Prevailing Prayer (Updated, Annotated): A Thorough Study on the Subject of Prayer

by Dwight L. Moody

The two first and essential means of grace are the Word of God and prayer. Conversion comes through these, for we are born again through the living and enduring word of God (1 Peter 1:23), and whoever will call on the name of the Lord will be saved (Romans 10:13).

These two instruments of grace must be applied in the right proportion. If we read the Word and do not pray, we may become puffed up with knowledge, without the love that builds others up. If we pray without reading the Word, we will be ignorant of the mind and will of God, and become mystical and fanatical, and liable to be blown around by every wind of doctrine.

For from Him and through Him and to Him are all things (Romans 11:36), and it is only by hearing God’s Word, where we learn his purposes toward us and toward the world, that we can pray acceptably. This means praying in the Holy Spirit and asking the things which are pleasing in his sight.

We have the same permission to go to God and ask the fire from heaven to come down and consume our lusts and passions – to burn up our impurities and let Christ shine through us. Scripture is full of examples. Elisha prayed, and a dead child came back to life. Some of us have children who are spiritually dead in sin and who have wandered from God’s truth. We can do as Elisha did by asking God to raise them up from spiritual death in answer to our prayers.

Surely if God answered the prayer of wicked Manasseh, he will hear ours in the time of our distress. Isn’t this a time of distress for so many people we know? Aren’t there many around us whose hearts are burdened? As we go to the throne of grace, let’s remember God answers prayer!

All through the Scriptures you will find that when believing prayer went up to God, the answer came down.

In the same way, when we get really into communion with God, he lifts up his countenance – his image – upon us, and instead of our having gloomy looks, our faces will shine, because God has heard and answered our prayers.

Paul demonstrates this idea of how we reflect the glory of God, in the same way a mirror reflects an image, when the Holy Spirt transforms us from within. But we all, with unveiled face, beholding as in a mirror the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from glory to glory, just as from the Lord, the Spirit (2 Corinthians 3:18).