SEEKING THE HAND OF GOD (Praying only because of needs. John 6:2, 26)
This type of prayer is the lowest form of communication with God. It is praying only because of a personal need.
During the earthly ministry of Jesus, multitudes of people sought out and followed Him, but very few of them were interesting in committing their lives to Him in real discipleship (v. 60, 66-68). To them Jesus was not much more than some one who could satisfy their needs. He could heal their sick bodies when they needed healing. He could give them food when they were hungry. Only a very few ever thought of Jesus as someone they could enjoy fellowship with, and who desires fellowship in return.
Most believers unfortunately are living on this level of a relationship with Jesus. Their prayer life is almost non-existence until a serious problem arises.
SWEET HOUR OF PRAYER (Maintenance or Survival Prayer. Matthew 26:40-41)
This should be the very minimum that every believer should pray in order to live a victorious life is at least one hour every day. This type of prayer won't make you an intercessor or a prayer warrior, but it will probably be enough to maintain your present relationship with Jesus. We can refer to this type of one hour prayer as maintenance prayer or survival prayer. This describes the prayer life of most believers.
We must pray at least one hour every day just to overcome temptation, but do you believe that revival will come because of this kind of praying? (Mark 14:37-38)
If you are not regularly praying one hour a day, you should make this your first goal, but not your stopping place. At least an hour of prayer every day is required in order to maintain our present relationship with Jesus, to overcome temptation, and to help us to live in a way that is acceptable to Jesus.
SEEKING THE FACE OF GOD (Revival praying II Chronicles 7:14)
You will notice in this scripture that prayer and seeking God's face are listed separately. Prayer is not necessarily seeking the face of God. It could be seeking the hands of God. It could be maintenance prayer, to keep what we already have in God. Seeking the face of God involves more than that!
Seeking the face of God is a higher level of prayer than the one hour prayer. It involves doing whatever it takes to get the answer! It often involves humbling ourselves before God and sometimes men. Often it involves getting our relationship with God right, and also our relationship with others: "For if ye forgive men their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you: But if ye forgive not men their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses" (Matthew 6:14-15).
INTERCESSORY PRAYER (Prayer before the throne for others. I Timothy 2:1, 3-4)
Many believers who sincerely seek the face of God continually will eventually become intercessors. We seek the face of God because of spiritual thirst. In seeking the face of God, we pray often to become more like Jesus, and to become more useful in the kingdom of God. God's answer to these prayers is to fill us with His love, and a burden to pray for others. We become intercessors because of that burden and love. An intercessor is a person who prays on behalf of another person or group, who stands in the gap between God and men.
SPIRITUAL WARFARE (Prayer from the throne of authority: II Corinthians 10:3-4; Ephesians 6:12)
Whenever a person becomes a real Bible-believing, Spirit-filled believer, he acquires new enemies, Satan and his kingdom! Before we came to Jesus, we were a part of the “world system,” over which Satan rules (Ephesians 2:2-3). Some of us didn’t even know Satan existed, until we became a believer. After we were baptized, and filled with the Holy Ghost the devil tried to cause us to doubt the Lord and the experience we had received. We were already involved in spiritual warfare before we were warned that there was such a thing.
No wonder the Apostle Paul encouraged Timothy to be a good soldier of Jesus Christ (II Timothy 2:3), and “fight the good fight of faith” (I Timothy 6:12). We are in a battle, and to be successful we need proper knowledge concerning our enemy, so that we can identify and defeat him!
Imprecatory Prayer is a theological term. The word “imprecatory” is derived from “imprecation”, which is a synonym for “curse”. It is the word for prayer that attacks and seeks to destroy its object. It is, in fact, the Christian equivalent of putting a curse on something (never on someone). The furthest we can go in that direction as Christians is to pray for justice. In some cases, such as the death of Herod in Acts 12, the death of a person or people may well be the result, but we must not seek it (Luke 9:54-56). We should pray for the end of the evil we are attacking, and pray for the forgiveness, and salvation, of those who are involved in it.
There are many Biblical examples of it, especially in the Book of Psalms. Imprecatory prayer is highly effective for stopping evil, and for that reason is something that every believer should learn to do. With this type of praying we can aggressively attack enemy targets and destroy them and simultaneously bringing many people to salvation and also bringing revival.
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