Psalm: 5: 3 In the morning, Lord, you hear my voice; in the morning I lay my requests before you and wait expectantly.
Let’s talk about prayer.
Just to go over the points of the last message!
What is prayer?
Why should we pray?
Who should we pray for?
How should we pray?
Who should we pray to?
We have seen that lack of prayer is a sin – the sin of self-sufficiency! When you stop praying, you are saying: God I do not need you, I do not depend on you, I can do it all by myself!!
You may not say that with your own words, but you are expressing it with your attitude,
We have also seen that lack of prayer for our brothers and sisters, and for our nation is also a sin!!
We can see that prayer is the main ritual and practice of all religions.
The Jews pray three times a day, the Muslims five times a day, the Buddhists ten times a day… Even Satanists have their own daily rituals!!
If we want to enter into deeper levels in our life of prayer, and have joy and pleasure in praying, we need to understand who we are and what the Bible says we are.
1 Thessalonians 5:23 – May God himself, the God of peace, sanctify you through and through. May your whole spirit, soul and body be kept blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ.
The Bible says that human beings consist of 3 parts, which are body, soul and spirit. Let’s see what the Bible says about our flesh and spirit.
Galatians 5:17 For the flesh desires what is contrary to the Spirit, and the Spirit what is contrary to the flesh. They are in conflict with each other, so that you are not to do whatever you want.
We see that there is a conflict, a constant war of the flesh against the Spirit. We have to face this every day through prayer. We must overcome the flesh and its will and desire, but how can we do that??
We can do that through our soul, for this is where we seek God!!
1 Chronicles 22:19 Now devote your heart and soul to seeking the Lord your God. (Your victory over the flesh will come when you devote your heart and soul to the Lord)
Psalms 103: 2 Praise the Lord, my soul, and forget not all his benefits—” (Prasing talks about worshiping and being grateful to the Lord)
Proverbs 8:17 I love those who love me, and those who seek me find me.
Jeremiah 29:13 You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart
Let’s see what Jesus teaches us about prayer
Matthew 7: 8 For everyone who asks receives; the one who seeks finds; and to the one who knocks, the door will be opened.
Jesus taught us to ask, seek and knock on the door. The context here talks about prayer!
The Bible also tells us that we are the temple of the Holy Spirit
1 Corinthians 3:16 Don’t you know that you yourselves are God’s temple and that God’s Spirit dwells in your midst?
Solomon built a temple based on the tabernacle of Moses in honour of God. Today we are the temple of God.
At that time the temple was divided into three parts. The Courtyard, The Holy Place and The Holy of Holies.
1st – The courtyard was the place where the sacrifices and burnt offerings were presented. Here confessions of sins and sacrifices for remission of sins were made. Many sacrifices took place daily.
What happens to many of us today is that our level of prayer has only reached the courtyard, which is a place of sacrifice. Our life of prayer has not become pleasurable. Our prayers are still at the level of the flesh, they consist mainly of requests and petitions.
I am not contradicting the Bible, because there are several texts that tell us that we should ask the Father in the name of Jesus. Even though Jesus teaches us to ask, we cannot just stay at this level: we have to leave the courtyard, because He did not only teach us to ask, but also to seek and knock on the door!!
The courtyard is related to our flesh which is constantly fighting against the spirit. Jesus said that the spirit is ready, but the flesh will never be ready, for the flesh must take up the Cross every day!
Matthew 16:24 Then Jesus said to his disciples, “Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me. (Taking up the Cross is death for the flesh)
We must sacrifice the flesh and overcome tiredness, sleep, laziness!
You can see that the spirit is ready, any time you feel like praying and open your mouth, it will give you the words for you to pray.
The spirit helps us, it does not do it alone. The flesh says no, I’m tired, I don’t feel like it, I’m sleepy, leave it for later, I’m going to watch TV, check facebook, play some xbox, watch the match that’s on etc.
Your flesh will never want God, so you need to crucify it every day.
2nd – There next part of the temple was the Holy Place, where they had golden menorah (lampstand), the showbread, and the altar of incense which was burnt as a pleasant aroma to the Lord.
The Holy place is related to our soul!
This is when we praise God in our prayers, as it is said in Revelation 5: 8 that our prayers rise as a pleasant incense to God.
This is where we pour our soul before God and praise, sing, dance and jump in his presence. Most of the time this takes place here in the church.
This is where we present our weaknesses, we open up our hearts, cry and humiliate ourselves. Here we are breaking our hearts before the Lord.
Crying is good, it shows brokenness, but it’s not enough.
Sometimes people do cry and humble themselves, but they are still living by their soul. They don’t follow their calling, they don’t bear fruits, they don’t make disciples. They still haven’t learned to overcome their emotions, feelings, wills and thoughts. Many in the churches are soul-people, they live by their soul and not by the spirit! These people easily go into despair; When facing complicated situations they will start crying, and get in panic, etc.
That’s what David said, Why, my soul, are you downcast? Why so disturbed within me? Put your hope in God, for I will yet praise him,
3rd The tabernacle also had the Most Holy Place (also known as the Holy of Holies)
This was where the ark of the covenant was, the 10 commandments tablets, a golden urn with manna inside, and Aaron’s rod which had budded and borne ripe almonds.
Only the High Priest could come into the Holy of Holies once a year to burn incense and to present the blood of the sacrifice for the sins of the people.
Today Jesus has opened this way and we have direct access to the presence and person of God.
Through Jesus and his work on the Cross our spirit communicates with God. We can have intimacy with the Father and we can worship God in spirit and in truth!
How many here have gone into your prayer room and even before you could say anything, tears start to roll down because you’re overwhelmed by the presence of God?
This is worship: we don’t even need to say anything, we can just be quiet and worship our creator, our Lord. We can just stand there in awe of His beauty, overwhelmed by the splendour of our King, the sweetest person in the universe.
In the Holy of Holies we bear fruit, we can see God moving through our lives when we pray for the sick. We will witness people being healed, we will see miracles, we will flourish in our ministry.
Psalm 16: 11 – You make known to me the path of life; you will fill me with joy in your presence, with eternal pleasures at your right hand.
At what level of prayer are you in??
What level have you reached?? Are you at the Courtyard, The Holy Place or The Most Holy Place?
Let’s learn a about prayer in a practical way!
Romans 8:26 – In the same way, the Spirit helps us in our weakness. We do not know what we ought to pray for, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us through wordless groans.
So what happens when we are born again??
Our spirit comes to life, and the Spirit of God comes upon our spirit and starts dwelling in us.
Now the Holy Spirit works in us, for us and through us.
We need Him, He’s all we need!!
Many want to find God in 5 minutes of prayer! No, you will not find Him this way!
We need to have time with him! We must try and have a minimum of 30 minutes.
Some people say that 5 minutes is enough for God to hear us! Imagine a person has been for a year or even five years in church and they only pray 5 minutes a day, what kind of outcome do you think they will have?
Jesus established a time of prayer with his disciples, let’s see.
Matthew 26:40 Then he returned to his disciples and found them sleeping. “Couldn’t you men keep watch with me for one hour?” he asked Peter.
Jesus is teaching us that we should at least pray for one hour!
Maybe you say I do not really feel like praying, but once you start praying, your desire for it will start increasing. Pray until you feel pleasure in it.
If you have no habit of praying at all, then start with 15 minutes a day and increase it bit by bit.
Make prayer a commitment and a habit. Cultivate it every day until prayer ceases to be a habit and becomes pleasurable. You will start feeling the joy and wonder of having your quiet time with the Father.
How to pray for an hour??
First thing – you need to overcome the flesh!
The first 15 minutes you will feel sleepy, feel lazy, you will get all sorts of thoughts: you’ll think of rent, work, your family, last night’s match… Your phone will vibrate, your child will start crying, all sorts of things are going to be coming out of the blue in these first minutes.
All sorts of things can happen depending on the time of the day you pick to pray, so the best time for prayer is early morning.
Jesus used to get up early in the morning, while it was still dark, and go out to isolated places to pray.
What should we do during the time of prayer?
For the first 15 minutes read the book of Psalms. Why? Because the book of Psalms is a compilation of prayers.
For the next 15 minutes you may play some worship songs. While you sing, worship and exalt the Lord, half an hour has gone in already.
Now for the next 5 minutes ask for forgiveness of your sins, the sins of your family, relatives, your town, your nation, etc.
Dedicate 5 more minutes for gratitude – be grateful for all the benefits, blessings you have been granted. Thank God for your life, health, work, family, church, your nation. Be grateful for the work Jesus did at the cross, for your life transformation, your salvation, protection, provision. We have so much to thank God for and five minutes is definitely not enough.
Use the next 15 minutes for intercession.
Leave this part last: we should pray for everyone, those who exercise authority, those in the government, for our nation. We should cry out for mercy, use the word in prayer to fight in the spiritual war, learn off the word of God. The word has power, use your authority in the name of Jesus.
At the end of it all, take 5 minutes just to sit in silence, do not say anything.
Remember that in prayer you speak, and God hears. Now it’s God’s turn to speak and you’ll hear Him!
Now! You Have prayed for a full hour!
You will see that 1 hour is actually not a lot and you will want to stay there longer.
Make prayer a discipline, a habit until it becomes a pleasure.
Prayer is a personal relationship with the King of the Universe!
Prayer has the power to transform your life. Set a daily time for prayer, come to the church prayer meetings in the early morning, the ones on Saturday, Sunday before the service, etc.
You will see the supernatural of God!