by fortune-telling.<\/em> She followed Paul and the rest of us, shouting, \u201cThese men are servants of the Most High God, who are telling you the way to be saved.\u201d She kept this up for many days. Finally Paul became so annoyed that he turned around and said to the spirit, \u201cIn the name of Jesus Christ I command you to come out of her!\u201d At that moment the spirit left her.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Why the wait? I believe he was waiting on the Holy Spirit\u2019s timing, waiting for the word from the Lord to tell him what to do. When he heard, then <\/em>he acted! The trick of our enemy, Satan, is to try to get us to do things that the Lord never told us to do. Why? So we will think we failed and our faith will falter, to get us to fall into self-condemnation. Many people around the country call or email us, saying, \u201cI have a prayer request for you.\u201d They continue, \u201cThis is what I want you to pray\u2026\u201d and proceed to tell us word for word! We tell them, \u201cIf you heard, then you pray!\u201d We can\u2019t pray until God tells us how to pray. First we need to hear. Why? Because we can\u2019t release our faith until we have the faith! When our words become more selective, then our prayers become more effective!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

– by Emil Liko 5\/22\/26<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Acts 9:36-41 There was a believer in Joppa named Tabitha (which in Greek is Dorcas). She was always doing kind things for others and helping the poor\u2026she became ill and died. Her body was washed for burial and laid in an upstairs room. But the believers had heard that Peter was nearby at Lydda, so they … Continue reading The Power Behind Answered Prayer<\/span> →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3242","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.bwbministries.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3242","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.bwbministries.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.bwbministries.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.bwbministries.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.bwbministries.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3242"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/www.bwbministries.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3242\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3243,"href":"http:\/\/www.bwbministries.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3242\/revisions\/3243"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.bwbministries.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3242"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.bwbministries.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3242"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.bwbministries.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3242"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}