Before getting to the prayer of faith, I feel that I need to address the obstacle that prevents prayer from reaching God’s ear. That would be unconfessed sin. Sinning, of course, takes many forms.
Probably, the most common form is selfishness. In prayer, we often don’t get what we ask for because we ask with the wrong motive—gratifying our own selfish desires (James 4: 3). But even before addressing our needs that are legitimate, first there should be the seeking of God’s will and, second, a concern for the needs of others (Philippians 2: 3, 4).
A spirit of unforgiveness, which entails bitterness and hatred, also stymies prayer. God expects us to be holy as He is holy by forgiving others as He has forgiven us.
Another common form of sin that interferes with prayer is that of unbelief and doubt. Confidence in God’s character and promises are a requirement in order to receive anything from God (Hebrews 11: 6; James 1: 6, 7).
This next one is a biggie too, but often gets overlooked: disrespect in the marital relationship. When the husband is dismissive of his wife (1 Peter 3: 7) and/or the wife doesn’t defer to her husband’s headship role (Ephesians 5: 22-24), their prayers are aborted.
The bottom line is that these sins and all other sin – breaking The Ten Commandment law; not doing what’s known to be right (James 4: 17) – keep us separated from God (Isaiah 59: 2; Psalm 66: 18) unless they’re confessed (1 John 1: 9).
With our sins confessed and repented of, there is no reason that our prayers won’t be effective. The phrase, the prayer of faith or the prayer offered in faith comes from James 5: 15. The phrase actually has to do with any circumstance, but in the James passage, it is illustrated within the context of healing. I think this context is used because healing is probably the most requested kind of prayer. The context emphasizes that sick ones are saved and are raised up spiritually and emotionally into God’s healing comfort and peace. But the healing context also reminds us that physical healing or any other prayer request, for that matter, may or may not take place. Experience has proven this to be true.
It must be remembered and accepted that physical healing and all other prayer requests are reliant upon God’s will. This should be obvious since prayer doesn’t prevent disease and injury from causing Christians to die every day. That, though, doesn’t mean they didn’t have faith or that the praying person didn’t have faith. It means that it was not the Lord’s will to physically heal in that situation.
The prayer of faith is made effective by having full confidence in God’s ability to physically heal, but also having the understanding that the prayer is submissive to His will. The prayer of faith, therefore, boils down to trusting that God knows best and will do the right thing.