As I was reading a devotional, from a few days ago, by A. W. Tozer, I was struck by a quote from a gentleman named Bruce C who made the following one line response to Tozer’s devotional: “Amen – obedience is the key that unlocks the infinite power of prayer.”1
While prayer is all-powerful, there are some conditions that need to be met for prayer to be effective. For example, praying with the wrong motive, often will see the answer we desire denied. (James 4:3) tells us: “You ask and do not receive, because you ask amiss, that you may spend it on your pleasures.” Or sometimes we pray out of the will of God. One other example pertains to the attitude of our heart, for we read in (Psalm 66:18): “If I regard iniquity in my heart, the Lord will not hear.”
So we see that prayer alone will often fail to be answered. But there is another overarching word that describes the examples I have given above as to why prayer alone is often insufficient to bring the blessings we are praying for, and that word is obedience. For when we are obedient to the call of God, we will ask with right motives, ask according to God’s will, and purify our hearts before we come to the Lord in prayer.
While the world often doesn’t like the word obedience as Christians this is a lovely word because it means we are desiring to do the will and work of the Lord. Obeying God means our primary motive for doing anything should be that God is glorified in the process and His kingdom is advanced here on earth. Obedience means we need to ask God to align our desires with His desires. Obedience means we are more interested in God’s will being done than our own. And obedience means that often when we pray, and God says that we are the answer to carrying out our prayer, that we are willing to make the necessary sacrifices needed.
For example, if we pray for a friend who has a financial need, and we have the resources to meet that need, sometimes we need to sacrifice from our finances to help that individual. Or if we are praying for the salvation of a family member, God will often call us to meet with that person and share the gospel.
Now that doesn’t mean that God may not sometimes override our disobedience to His Word and answer our prayers, but I believe, that more times than not when we are disobedient and rebellious our prayers will often go unanswered.
But the exciting thing is that when we are following hard after the Lord our obedience, as Bruce C shared above, is the key that unlocks the infinite power of prayer. And, my friends, prayer can do the miraculous. Prayer can save souls who are dead in their sins and trespasses. Prayer can provide needed resources when things seem bleak. And prayer can mend broken relationships, save marriages that are on the brink of divorce, heal people of diseases that the medical profession says is hopeless, and fix and provide for many other impossible situations.
Obedience coupled with believing prayer will open the windows of heaven and God will pour down abundant blessings and answers to prayers for literally the impossible. So, to sum up, when an all-powerful God uses His infinite power, nothing, quite frankly, is impossible through prayer!
1 Prayer Is No Substitute For Obedience – November 29, 2025 – Devotional by A.W. Tozer – Morning and Evening with A.W. Tozer