Mistaken Prayer Mindsets
Most Christians do their praying with mistaken mindsets that get in the way of being able to receive anything from God on His terms. Let’s look at what some of these mindsets are. If you see yourself in one or more of these, it’s time to change your mindset so that you can receive healing or whatever else you need from the Lord!
The Courtroom Mindset
You picture yourself going to God’s courtroom to present a request to heaven’s Prayer Resolution Panel in order to get one of four decisions: (1) Yes (2) No (3) Wait (4) Silence (no decision). You expect that God will be the Judge for your individual case.
You’ve lost already if you think that God has to make a decision! Faith does not try to get God to make a decision! Faith receives what God in His grace has already decided to give you! If you are not SURE that God says YES to whatever it is, you need to hold off on prayer for now, read His Word and find out what He has to say. If you pray according to His will, He hears you and you KNOW you have the petition that you asked of Him (1 John 5:14-15). But if you doubt (that is, you don’t know what the will of the Lord is ahead of time), you must not think you will receive anything (James 1:5-8).
By the way, being your own advocate before the Father is above your pay grade. Jesus is your Advocate (1 John 2:1) – the ONE Mediator between God and man (1 Timothy 2:5). You are not your own mediator! If He’s the ONE, that job description is filled and you can’t be another one.
The Tug of War Mindset
You see yourself at one end of a rope and God on the other end, and you are determined to have a Jacob-style wrestling match with God to get God to cave in and give you what you want.
This would be a sad state of affairs: you vs. God!
I’m aware of a famous quote from a great revivalist who used to be a lawyer, “Argumentative prayers are the best kind of praying.” But with all due respect to him, argumentative prayers are NOT the way to believe and receive what you need! You receive when you agree with God, not when you argue with God!
You won’t get answers to your prayers if you see God as your adversary. The devil is your adversary; God is for you, not against you (Romans 8:31)! So stop seeing God as being against you, holding back your prayer answers. You’ll get your prayers answered when you agree with God, which means agreeing with His Word. Rather than “You need to heal me!” (not biblical), side in WITH God and thank Him that He already paid for your healing when Christ paid for your sins. Then receive what God already paid for. Things work when you see yourself and God as being on the SAME side of your prayer!
The Majority Rules Mindset
This mindset concludes that the way to “move God” is to get as many people as possible requesting the same thing of Him as much as possible. This lowers God to the level of most human politicians who try to please the majority.
Yet the truth is that you can be healed with nobody else praying for you as long as you “believe that you receive when you pray” (Mark 11:24).
Heaven does not have a big thermometer poster like some charities have, so that if somehow you and others submit enough requests, God will finally move because the request-counter thermometer got to the top.
The mistaken “Majority Rules” attitude is also evident is many people’s prayers for revival, their idea being that God will suddenly feel like doing something that He wasn’t otherwise inclined to do if there is enough public pressure on Him. Again, the truth is that God isn’t holding back anything from His church (Romans 8:32). He didn’t give us the keys to only half His kingdom while keeping certain blessings locked up until enough people have “wail and travail” meetings beseeching Him for those special “revival” blessings, at which point He’ll hand over the keys He’s supposedly holding back until there is enough prayer.
The Bug Him Until He Does It Mindset
This mindset pictures God as stingy, clenching your prayer answer in His fists unless you bug Him enough, at which point He will finally give in. At first, He will supposedly tell you “No,” but this will supposedly change to a “Yes” after you have pestered Him sufficiently with the same request. This treats God as if He were the unjust Judge in the story Jesus told about the unjust judge.
Jesus explicitly taught against this mentality! Matthew 6:7 says, “But when ye pray, use not vain repetitions, as the heathen do: for they think that they shall be heard for their much speaking.” By contrast, “the prayer of faith” to “believe that you receive when you pray” is prayed exactly once! After that, you keep thanking God for what you already have, not telling Him that you don’t have it by asking for it all over again. In fact, if you ask God for it a second time, you prayed in unbelief the first time because you obviously don’t believe that the first prayer accomplished anything!
The Moses-Mode Mediator Mindset
This mindset often manifests in “revival” praying in some circles, resulting in desperate cries such as, “Spare thy people, O God, from Thy fierce wrath!” The general idea is that you now take the place of Moses as a mediator between God and man, stopping God from raining down judgment on your area. When it comes to healing, you see yourself as a mediator who must talk God into healing someone.
However, as we saw in 1 Timothy 2:5, the “mediator” position is already filled – by Jesus! There are no job openings for mediators between God and man in the New Covenant.
This mindset is just another “I’ll change God’s mind” approach, and all such approaches are inappropriate. You don’t need to change God’s mind – you need to let God change your mind with His Word (Romans 12:2)! Then you will realize that God is quite fine the way He is, as He is already willing for everyone to have the healing that His Son already paid for.
The Who-Am-I Mindset
This mindset is encouraged by a number of “Christian” sermons and songs that moan about the author’s state – so unworthy, so undeserving, such a lowly worm, just a dirty, rotten sinner, and so on. Who am I to approach God, anyway? Who am I to think that God should hear and answer my prayers?
Well, for starters, you’re His blood-washed, forgiven child, who has access to God’s throne by the blood of Jesus (Hebrews 10:19). You’re a new creation – a saint. You are worthy and deserving because you’re created in God’s image in righteousness and true holiness (Ephesians 4:24). If you think you’re a dirty, rotten, undeserving sinner, you need to read You Are Holy and Worthy to Receive Healing. If you want to know even more about who you are, read the discussion entitled Who You Are and What You Have.
The “God Knows What’s Best, So ‘Whatever’” Mindset
This mindset assumes that whatever happens is the will of God and that He sometimes lovingly allows the devil to beat the stuffing out of you because He knows that sometimes it’s best for you to be roughed up and trodden underfoot by a defeated foe. So when you feel like you’re a doormat and Satan is wiping his feet on you, you assume that “Father knows best” and take it in stride rather than resisting the devil and his works in your life.
The fact that so many people end up in hell should be sufficient proof that “God’s best” cannot be determined by what actually ends up happening. Does God have a mysterious “plan” that involves many people suffering torment forever in the lake of fire because that is somehow for their good? After all, He allows it, and by some people’s theology, anything that He allows must be His will. Is that what He thinks when He allows you to sin?
God does indeed know what’s best for you – healing and health! That’s why He provided it for you and made it free for the taking. So don’t defeat yourself in prayer with a “whatever” mentality. If you’re basically going to throw up your hands and say, “Whatever happens, I’m good with it,” why bother praying at all in the first place? If God is just going to give you what’s “best” and if that could include suffering illness, you wouldn’t need to pray at all; you’d just accept whatever happens as His mysterious will. I sincerely hope that by reading this and other discussions and God’s own Word on the matter, you never fall into that trap.