The promise makes prayer bold, for God’s word cannot fail. Fulfillment is as certain as past events are fixed, and the future becomes a present to such faith.

Prayer, when it prevails, has about it a boldness, a holy audacity, which reminds us of the prophet whose plea was “Do not disgrace the Throne of Thy Glory!”  When a saint understands that prayer has three intercessors—the interceding Spirit within, the interceding suppliant, and the interceding Christ before the Throne—he feels himself but the mere channel through whom a current passes, whose source is the Holy Spirit in his heart, whose final outpour is through our great High Priest into the bosom of the Father. He loses sight of himself in the thought of the divine stream, its spring, and its ocean. How can he but be bold?

Prayer becomes no more mere lame and timid asking—it is claiming and laying hold of blessing, as a returning stream from the heart of God, pouring back into and through the heart of the supplicant. While he calls, God answers—there is conversation, intercourse, and intercommunication. Prayer is not only speaking to God, but hearing Him speak in return. As a Japanese convert said, it is like the old-fashioned well, where one bucket comes down while another goes up—only in this case it is the full bucket the descends.
A true missionary has to learn such prayer, and it is such prayer that brings him the conscious presence promised by his Master, with its outcome of divine wisdom and strength. It is such prayer that brings to our aid that consummate preacher, the Holy Spirit, whose divine oratory convinces and persuades—who has the power of revelation, demonstration, and illumination—who can flash instant light into the darkest mind and command life to the dead.

-A.T. Pierson