We must prevail in prayer until God answers. Many are seeking power from God, but what is even greater is power with God! In Genesis 32:28, we have the story of how Jacob wrestled with God all night. At the end, God turned to Jacob and said, "As a prince, you have power with God and with man and have prevailed!" (KJV)
If you want to be active rather than passive as a believer, then you need to have power not only from God, but also power with Him! You cannot have real power with men until you first learn to have power with God, hence this wrestling (in persistent prayer). That is why I have so many battles in my life - in the communist prison, cancer twice - so that I can learn how to have power with God! The result, it has transformed my life, my ministry, so that these last twenty years have been the most effective in my whole life!
Wrestling with God is a question of learning how to pray. Anyone can 'pray', especially in a crisis. But it's prevailing prayer, learning how to pray until we get the answer. It is a privilege when God places us in extreme circumstances so that we can learn how to wrestle with Him! My life seems to go from one crisis to the next, until even I say to God, "Isn't it time You made my life a little bit easier?" But He has a simple answer, "Without the crisis you will stop learning!" That is why, old as I am, however many years I have been evangelising, I am still saying, "Lord teach me how to pray!"
When I was in that communist prison for Bible smuggling, and they were cursing me, and saying that I would never get out alive, I began to pray. And this is how I prayed: 'O God, two thousand years ago, when Paul and Silas were in prison, they prayed, and You sent an earthquake. You opened the prison, broke the chains, set them free. O God, if You could do it 2000 years ago, I want You to do it now! Now! I want You to do it now in this prison. Work a miracle. Open the prison door. Set me free.'
You know the story. God worked a miracle. He sent Harold Wilson. I flew home with him. God set me free.
Why am I telling you this story? You can have power with God through prayer; but first, you must learn how to pray and come into intercession. Your praying will loose the chains of bondage surrounding you, and it will also change nations. God said to Solomon, 'If My people will humble themselves and pray, I will forgive their sin, I will heal their land.' If we cry out to God, He will deliver. God will heal our land.
I am urging you: pastors, bishops, leaders, find power with God. If you want power with men, you first need power with God. You need this power to change nations!
The important thing with prayer is, like Jacob, to prevail with God until He answers!