The Importance and Purpose of Prayer
This work is copyrighted to Happy
Riches © 2014. All rights reserved. Individual use is permitted.
Prayer is communion with God. The
most essential criterion for us to become overcomers is to pray. If we do not
pray, we cannot have a relationship with God; we cannot be saved from the
futility of being born only to die; we cannot overcome the Devil.
The very core of existence is based
upon our spirituality. Many people claim to be spiritual rather than religious
today. But when these people say they are spiritual, this is basically a
cop-out, because what they call spirituality could be anything. True
spirituality is being born again into the Kingdom of God and manifesting the
fruits thereof. These fruits do not eventuate in a life that is starved of
prayer. We cannot afford not to pray. If we are to become overcomers, prayer
has to become a way of life.
When we hear people speaking of
prayer being a way of life for the Christian, we may think that we have to
become some monk or nun, forsake interaction with the world and spend the rest
of our lives in a monastery somewhere, if not in a cave up in the Himalayas.
But this is not what the purpose of prayer is about. Prayer is about communion
with God and this means walking in the Spirit of God.
In the Charismatic movement and
among Pentecostals, people are often called to the front of the church at the
end of each service to receive prayer. A phenomenon known as being “slain in
the Spirit” is often said to take place[i].
A number of the people who have been slain in the Spirit to whom I have spoken
have reported that they found themselves unexpectedly waking up on the floor
after having blacked out, but experienced some sensation that they attributed
to the power of God. Some of these sensations were feelings of peace, floating,
and degrees of warmth and coolness. Some claimed to have had visions of Jesus
while lying on the floor, while others felt they were at rest in the arms of
Jesus. While I am not doubting for a
moment the genuineness of the many accounts I have heard, I do know that there
are quite a number of people within those movements who think that if a person
does not fall to the ground after someone prays for them, that person has not
been blessed. Being slain in the Spirit is often seen by many as a sign of
spirituality and blessing from God.
Being a person who desires the
truth, I have tested many things. The Bible says we are to put all things to
the test. I have subjected myself to being prayed for by travelling speakers
who have the power to slay people in the Spirit, as they say. I have been
prayed for by these people without falling to the ground. To be honest, I have
rarely felt any need to go up to the front to receive prayer, because I have
always dealt with issues as they arose. On the occasions in my life that I did
front up at an altar call, and people were falling down, I did not experience
any overwhelming urge or sensation that might lay me out on the floor. What I
often experienced was the person doing the praying trying to push me down. When
I thought I would do what everyone was doing and go up the front of a church
for the blessing being imparted, after having done so on a couple of other
occasions, one pastor said to me, “I don’t like praying for you because you
will not fall down.” Evidently not falling down made this pastor not look
powerful, or gave the impression that he was lacking something from God.
On two occasions I did experience
this phenomenon of finding myself on the floor unexpectedly. The two times this
happened were at the same church when
being prayed for by two different people.
The church I was attending at the
time was headed by a man who was known for “a signs following” ministry. As it happens, this was the person who did not
like praying for me. On this occasion, I had torn a ligament in my left leg
three days earlier. I was hobbling around on crutches as I could not walk. The
pastor prayed for me and put his hand on me with his usual nudge. I blacked
out. The next thing I remember I was on the floor. About an hour later, I felt
sensations of heat in my leg. That evening I came into the church meeting and
people were amazed, because I was walking without crutches. On the Monday, I
had an ultrasound and the ligament was healed. The radiologist thought he had
made a mistake in his previous diagnosis on the Thursday. He checked the
photographs of the images and there was a torn ligament. He then thought
he must have got my ultrasound images mixed up. So he checked those. He
certainly was baffled. When I told him I had received prayer for healing of the
condition the day before, he was speechless. The medical doctor who had
referred me to the radiologist, thought I had used the power of autosuggestion
to heal myself.
On the second occasion that I
experienced a sudden state of unconsciousness and found myself on the floor, a
visiting preacher had prayed for me. He made a request for all people who
desired to be more effective soul winners to come to the front and he would
pray for each one. He prayed for me and I was once more on the ground. The
following day, a woman came up to me and asked me for twenty dollars. She was
well dressed and carried what looked like an expensive handbag. My immediate
impression was she was a top-end-of-town call girl and needed the money to
score a hit of contraband. After talking to her for about ten minutes, she was
praying with me and asking Jesus Christ to forgive her for the sins she had
committed in her life. The woman felt as if her burden of sin had been lifted
and was visibly weeping as a result, not minding all the passersby who were
going into the supermarket. I think something was imparted to me the night
before when I was slain in the Spirit.
However, we are not called to be
slain in the Spirit, we are called to walk in the Spirit. Being slain in the
Spirit is what happens to the immature Christians who have not learned how to
walk in the Spirit of God. I have pointed this out to people whom I know like
to let others see how they are being blessed by being slain in the Spirit and
go up the front at every alter call. Interestingly, as they realized that the
mature Christians walk in the Spirit, every one of these people stopped getting
slain in the Spirit when they went up the front.
We are called to walk in the Spirit
of God. If we are truly citizens of the Kingdom of God, we walk in the Spirit
of God. This can only happen if we are in communion with God. For many this
sounds impossible, but this is what the Bible teaches. If we are not walking in
the Spirit, we are walking in the flesh. We are either walking in the Spirit or
we are walking in the flesh. The Apostle Paul wrote:
There is
therefore now no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus, who don’t walk
according to the flesh, but according to the Spirit. For the law of the Spirit
of life in Christ Jesus made me free from the law of sin and of death. For what
the law couldn’t do, in that it was weak through the flesh, God did, sending
his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and for sin, he condemned sin in
the flesh; that the ordinance of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not
after the flesh, but after the Spirit. For those who live according to the
flesh set their minds on the things of the flesh, but those who live according
to the Spirit, the things of the Spirit. For the mind of the flesh is death,
but the mind of the Spirit is life and peace; because the mind of the flesh is
hostile towards God; for it is not subject to God’s law, neither indeed can it
be. Those who are in the flesh can’t please God. But you are not in the flesh
but in the Spirit, if it is so that the Spirit of God dwells in you. But if any
man doesn’t have the Spirit of Christ, he is not his. If Christ is in you, the
body is dead because of sin, but the spirit is alive because of righteousness.
(Romans 8:1-10)
One of the biggest downfalls for
many Christians is the false teaching that we cannot walk in the Spirit of God.
People who adhere to this teaching are always quoting Romans, chapter seven,
and saying that Paul struggled with his sin and we cannot overcome our sin.
What these people fail to do is read the Bible correctly; because if we read
what Paul wrote, we find that he is arguing about how we can overcome sin. His
argument is that he found it impossible to serve God and obey His requirements
in his own strength. This is evident in the last verses of chapter seven,
before chapter eight. This is how we should read what Paul wrote if we are to
get the right perspective:
What a wretched
man I am! Who will deliver me out of the body of this death? I thank God
through Jesus Christ, our Lord! So then with the mind, I myself serve God’s
law, but with the flesh, the sin’s law. There is therefore now no condemnation
to those who are in Christ Jesus, who don’t walk according to the flesh, but
according to the Spirit. For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus made
me free…(Romans 7:24-8:2).
It is unbelievable the number of
times I have heard people claiming to have been washed by the blood of Jesus
and yet they are still wretched sinners and cannot but sin, because this is
their nature. This is because the heart
of man is so wicked that the sin that dwells within prevents them from doing
what is right. Evidently, these individuals are taught that even though the
blood of Jesus cleanses people from sin, they themselves are never really
cleansed from their sin. These souls could be rejoicing and exclaiming, “Praise
God! Jesus has set me free from sin and death!”
Instead these carnal Christians go on about how wicked they are, and how
all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God, and nobody can have
perfection dwelling within them. Either they have been washed clean from their
sin by the blood of Jesus and have repented of their sins, or they not truly
repented and were not washed clean form their sins in the first place.
What we learn is that these people
actually believe they are saved because God chose them before the foundation of
the world. Tragically, these ones believe, even though they sin, it does not
matter because Jesus paid the price for all the sin that they do. Apart from
them and others like them, everyone else is going to hell. When we ask why they
believe like this, we find out that they believe they are saved by grace alone.
These are the Devil’s delight, because there is such an abundance of hypocrisy
found among those who claim they are saved by grace alone.
(The following topic might seem
indelicate and improper but if we are to overcome the Devil, it needs to be addressed..)
One woman, who had been a Christian
for about forty years, adhered to this saved by grace alone teaching. She told
me she was a Holy Joe when she was a teenager.
She had a strong conviction that Jesus died and rose from the dead. She
also believed the Bible was the literal Living WORD OF GOD. She constantly
stated that the heart was wicked above all things and we all fall short of the
glory of God. Her perception of our Heavenly Father is that He is an angry God
and demands vengeance for sin. The love of Jesus was not her priority; rather
the judgment of God. More than this, she was always carrying a sense of remorse
with her, and would say that she could not help but sin. “Every morning, I know
I have sinned”, she would say, “I just cannot stop it.”. One day, at a Bible
study, I told her to just stop whatever it is that she is doing and then she
would not have to feel guilty. The woman decided to move church after that.
About a year later, when discussing masturbation with someone, from what I knew
of this woman’s marriage, it dawned upon me that this woman was probably
masturbating and had been doing this for decades. This is why she was feeling
guilty every morning when it came to her doing her devotions. Another aspect of
this woman’s personality was she always seemed to have an anxiousness about
matters at hand. Masturbation creates anxiety. This is because masturbation is
sin. It prevents us from having communion with God. This might seem judgmental,
and pure conjecture, but the sin of masturbation prevents many people who claim
to be born again from having peace with God.
Masturbation is the one sin that
many people do not like speaking about. It is called a private sin—except it is
of the Devil and deadly. David Alston,
was a chronic masturbator for many years as a Christian. He now feels the need
to go public about the sin that is not preached against from the pulpit. Once
he had gotten free from urges to masturbate, Dave’s life changed and he caught
a vision of what life was meant to be like. He then wrote a book entitled God’s
Big Plan For Your Life, in which he discusses this taboo subject.
Sundar Singh had a vision of a man
who held on to a secret sin. In this vision, he saw a man in the secret of his
own room committing a sinful act, and he thought that his sin was hidden, but
there were angels looking on. They had come to help the man. Instead, they were
grieved to see his shameful conduct and one of them said, "We came to help
him, but now we will have to be witnesses against him at the time of his
judgment. He cannot see us, but we can all see him indulging in this sin. If
only this man would repent, and be saved from the punishment to come." Then
another said, "If only the spiritual eyes of this man had been opened to
the judgment that is to come, then he would never have dared to commit this
sin." [ii]
Before I became a Christian, to my
shame, it became my habit to masturbate many times during the day. I was
possessed by a demon. My thoughts were perverted and I had to think of kinky
things to get my thrill; and also I started to become more daring when
masturbating. Like I said, I was doing this many times during the day. However,
from the day I became a Christian, I did not think about masturbating. I
thought about my Heavenly Father and I thought about Jesus. Eight months after
becoming a Christian, I was on holidays with some people and a couple of
non-Christian women were paying me a lot of attention. After a while, I felt
carnal urges and went to the toilet to masturbate. When I was about to
masturbate, a voice said to me, “That! Or Me!” Immediately, I pulled up my
trousers, buckled my belt and went outside. I realized then, that I had not
masturbated, once, since I had become a Christian. I had been too preoccupied
thinking about the Lord God, when not doing other activities.
After this, it just so happened
that I began to seek God in prayer in a more earnest manner on my knees daily.
I did not know how to pray. I was afraid to pray publicly in the prayer room,
where people prayed about thirty minutes before the meetings, which I was now
attending five times a week. I decided to seek the Lord at home and just wait
upon Him to teach me how to pray. One thing I know, when my mind is stayed on
the Lord, it does not stray to other people; neither could I masturbate and
pray to the Lord at the same time. The Amplified Bible says of God:
You will guard him and keep him in perfect and
constant peace whose mind [both its inclination and its character] is stayed on
You, because he commits himself to You, leans on You, and hopes confidently in
You (Isaiah 26:3 AMP[iii]).
If we are relatively new to the
Christian faith, it can be intimidating when we hear people praying like they are
eloquent prayer warriors and we are expected to take part in the offering of
prayers. This happened to me and all I could pray was Lord Jesus please show me the Way, the
Truth and the Life.”. To which everyone present said, “Amen!”
The one thing we do not want to do
is be numbered among the hypocrites who like to offer up eloquent prayers in
public to sound superior in expression or demonstrate to others that they are
capable of writing a book about the topographical features of the Earth. Jesus
said that hypocrites loved to stand and pray in the synagogues in his day. They
still do this in churches today. And people flatter them about their
breathtaking descriptions of paradise on Earth, or the way their extensive
vocabulary describes the glory of the Lord. However, if we are going to walk in
the Spirit of God, we need to learn how to pray in accordance to the Spirit.
Only before we do this, having an understanding of what our Lord Jesus said
about praying is beneficial. Jesus said:
When
you pray, you shall not be as the hypocrites, for they love to stand and pray
in the synagogues and in the corners of the streets, that they may be seen by
men. Most certainly, I tell you, they have received their reward. But you, when
you pray, enter into your inner room, and having shut your door, pray to your
Father who is in secret, and your Father who sees in secret will reward you
openly. In praying, don’t use vain repetitions, as the Gentiles do; for they
think that they will be heard for their much speaking. Therefore don’t be like
them, for your Father knows what things you need, before you ask him. Pray like
this: ‘Our Father in heaven, may your name be kept holy. Let your Kingdom come.
Let your will be done, as in heaven, so on earth. Give us today our daily bread.
Forgive us our debts, as we also forgive our debtors. Bring us not into
temptation, but deliver us from the evil one. For yours is the Kingdom, the
power, and the glory forever. Amen.’ “For if you forgive men their trespasses,
your heavenly Father will also forgive you. But if you don’t forgive men their
trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses. (Matthew 6:5-15)
Prayer is not done to be seen by
men for it is an integral part of our relationship with God. We do not have to
go to extremes like one person I knew, who would literally shut himself in the
closet of his room when praying, so nobody would see him. What we need to do is
simply communicate with God. We can do this anywhere and at anytime. In fact,
the Apostle Paul says that we are to pray continuously in the spirit (Ephesians
6:18). Some people interpret this as meaning to be always praying in tongues.
However, the Lord spoke to me on two occasions, a week apart, and told me not
to forget about Him. At the time, I had been so engrossed in studying about a
worldly pursuit that I had not given the Lord a thought. After that, I was
mindful of the Lord all the time, even when I found myself doing things I would
have been better off not doing. But because of this mindfulness, Jesus is Lord
of my life, even if at times I have been disobedient in various matters.
Nevertheless, being mindful of the Lord qualifies as prayer, because
mindfulness of the Lord is communication with the Him. This is the case, even
if we only offer up praises and thanksgiving to Him during the day as a form of
meditation..
In a nutshell, if we have a passion
about anything, we will preoccupy ourselves with our passion. People who are
passionate about their sport and their hobbies usually think about them most of
their free time. One petrol-head I knew spoke about cars whenever he could.
Whenever the conversation was not about cars, as soon as he saw a car, he would
notify everybody, and then hi-jack the conversation and start pontificating
about cars again. One amateur boxing trainer I knew, often said that he thought
about the boys in his gym all day when at work. Then there was an amateur
football coach I met, who was so passionate about football, he questioned the
value of living and thinking about anything else other than the game. Besides,
we all have had various interests that have preoccupied our waking hours at one
time or another, only just not about the Lord our God. If we are passionate
about the Lord God and love Him as we claim, then we will think about Him. Our
Heavenly Father is only a thought away.
There are different ways we can
pray. The most important thing is to seek the mind of God in our prayers. This
requires waiting on the Lord and not praying for every country in the world.
When we learn to pray in accordance to the will of God, then we will become
more effective in our prayers. More than this, we will find that our life will
be more satisfying because we are learning how to walk in the righteousness of
God, the joy of Jesus and peace of the Holy Spirit. Actually, the Bible does
say the Kingdom of God consists of righteousness, joy and peace in the Holy
Spirit. Jesus said that the Kingdom of God is within us. What this means is we
are beings that possess a spirit, soul and body. The spirit is where the
Kingdom of God resides and this is the inner man where our thoughts originate.
When we think about it, if we have been born from above by receiving the Word
of God and are walking in the Holy Spirit, our thoughts should not be evil, and
our hearts should not be wicked. To say that this is the case is equivalent to
saying good is evil.
Many people are fond of saying that
their thoughts are not God’s thoughts and their ways are not God’s ways. They
also like to point to the scripture in Isaiah that says this, so they can
justify their sins. We have no doubt heard others say this, even if we may not
have said it ourselves, “The grace of
God covers my sin,” or, “Christians are not perfect, just sinners saved by
grace.” Yet Jesus said to a woman who had been caught in adultery when her
accusers had disappeared: “Neither do I condemn you. Go and sin no more” (John
8:11). In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus
said that we needed to be perfect as our Heavenly Father is perfect (Matthew
5:48) However, if we read what Isaiah really says about our thoughts not being
God’s thoughts, we find this:
Seek ye the Lord
while he may be found, call ye upon him while he is near: Let the wicked forsake his way, and the unrighteous man his thoughts:
and let him return unto the Lord, and he will have mercy upon
him; and to our God, for he will abundantly pardon. For my thoughts are not
your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, saith the Lord. For as the
heavens are higher than the earth, so
are my ways higher than your ways, and
my thoughts than your thoughts (Isaiah 55:6-9).
If the heart of man is wicked, then
that heart needs to be changed and the owner ought to begin thinking about
God’s ways. We all are called upon to consider the way of the righteous and cease
continuing in the way of the wicked. Somehow, people think confessing that we
cannot change our ways is sufficient for us to justify our sins and the Bible
endorses this confession. Could this be why in the book of Revelation, Jesus
said to the church at Laodicea that he will spew those who belong to it out of
His mouth? (Rev. 3:15)
If we have repented from our sins
and are seeking to conform to the ways of God, prayer has to become a way of
life, not an addendum to the day’s activities just as we are about to fall
asleep, or as one pastor’s wife claimed, an excellent sleeping tonic for a
sleepless night.
When writing to Timothy, the
Apostle Paul informs him:
I exhort
therefore, first of all, that petitions, prayers, intercessions, and giving of
thanks, be made for all men (2 Timothy 2:1)
In this scripture, we see four
different aspects of prayer in the form of petitions, prayers, intercessions
and giving thanks. We reflect upon why we need prayer, and become immersed in
the practice on a regular basis, when seeking God to reveal to us the truth, we
will learn that there is more to prayer than simply asking for forgiveness and
making requests. Prayer does consist of confession of one’s sins, supplication
for one’s needs, intercession on behalf of other individuals, and thanksgiving.
But what is termed “prayers” in the above quotation of scripture from the World
English Bible includes a number of different phenomena. Prayers includes
waiting on God to hear what He has to say; allowing God to deal with memories
from the past and emotional and attitudinal blockages that prevent us from
aspiring to a higher calling in life; and about resting in the presence of God
to be filled with power on high.
People have different experiences
when it comes to prayer. One Pastor I knew (who has now gone to be with the
Lord) would always give himself a boost, revving himself by praying in tongues
frequently between conversations and encounters with other people. There are a
number of scriptures that justify this practice (1 Cor. 14:2, 14-18; Eph. 6:18;
Jude 1:20).
Another pastor I know always prays
with his Bible open and reads scripture when addressing our Heavenly Father. He
then expects God to reveal His will for Him through the Scriptures and also in
his own thoughts
Mark Virkler is an advocate of
journaling. He has taught many people to seek God in prayer using this method.
A person seeks God and writes down the request made. The person then begins to
record, under the question that has been written down, the answer he or she
believes the Lord is communicating through his or her own thoughts. The Lord
revealed to Mark Virkler this method of communicating with the Holy Spirit in
writing from the book of Habakkuk, which says:
I will stand at
my watch, and set myself on the ramparts, and will look out to see what he will
say to me, and what I will answer concerning my complaint. Yahweh answered me,
“Write the vision, and make it plain on tablets, that he who runs may read
it. For the vision is yet for the
appointed time, and it hurries toward the end, and won’t prove false. Though it
takes time, wait for it; because it will surely come. It won’t delay (Habakkuk
2:1-3).
As
we can see, waiting on the Lord is involved before we begin to write down what thoughts
the Holy Spirit is communicating to us. Some people resist this form of
communicating with God because they believe that doing this is adding to what
is written in the Bible and is therefore a sin.
You will find that these people believe that we can never change our
wicked thoughts and usually are the ones who teach the false doctrine of double
predestination and limited atonement. This is the belief that Jesus only died
for the sins of some people and everyone else was condemned to eternal
punishment before the foundation of the world, and if we repent from our wicked
ways, God cannot change our thinking. They also reject the gift of speaking in
tongues as being unscriptural for today, even though the Apostle Paul taught
that we are not to forbid speaking in unknown tongues and he desires that we
all pray using this spiritual gift:
Now I desire to
have you all speak with other languages [in unknown tongues], but rather that
you would prophesy. For he is greater who prophesies than he who speaks with
other languages [in unknown tongues], unless he interprets, that the assembly may
be built up….What is it then? I will pray with the spirit [in unknown tongues],
and I will pray with the understanding also. I will sing with the spirit [in
unknown tongues], and I will sing with the understanding also. Otherwise if you
bless with the spirit, how will he who fills the place of the unlearned say the
“Amen” at your giving of thanks, seeing he doesn’t know what you say? For you
most certainly give thanks well, but the other person is not built up. I thank
my God, I speak with other languages [unknown tongues] more than you
all...Therefore, brothers, desire earnestly to prophesy, and don’t forbid
speaking with other languages [unknown tongues]
(1 Corinthians
14:5, 15-18, 39).
When waiting on the Lord, we learn
in the book of Romans that the Spirit helps us in our weaknesses. The Apostle
Paul was told by the Lord “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made
perfect in weakness.” (2 Corinthians 12:9). It is in this weakness, when we
acknowledge our inadequacies and insufficiencies that the Spirit of God helps
us. Many people use what Paul was told, about God’s grace being sufficient, to
support their doctrine of saved by grace alone; only we know this is not true,
because we are saved by grace through faith in Jesus Christ. However, when we
read the following, we know that the weakness God refers to has to do with
waiting on the Lord in prayer:
But if we hope
for that which we don’t see, we wait for it with patience. In the same way, the
Spirit also helps our weaknesses, for we don’t
know how to
pray as we
ought. But the Spirit
himself makes intercession
for us with groanings which can’t
be uttered.(Romans 6:25-26).
It is true that while some people
read their Bible to God when praying and others write down questions, most simply
cry out in desperation. However, those who speak in unknown tongues, pray in
unknown tongues; but if we wait on God in our weakness, not knowing what to
say, the Holy Spirit will intercede with groanings that cannot be uttered—as in
heard. The perfect power of the Holy Spirit within will move through our own
being and make intercession on our behalf, even though we are weak, and truly
feel unworthy and inept, and do not possess the competency to adequately make
amends for our unrighteousness or inability to represent others before the
Throne of Grace.
When we have waited on the Lord and
are filled with the Spirit and have realized the will of God, then we have
boldness to approach our Heavenly Father because we know we are walking in His
will. The Apostle John knew about approaching the Throne of God with boldness
and having prayers answered. For he wrote:
Beloved, if our
hearts don’t condemn us, we have boldness toward God; and whatever we ask, we receive from him,
because we keep his commandments and do the things that are pleasing in his
sight. This is his commandment, that we should believe in the name of his Son,
Jesus Christ, and love one another, even as he commanded….This is the boldness
which we have toward him, that, if we ask anything according to his will, he
listens to us. And if we know that he
listens to us, whatever we ask, we know that we have the petitions which we
have asked of him.
(1 John 3:21-23;
5:14-15)
When we are praying, we do not have
to have a special posture. Prayer can be entered into anytime of the day at any
place, in any position we might find ourselves. Prayer can be done standing
(Mark 11:25), curled up in a fetal position (1 Kings 18:42), lying down
(Ezekiel 4:4-6) and with hands raised (Ps 28:2; 134:2). In fact the Apostle
Paul not only desires that all people speak in the Heavenly language of the
Holy Spirit and pray in unknown tongues but also with hands raised (1 Tim.
2:8). When the Israelites were fighting the Amalekites after having come out of
Egypt and crossing the Red Sea, as long as Moses’ hands were held high, they
were able to win the battle (Exodus 17:11). Praying with our hands held high is
a feature of prayer that many people frown upon, in particular, those who claim
speaking in tongues is anti-scriptural for today; even though this is desired
for all believers by the Apostle Paul (1 Timothy 2:8). On the other hand, the
prophet Elijah, who is mentioned in the book of James, prayed in a fetal
position with his head between his legs.
One important thing that can hinder
our prayers is when other people have something against us. Often this might be
because we have done something unintentionally to cause offence, or someone
might wrongly perceive that we did or said something against him or her. Jesus
addressed this issue in the Sermon on the Mount when He said:
If therefore you
are offering your gift at the altar, and there remember that your brother has
anything against you, leave your gift there before the altar, and go your way.
First be reconciled to your brother, and then come and offer your gift (Matthew 5:23-24)
The importance of prayer every day cannot
be understated. If we are to be overcomers and victorious in Jesus, we need to
spend time in prayer waiting on the Lord, and we need to pray continually
throughout the day by being mindful of the Lord. As for the amount of time we
should dedicate to seeking the Lord to hear His voice and know that we are
walking in His ways, this is up to us. However, a tenth of our day spent waiting
on the Lord would see us overcome the Devil, much faster than spending less
time seeking to walk with God.
[i] Slain in the Spirit
is not a recent phenomenon. Thoughout revivals of in ages past many people
would fall unconscious under the power of the Holy Spirit. In the 18th
Century it was also known as Redfield’s disease because of the phenomenon
occurring at Yale University under the preaching of John Wesley Redfield.
[ii] From The Visions of Sadhu Sundar Singh. Pdf.
Excerpt.
[iii] Amplified Bible
Copyright © 1987 by The Lockman Foundation. Used by permission.
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