Jesus used the phrase watch and pray on a couple of different occasions. Once was the night before the crucifixion. Jesus took His disciples with Him to the Garden of Gethsemane, where He prayed that “this cup be taken from me” (Matthew 26:39). After the prayer, He found His disciples sleeping. He was grieved that they could not even pray with Him for an hour and warned them to “watch and pray so that you will not fall into temptation. The spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak” (Matthew 26:41).

Another occurrence of the phrase watch and pray is found earlier in Jesus’ ministry when He prophesied about the end times. Luke chapter 21 details many of those events, and Jesus warns that they would happen suddenly: “Be careful, or your hearts will be weighed down with carousing, drunkenness and the anxieties of life, and that day will close on you suddenly like a trap” (Luke 21:34). He then says, “Be always on the watch, and pray that you may be able to escape all that is about to happen, and that you may be able to stand before the Son of Man” (verse 36).

“Watch and pray.” The word translated “watch” means “to have the alertness of a guard at night.” A night watchman must be even more vigilant than a daytime guard. In the daytime, danger can often be spotted from a distance. But in the night everything is different. A night watchman must use senses other than sight to detect danger. He is often alone in the darkness and without the defenses he would otherwise employ. There may be no indications of enemy attack until it happens, so he must be hyper-vigilant, suspecting it at any moment. That is the type of watching Jesus spoke about.

Jesus warned us that we are too easily distracted by the physical and will be caught unaware if we do not continually discipline ourselves. In the Garden of Gethsemane, sleepiness overcame the disciples. Their physical need overpowered their desire to obey Him. He was grieved when He saw this, knowing what was ahead for them. If they did not remain spiritually vigilant, in tune with Him (John 15:5) and ready to deny the flesh, they would be overcome by the evil one (1 Peter 5:8).

Jesus’ disciples today must also watch and pray. We are easily distracted by this world, our fleshly needs and desires, and the schemes of the enemy (2 Corinthians 2:11). When we take our eyes from Jesus and His soon return, our values begin to shift, our attention wanders, and soon we are living like the world and bearing little fruit for God’s kingdom (1 Timothy 6:18–19). He warned us that we must be ready at any moment to stand before Him and give an account of our lives (Romans 14:12; 1 Peter 4:5; Matthew 12:36).

“Watch and pray.” We can only remain faithful when we are devoted to prayer. In prayer, we continually allow God to forgive us, cleanse us, teach us, and strengthen us to obey Him (John 14:14). In order to keep watch, we must pray for endurance and freedom from distractions (Hebrews 12:2; Luke 18:1; Ephesians 6:18). We must pray without ceasing (1 Thessalonians 5:17). When we live with the eager expectation of the Lord’s return and expect persecution until then (2 Timothy 3:12; Matthew 24:9; 1 Peter 4:12), we are more likely to keep our lives pure and our hearts ready to meet Him.

Prophet Nathan’s Sermon

We love the truth that God answers prayer (1 John 5:14–15). But what we love most is when He agrees with our requests and says “yes.” But sometimes God’s answer is “no” or “not yet.” As a good Father, God will not grant us that which is not in our long-term best interest, even when we plead. God’s “yes” answers build our faith and confidence in prayer. But how are we to respond when He says “no”?

Accepting God’s “no” can be a sticky situation. There are verses that seem to indicate that whatever we ask for in faith we receive (e.g., Mark 11:24; Matthew 21:22). If we isolate those verses and build a theology around them, it can be faith-shattering when things do not happen as we anticipated. It is wiser to take a step back and consider the “whole counsel of God” (Acts 20:27). Any time we build a whole doctrine around one or two verses, we are headed for trouble.

Several times in Scripture, God did not do as someone asked. He is God, and He can see things we can’t see. King David pleaded with the Lord for the life of his and Bathsheba’s infant son. David fasted and prayed for days, but, on the seventh day, the child died (2 Samuel 12:16, 18). God said “no.” David responded in a way that is a model for us all. He accepted that what God had done was right and good, “and he went into the house of the Lord and worshiped” (verse 20, NKJV). He had hoped for a different outcome. But God is God, and He has the right to make life-and-death decisions. In his grief, David did not become bitter toward the Lord or turn away. David’s response to God’s “no” was deeper worship and surrender, even in his heartache.

The New Testament gives more examples of times when God said “no” to His servants. The apostle Paul was set to travel throughout Asia Minor to preach, but God said “no” (Acts 16:6–9). Paul thought he had understood the plan of God. He believed he was to continue in Asia. But the Holy Spirit said “no.” Because Paul’s desire was to listen and obey, regardless of what it cost, he left Asia Minor and went to Macedonia instead. There he started churches that impacted the whole world. His response to God’s “no” was instant obedience and a change of direction.

In his personal life, Paul was plagued by what he called a “thorn in the flesh, a messenger of Satan to torment me” (2 Corinthians 12:7). Paul pleaded with the Lord on three separate occasions to take this “thorn” from him, but God said “no.” In this trial, Paul learned to appropriate greater measures of God’s grace and to live for the glory of God through the difficulty. His response to God’s “no” was to glory in his weakness (verse 9). Instead of giving up in frustration or deciding God did not care, Paul chose to “delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties. For when I am weak, then I am strong” (verse 10).

What we learn from the biblical examples is that God never stops being God. He is sovereign: “I am God, and there is no other; I am God, and there is none like me. I make known the end from the beginning, from ancient times, what is still to come. I say, ‘My purpose will stand, and I will do all that I please.’ . . . What I have said, that I will bring about; what I have planned, that I will do” (Isaiah 46:9–11).

There are many times when God can say “yes” to our requests because they fit into the plan He is working out in our lives (Romans 8:28). He said “yes” to Moses’ request to see His glory (Exodus 33:17). He said “yes” to Solomon’s request for wisdom (1 Kings 3:11–13). And Jesus said “yes” to everyone who asked Him for healing and help (Matthew 8:16). But our faith-filled requests do not supersede God’s sovereign rule. If He was bound by our prayers, as some teach, He would, in effect, cease to be God. We would be gods by dictating His actions. Nowhere in Scripture do we see such a precedent.

God will often say “no” to things we yearn to see happen. Those with immature faith sometimes use this as an excuse to abandon Him altogether: “God didn’t heal my baby.” “God didn’t save my marriage.” “God didn’t give me that job I needed.” If our view is that God is obligated to grant our requests like a genie grants wishes, then we will be dismayed when God does not “perform” for us. We choose whether to allow a “no” from God to shatter our faith or build it up; a “no” from God can teach us to endure—even when we don’t understand (James 1:3).

It is often in the seasons when God says “no” that we are forced to pursue God more earnestly. God’s “nos” often shatter the tiny box in which we tried to keep Him and allow the real God to reveal Himself to us. He says “no” when it is part of His grander plan. He says “no” when our lack of faith indicates that we do not truly believe He is who He says He is (Hebrews 11:6). He says “no” when our requests are rooted in selfishness (James 4:3) or when a “yes” would harm us. And He says “no” when, like Paul, we must learn that His grace is sufficient for us. The biblical examples of servants of God who experienced God’s “no” help us learn the right response when God says “no” to us.

Prophet Nathan’s Sermon

Some people would like prayer with no conditions. They wish God to be a celestial genie who, when summoned by prayer, must grant any request they make. They find a measure of encouragement in the fable of Aladdin and his lamp, aspiring to that level of control over God’s power in their prayer life. But the biblical fact is that prayer has conditions. It’s true that Jesus said, “If you believe, you will receive whatever you ask for in prayer” (Matthew 21:22). But, even in that statement, we have one condition to prayer: faith. As we examine the Bible, we find that there are other conditions to prayer, as well.

Here are ten biblical instructions concerning prayer that imply conditions to prayer:

1) Pray to the Heavenly Father (see Matthew 6:9). This condition to prayer might seem obvious, but it’s important. We don’t pray to false gods, to ourselves, to angels, to Buddha, or to the Virgin Mary. We pray to the God of the Bible, who revealed Himself in Jesus Christ and whose Spirit indwells us. Coming to Him as our “Father” implies that we are first His children—made so by faith in Christ (see John 1:12).

2) Pray for good things (see Matthew 7:11). We don’t always understand or recognize what is good, but God knows, and He is eager to give His children what is best for them. Paul prayed three times to be healed of an affliction, and each time God said, “No.” Why would a loving God refuse to heal Paul? Because God had something better for him, namely, a life lived by grace. Paul stopped praying for healing and began to rejoice in his weakness (2 Corinthians 12:7–10).

3) Pray for needful things (see Philippians 4:19). Placing a priority on God’s kingdom is one of the conditions to prayer (Matthew 6:33). The promise is that God will supply all our needs, not all our wants. There is a difference.

4) Pray from a righteous heart (see James 5:16). The Bible speaks of having a clean conscience as a condition to answered prayer (Hebrews 10:22). It is important that we keep our sins confessed to the Lord. “If I regard wickedness in my heart, The Lord will not hear” (Psalm 66:18, NAS).

5) Pray from a grateful heart (see Philippians 4:6). Part of prayer is an attitude of thanksgiving.

6) Pray according to the will of God (see 1 John 5:14). An important condition to prayer is that it is prayed within the will of God. Jesus prayed this way all the time, even in Gethsemane: “Not my will, but yours be done” (Luke 22:42). We can pray all we want, with great sincerity and faith, for XYZ, but, if God’s will is ABC, we pray amiss.

7) Pray in the authority of Jesus Christ (see John 16:24). Jesus is the reason we are able to approach the throne of grace (Hebrews 10:19–22), and He is our mediator (1 Timothy 2:5). A condition to prayer is that we pray in His name.

8) Pray persistently (see Luke 18:1). In fact, pray without ceasing (1 Thessalonians 5:17). One of the conditions to effective prayer is that we don’t give up.

9) Pray unselfishly (see James 4:3). Our motives are important.

10) Pray in faith (see James 1:6). Without faith, it is impossible to please God (Hebrews 11:6), who alone can do the impossible (Luke 1:37). Without faith, why pray?

Joshua’s prayer for the sun to stand still, as audacious as that request was, met all these conditions of prayer (Joshua 10:12–14). Elijah’s prayer for rain to be withheld—and his later prayer that rain would fall—met all of these conditions (James 5:17–18). Jesus’ prayer as He stood before the tomb of Lazarus met all of these conditions (John 11:41). They all prayed to God, according to His will, for good and necessary things, in faith.

The examples of Joshua, Elijah, and Jesus teach us that, when our prayers line up with God’s sovereign will, wonderful things will happen. There’s no need to be abashed by mountains, for they can move (Mark 11:23). The struggle we face is in getting our prayers lined up with God’s will, having our desires match His. Congruency between God’s will and our own is the goal. We want exactly what He wants; nothing more, nothing less. And we don’t want anything that He doesn’t want.

Godly, effective prayer has conditions, and God invites us to pray. When can we pray big? When we believe God wants something big. When can we pray audaciously? When we believe God wants something audacious. When should we pray? All the time.

Prophet Nathan’s Sermon