Friend, are your prayers too low? Is your faith too ignoble, based on the standard of God’s Word? And are you experiencing a base, mediocre standard of living as a result?

I wonder sometimes if we all are. In truth, I really do suspect that nearly everybody in Christianity — certainly in Western Christianity — suffers from a low view of God.

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A.W. Tozer, often considered the greatest theologian of the 20th century, had profound revelation about how having a low view of God impacts our lives.

For example, in his classic book The Knowledge of the Holy (a must-read for every believer), he wrote:

• “The Church has surrendered her once lofty concept of God and has substituted for it one so low, so ignoble, as to be utterly unworthy of thinking, worshipping men.”
• “The low view of God entertained almost universally among Christians is the cause of a hundred lesser evils everywhere among us.”
• “Low views of God destroy the gospel for all who hold them.”

He also said: “With our loss of the sense of majesty has come the further loss of religious awe and consciousness of the divine Presence.” He was right: Without a high, accurate view of God — of His love, His power, His omniscience, His goodness, His kindness, His omnipresence, His immutability, His justice, and yes, even His wrath — we cannot worship Him as who He really is.

And friend, I believe that our low view of God has impacted our prayers — and has greatly diminished all that we can receive from God too.

Here’s why:

God’s Word is filled with great and precious promises, promises that are high and lofty. His promises are BIG, outrageous, and “extra.” For example:

• He doesn’t merely say that we can and should disciple individuals; He actually commands us to disciple entire nations. (see Matthew 28:18–20).
• He has promised us that, if we obey Him, we shall lend to many nations, but NEVER borrow (see Deuteronomy 28:12). Yes, that means NEVER borrow: not for a mortgage, not for university, not for a vehicle to drive … never borrow.
• His Word says that kings shall be our foster fathers, and queens our nursing mothers. That means you will have a PATRON to help you with everything you want to do in the kingdom!

(Yes, all of God’s promises apply to you. If you have given your life to Jesus Christ, you have been grafted into the original covenant God made with Abraham. And that means that even the promises God made to the Jewish people apply to you, for you are a spiritual Jew.)

But do we really pray and believe for ALL of God’s promises to be fulfilled in our lives, just the way He wrote them?

Or, do we “dumb them down” to match the level of our experience?

Friend, do you really believe for ALL the outrageous, “extra” things God’s Word says? Is your faith wild enough?

And are your prayers radical enough? Do our prayers in the Christian community even meet the baseline of what God calls faith—faith which is required in order to receive answers?

I don’t know how you pray, but I do believe that most of us in Christendom are praying prayers that are too low. We are, in many if not all cases, praying prayers that reflect our low view of God. After all, God only does wondrous things, as it says in Psalm 72:18-19 says:

Blessed be the Lord God, the God of Israel, who only does wondrous things! And blessed be His glorious name forever! And let the whole earth be filled with His glory. Amen and Amen (Psalm 72:18-19 NKJV).

But how many of us really pray and believe for wondrous things, and for nothing but wondrous things?

And if our prayers are NOT for all that is wondrous, can we even expect Him to answer with miracles, signs, and wonders? Or are we insulting Him by our low view of Him, and our low prayers, and compelling Him to meet us by His grace at our low station …

… when, all the while, He is saying, “Come up here, and I will show you things to come!”

I don’t know the answer to these questions because I don’t know you or your prayers. But I am writing this to challenge you to ask yourself:

• “Are my prayers too low?”
• “Do my prayers reflect the majesty and greatness of what God has promised in Scripture?”
• “Do I even have faith for wondrous things? Or is my faith limited to surviving, rather than thriving?”

I believe we all need to find the faith again to pray the Scriptures back to God, exactly the way they are written.

If He instructs us to disciple nations, we ought to be praying for entire nations to be given into our hands. If He promises us to do exceedingly abundantly above all we could ask or think, we ought to submit all we can ask or think to God as the mere baseline, the starting point for what we are asking Him to do.

And if He says we shall be the head and not the tail, above only and not beneath, we ought to believe Him for that, claim it in prayer, and go after it.

Remember what His Word says in Isaiah 55:

For as the rain comes down, and the snow from heaven, and do not return there, but water the earth, and make it bring forth and bud, that it may give seed to the sower and bread to the eater, so shall My word be that goes forth from My mouth; it shall not return to Me void, but it shall accomplish what I please, and it shall prosper in the thing for which I sent it (Isaiah 55:10-11 NKJV).

God’s Word is always true. It will always accomplish the thing God sent it to do.

And if we will allow God’s radical, outrageous, supernatural, exceeding-abundantly-above Word to take root in our hearts, lives, and prayers, I believe we will see a whole new outpouring from our God who only does wondrous things.

Friend, are your prayers radical enough? Leave a comment below!

Jamie Rohrbaugh is the founder and CEO of From His Presence. She is the author of Getting to Know the Sevenfold Holy Spirit, and she seeks to equip you to carry His manifest glory everywhere you go. Her resources have been published by YouVersion Bible Plans and in Charisma magazine, as well as on The Elijah List, Spirit Fuel, and various other ministry outlets. You can find free mentoring on her podcast, Take Your Territory with Jamie Rohrbaugh, which is available through your favorite podcast streaming app. Download her free prayer tool, Praying the Names of God: 555 Biblical Names of God and How to Use Them in Prayer and Worship, here. Photo Credit: PonyWang/Getty Images Signature via Canva Pro.