The Call to Breakthrough Prayer
There is a breakthrough aspect to prayer that the Lord is calling us to. We are meant to be overcomers—those who, through persistence and tenacity, see the stronghold walls start to fall. If you have been a person who is constantly beset by the fear of failure, the power of lack, or the continual drip of worry and doubt, you need to learn the secret of breakthrough prayer.
There is a fervency of heart that must lead us to pray longer, with more intensity and passion than we have ever prayed before. I understand that often it is not about the length of our prayer or surface-level praying, but for breakthrough to happen in your life, you must challenge yourself to pray differently than you have before.
Allow me to suggest that breakthrough prayer is something more fervent and urgent than standard relational praying. When you need God to break through the barriers holding you back in certain areas of life, you need to let your heart sacrifice to spend time with God, knocking on the doors of heaven until they open. Breakthrough prayer is a mode that refuses to be satisfied with anything less than a sense of victory and success. Breakthrough prayer occurs when you know deep in your spirit that the Lord has heard you.
It is about pressing into the Lord Himself and asking Him for an answer that you can never produce through self-effort or trying harder. Can I say something to you? Your Heavenly Father desires breakthrough in your life more than you do! He knows what you need in advance and has established this system of prayer so that you can reach the destiny He has for you in this season.
Elijah shows us an example of breakthrough prayer. The New Testament declares that Elijah was a man like us. There was nothing special about him that gave him a greater propensity for the Lord to hear his prayers more than He will hear yours.
James 5:16 NKJV—[16] Confess your trespasses to one another, and pray for one another, that you may be healed. The effective, fervent prayer of a righteous man avails much.
There are moments in our lives when the prayers we pray must take on a higher level of fervency and tenacity. It is simply the truth. If you need something from the Lord, bombard heaven for it. Let your prayer time become effective and fervent. Scripture is clear on this subject. These kinds of prayers prevail.
This is what I call breakthrough prayer. Yes, there are multiple types of prayer, and yes, there are various ways that breakthrough comes. My goal is not to lead you to believe that the breakthrough is dependent on what you say or how you say it. All I am suggesting is that there are moments in our lives when, according to Scripture, we must pray with an effectiveness and fervency that God promises will prevail.
The word “avail” means in Greek: to have and exercise force. It also means to exert, wield power, and have the strength to overcome.
I am suggesting that there is a place in prayer where our approach shifts into another mode: breakthrough mode. It is the place where we begin to partner and cooperate with God in the Spirit by coming into alignment with His will and desire. This co-laboring produces massive results in a short amount of time as it breaks down the resistance of the enemy to the things of God in our lives.
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The Fervency That Prevails
Breakthrough prayer sounds easy—spend a few extra minutes, say a few extra words—but for breakthrough to come means much more than just these things alone. There is a point in our prayer where our heart begins to bend toward what God desires, not only in the situation but in us as individuals. This bending produces pain in a good way as it leads us toward something that is not selfish in its pursuit of the Lord.
Breakthrough prayer is anything but selfish; it is self-sacrificing. This sort of prayer cries out from the Garden of Gethsemane, “not my will, but yours,” and truly means it.
James 5:17-18 NKJV—[17] Elijah was a man with a nature like ours, and he prayed earnestly that it would not rain; and it did not rain on the land for three years and six months. [18] And he prayed again, and the heaven gave rain, and the earth produced its fruit.
Here is the point: Breakthrough prayer produces fruit. Fruit manifests in our situations, in our lives, and in the areas where the Lord directs us to intercede as our prayer shifts into breakthrough mode.
Elijah, a man like us, modeled this effectively.
1 Kings 18:41 NKJV—[41] Then Elijah said to Ahab, “Go up, eat and drink; for there is the sound of abundance of rain.”
This verse is astounding because it reveals a secret about breakthrough prayer. Here’s the secret: there is often a prophetic unction that comes into our hearts and minds, leading us to know that if we pray, the Lord has already created breakthrough and victory. There is always a cooperation between God and man in prayer to bring about breakthrough that can happen in no other way.
If you are believing God for something in your life but are not praying, it is time to start seeking Him with determination. To exert force in prayer simply means that we choose to believe and exercise the authority we have been given through the name of Jesus and His blood. There is a place of intercession we can enter before the Lord that presents our case and moves heaven in our favor. God is your Abba. He is your Father, and it is His good pleasure to give you the kingdom. But often, the kingdom answer only comes in response to sacrificial kingdom-type prayer.
1 Kings 18:42 NKJV—[42] So Ahab went up to eat and drink. And Elijah went up to the top of Carmel; then he bowed down on the ground and put his face between his knees.
In this verse, we see Elijah humble himself. The servant of Elijah is not the one bowing; Elijah is. In fact, Elijah has placed himself in a very vulnerable position. Warfare is not often fought with our faces to the ground, but in the Spirit, this is how warfare is fought and spiritual battles are won.
Breakthrough does not come from the number of scriptures you read and memorize. It will not come from simply skipping a few meals and claiming you have fasted. Breakthrough happens when a man or woman humbles themselves to the ground and prays with a fervency that makes them sweat, and with a humility that makes them vulnerable to God.
Until you can set your pride aside, don’t expect a river of blessings.
Until you can live in a place of thankfulness, don’t expect a great breakthrough.
Until you can sacrifice time and effort in prayer, don’t expect principalities to fall.
Again, do not misunderstand. There is a mystery that occurs in breakthrough prayer as we co-labor with the Lord to bring His will to pass. On one hand, the answer is completely up to God and is not dependent on anything we can do. Yet on the other hand, the answer is entirely dependent upon whether or not we pray. God created it this way. This is the tension of breakthrough prayer. It is His orchestration that leads us to breakthrough.
The Power of Persistent Faith
1 Kings 18:43 NKJV—[43] and said to his servant, “Go up now, look toward the sea.” So he went up and looked, and said, “There is nothing.” And seven times he said, “Go again.”
We see one of the most effective qualities of breakthrough prayer in this verse: breakthrough prayer is profoundly persistent.
There is a tenacity of spirit that is required to keep praying when you are seeing nothing. In fact, it is the “nothing” that makes breakthrough prayer even more travailing and vigilant. When you pray and pray, yet nothing is moving, you are left with a choice. You can either give up, or you can press in harder. Breakthrough prayer occurs in a man or woman of God when their spirit becomes intensely, even violently drawn to pray harder because they are seeing nothing change. Please understand, this sort of prayer is not about us trying to move God. If we are not careful, we will adopt the mentality that we are trying to move God’s hand. Instead, breakthrough prayer is when we do everything possible to come into alignment and agreement with God by seeking to co-labor with Him in producing the impossible. Breakthrough happens most quickly when we enter this place of heavenly agreement and lay aside all of our pride and entitlement.
My goal is to encourage you to pray harder when you see nothing changing. I want to see you seeking the face of God and worshipping Him for an answer that is yet to be revealed. If you can receive your answer by faith, you will hold your answer in the natural.
The Cloud of Breakthrough Is Rising
1 Kings 18:44 NKJV—[44] Then it came to pass the seventh time that he said, “There is a cloud, as small as a man’s hand, rising out of the sea!” So he said, “Go up, say to Ahab, ‘Prepare your chariot, and go down before the rain stops you.’”
When breakthrough prayer occurs and you see movement, faith declares that even the smallest activity is about to bring about the biggest outcomes. Elijah knew by faith that the little cloud was about to become a storm so great it would shake the enemy. You must stop discounting the little things you see God doing, and instead be thankful for them, declaring and speaking life into them. You and I must affirm that the slightest move of God’s hand will grow into world-shattering action. Elijah’s response was, “Prepare before the rain stops you.” The servant may have given Elijah a strange look, but Elijah understood the implication by faith of what the Lord was about to do.
Drought was about to end! A new season was about to dawn!
1 Kings 18:45-46 NKJV—[45] Now it happened in the meantime that the sky became black with clouds and wind, and there was a heavy rain. So Ahab rode away and went to Jezreel. [46] Then the hand of the LORD came upon Elijah; and he girded up his loins and ran ahead of Ahab to the entrance of
In his book “Prayer That Brings Revival,” David Yonggi Cho, who was the pastor of the largest Pentecostal Assemblies of God church in the world for many years, states that he prayed a minimum of three to five hours a day (Cho, 1998). In fact, he mentions that there were seasons when he prayed much longer than this in order to see results.
Reinhard Bonnke, the renowned German evangelist to Africa, said that he prayed many hours before every crusade. His crusades were marked by hundreds of thousands of attendees, hundreds of healings, and thousands of salvations.
Kenneth Hagin noted that he often prayed for hours on end. Leonard Ravenhill would sometimes pray all night. Bill Johnson shared that when he pastored a small mountain church in Weaverville, California, for seventeen years, he had an ongoing prayer night on Fridays where he often prayed all night, and many times he was the only one who showed up.
Evan Roberts spent ten to eleven years praying for revival before the Welsh revival broke out. He often prayed all night long.
Every great man and woman of God has had this quality: they were giants in prayer.
My life has been marked by these men and women whom I have read about. Lately, there has been a gnawing in my spirit that begins with a question: how much prayer will it take to see massive revival in my life, my family, my city, and my nation? How much prayer will it take to see the enemy’s powers over our towns fall? Please don’t misunderstand. I do not mean that my prayers alone will cause this to happen. There is simply a growing urgency in my spirit to sacrifice more and more in prayer until I see a cloud the size of a man’s hand. The amazing thing about the cloud was that once it showed up, prayer was over, and nothing could stop what the cloud was about to produce: breakthrough.
So let me ask you, how much breakthrough prayer will it take to change your situation? How much are you willing to sacrifice in prayer to see the impossible become the new reality? What would happen if you made just a little more time for the Lord to move in you and upon you with intercession?
