What we all want are prayers to work, so what prayers are guaranteed to work?

In discovering which prayers are effective, we can start with Jesus' astonishing promise

to all of us in John 15-7.

Here's his pledge to his followers.

If you abide in me, Jesus says, and my words abide in you, ask whatever you wish and

it will be done for you.

Ask whatever you wish, what an astonishing open-ended promise to boost our prayer lives.

But it's given parameters by what makes for an effective prayer life.

Did you catch that?

If my word abides in you.

John Piper preached a sermon on this text back in the early weeks of 1993 in a sermon

fitly titled, Ask Whatever You Wish.

It led to this great clip where he explained the key to an effective prayer life.

His pastor John about 30 years ago.

Prayer is for granting us the joy of seeing God's will executed through us as it becomes

our will.

The only joy in life that lasts is when our desires are drawn from his desires and those

desires are the ones that have the promise made, ask and it will be given you.

Is the way John put it in chapter 3, verse 22 of his first letter, whatever you ask,

you receive from him because you keep his commandments and do the things that are pleasing

in his sight.

Prayer is not for gratifying natural desires.

...