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Always Keep On Praying

Prayer is an important aspect of our relationship with God. The call to understand the "I Am" of God is one that can only be done on our knees in the presence of the Almighty One as He reflects His Light upon us. This enables us to see more of Him with each and every moment that we spend with Him in prayer, study and worship. We see Jesus and His disciples in prayer who made disciples who pray. Something caught us and brought us into the fellowship of believers so that we can also mentor prayer. Prayer is something that Christians have wrestled with for thousands of years.

If God is sovereign and knows everything about everything and can do everything, why do we have to pray? Is to get Him to do something like a small child tugging at His coattails saying Wait a minute, look at me this time and I know you're so busy dealing with millions of others but its my turn. Concepts of prayer that have filtered through the Christian belief system are many.

Please read with me the Lords Prayer in Matthew 6, verses 5--13: "And when you pray, do not be like the hypocrites, for they love to pray standing in the synagogues and on the street corners to be seen by men." [I had to wrestle with that, becoming a worship leader, standing in front of people and praying to God because I'm seen. Sometimes I really get into worship and when that happens I'm taken up in it and the prayer becomes a part of that. I'm concerned because I feel like people think, look at the Pharisee up there; I bet he wants us to become just like him. YES, I want you to be taken up there because you're in the presence of the Almighty and he's worthy of that!]

"I tell you the truth, they have received their reward in full. (6) "But you, when you pray, go into your room, and when you have shut your door, pray to your Father who is in the secret place; and your Father who sees in secret will reward you openly. (7) And when you pray, do not use vain repetitions as the heathen do. For they think that they will be heard for their many words. (8) Therefore do not be like them. For your Father knows the things you have need of before you ask Him." [This always confounded me because then why should I ask? Why does He ask me to ask Him for something He knows I need possibly before I need it?] (9) "In this manner, therefore, pray: Our Father in heaven, Hallowed by Your name. (10) Your kingdom come. Your will be done On earth as it is in heaven. (11) Give us this day our daily bread. (12) And forgive us our debts, As we forgive our debtors. (13) And do not lead us into temptation, But deliver us from the evil one. For Yours is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever. Amen."

He asks for us to ask for things that He knows we need and to ask for things that He desires more than we do. Why? I want to propose that there are three reasons that God asks us to pray. Three reasons why the Sovereign God wants to work and participate with us in prayer.

The first one is because we need to. If the only reason for prayer is that I need it or that I need to come to God for things, what happens to God? You're aware of kids who learn how to work adults, right? I've a daughter that's just into this in a brilliant way . . . ten going on seventeen. Daddy, can I have . . . ? Sometimes you start to think that that's all that you're there for is to get asked a question. You love this child and want to do it but the only reason they come to talk to you is to ask for things. The relationship is one of selfishness, isn't it? If the only reason I come to God in prayer is because I need to, then it becomes a duty and selfish and that's all the reason we talk to God is just to get one more thing. It cant be the only reason we pray although its obvious we need to.

The second one is because He needs us to. If that's the only reason why we pray is because He needs us to, what do you think starts to happen in our lives? Its a sense of duty that we put on and perhaps a sense of legalism, but God then becomes less and less in our lives. If He needs me, what happens to Gods sovereignty? It seems as if that logic is deficient, but Ill argue after a while that there's a place and a time when He does need us to.

The third reason is because the loving God of the universe, in His freedom to be who He is, desperately wants a relationship with us. He wants us to come to Him, share time with Him and lift our voices in prayers. He wants us to walk and wrestle with Him and that's the God of the scriptures. He walked and talked with the patriarchs and wants the same for us. I say that along with the other two, the main reason for prayer is to have an ongoing, active and powerful relationship with God.

Prayer can be intimidating, can't it? I remember the first time as a pastor, called into the ministry, standing over a woman who was dying. Having to stand there and say, "Lord God, heal this person. Breathe life back into this individual who is about to die." Now I'm very comfortable with the fact that we don't want to stay here, we want to be where God is, to be out of this flesh, but there's still that tug within us that's there. "Lord, show me Your power and heal this person!" When I opened my mouth to pray I waited in that moment for healing to take place. I'm waiting for one of those shadow experiences where somebody walking down the street is healed by my shadow! It could happen . . . same God, but it didn't happen, she died.

Maybe the next time I'll couch my words a little different and say if its Your will, please heal. When we start to do that then we think its Gods will to kill them. Our brothers and sisters in some of the charismatic movements that have this power, to stand in front of people and tell them be healed! They've got this sense that it will be done and sometimes it is, sometimes it's not. We need to take a lesson from them.

How about some of us who haven't received an answer to a prayer that we've been giving for years and years. Something that still nags at us, that's still going on, have a loved one who hasn't come to the Lord yet, and we've been praying forever it seems. People ask me why it isn't working and I have to say it is working, but then they come back and say prove it. People feel that if the pastor prays for them, God will hear his prayer. They believe that asking him is more important than asking their brothers and sisters in the church to pray for them. It's when the people come before God and pray in power, not just the pastor, elders or those we think are really good people.

It's all of us understanding why we pray and doing it with boldness that gets the job done. Is prayer really necessary, and if so, why? Isn't God sovereign, doesn't He make things work? Is Gods will for Christians automatically guaranteed. We said that we believe and now everything is guaranteed that Hell take care of us. Why does it often take so long for a prayer to be answered and why is persistence required? When somebody asks me that I think it's probably because we need it. These are just a few of the questions I've heard as a pastor. God answers in His own time, not ours and sometimes that requires patience.

Remember when the angel came to visit John the Baptists father. He said "your prayer has been heard." That prayer was a long prayer, approximately 20 years. Elizabeth was 20 years past her prime and couldn't have children anymore, but she was asked to wait for the proper time that the Messiah could come so that her son would be the one that set the way. They had to wait for their answer.

Many of us have stopped asking these questions. In the wake of that we've stopped praying. Many of us don't see prayer as a vital part of our lives. We get it done in the morning, slip a quick prayer up while passing an accident or pray if something is coming upon us and we feel that we cant handle it. In that moment we cry out to God, BUT do we have a passionate, active prayer life? I dare say most of us don't and not knowing why. If we look into the scriptures and see why people of the Bible prayed, it will change our ideas and understanding of our own activity in prayer.

God wants a relationship with us. He's not wanting us to pray because He tells us to, but because we choose to have a relationship with Him . . . that's what He wants! There are many things in the Scriptures that allow for us to understand this fully. He comes to us in revelation, communion and knowledge. He wants to be with us so badly that Hell take it from our heart, head or mouth . . . anyway He can! Prayer is one of those ways because its something we choose to do. Whether we do it or not it's something we have to choose to do or not do. It's an act of will to go before the great God Almighty and worship Him because prayer is a form of worship.

If you want a vitality in your prayer life start doing things that you like to do with God. If that's having a cup of coffee or taking a walk, do it with God and TALK to Him and SHARE your life with Him. We need to walk with God all day, everyday but we don't because were still asking why? Why do I need to have You on my job unless I need You for a problem? Or if you're involved in an accident and we cry out "Help!" We might think In my daily walk I can do it alone because I don't need You around all the time, only when I'm in trouble. That, brothers and sisters, is a need-based prayer. That's what we mostly associate prayer with and its only one aspect of prayer.

If God is going to do something regardless of whether or not we pray, then he doesn't need us to ask and we don't need to pray. There's no correlation there, but on the other hand, John Wesley is right when he says this, "God does nothing on earth save an answer to believing prayer." Does it make you think that perhaps God is not doing anything through me because I haven't been praying? I've not been actively a part of participation in Christianity and with my God because I haven't praying very much. Were not talking about hours or minutes but with walking with God on a regular basis, daily having this connection with God. If this is the case I might choose to lose a little sleep sometimes or not watch television because I need to pray for things to happen in this world. To choose hours of prayer, bible study or fellowship with things a part of the Christian walk over those things would be great, but prayer particularly.

Luther once said that he tried to pray two hours every day and when things got busy he tried to pray three hours. He knew that the power of the walk with God would change the entirety of his life. Just once more hour of prayer would fix whatever it was that was going on his life. Seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness and all else would be taken care of. God will take care of everything if we seek Him first. Ian Bonds, a wonderful man of prayer says this, "God shapes the world by prayer, the more praying there is in the world, the better the world will be. The mightier forces against evil, the prayers of Gods saints are the capital stock of heaven by which God carries out His great work on the earth." God conditions the very life and prosperity of His cause on prayer.

In our church area a year ago I was blessed by being given a book called Fresh Wind and Fresh Fire and so convicted me that I thought we need to have one of those prayer groups in our church. With four haggard individuals we started to meet every Tuesday to pray together. Again and again we met every Tuesday and things started to happen. I've got a few testimonies that took place in the church as this prayer group started to ask God to do more in our congregation, ask Him to become real, positive and powerful in our congregation.

One gentlemen on my preaching team sat in church one day listening to another member of my pastoral team preach and he was becoming dejected thinking he couldn't do this because he felt he didn't have pastoral skills. When the service ended and the speaker prayed a woman sitting right behind him tapped him on the shoulder and they stood up together, turned around to face one another. She said she didn't know what was happening but that the Lord was putting into her head these three words all service long, I know its for you and I don't know what it means but He says "Yes, you can!" The gentlemen was shocked because he thought I didn't say that, I was thinking that. She asked him if he knew what it meant and he said yes. She said hallelujah and turned and walked off.

When Dave Feidler talked about a woman close to her nineties who got up and testified which was a miracle that followed another miracle . . . she was healed of cancer. She had three time melanoma which had been removed twice and the doctor said that it was something they might not get, but well try. She went in after being anointed and prayed over. Her nose was frozen which is painful in itself, they took the first slice off for testing and after an hour of this they realized there was none, no melanoma! That was the first miracle which led to the second one and that's what Dave talked about. She was so excited she just had to testify over her healing to the congregation that God works!

We know who our God is! Joshua, sexually molested as a child, grew up filled with rage. In counseling it came out who his molester was and that individual was arrested and put in jail, but Joshua was furious because he had to revisit that pain. It made him so angry that he would hit his mother, he threw things at his father. How could his parents put him in a situation like that? How could God allow this to happen? Our prayer group had been praying for three months asking that God would move in his life in a way that he would understand forgiveness. We never saw him or laid hands on him . . . we just prayed for him. One of the members of the prayer group was his aunt who came in one Tuesday beaming. She said that she had gotten a call from Joshua who had repented to his parents! She then said Joshua is ready to forgive his molester and, that is a work of God! He doesn't go to church and never had any other contact with God. I think it was the releasing of the prayers of our group and his family that moved him to a position to accept what God would do for him in his life by showing him he had forgiveness but he had to forgive as well.

These things happen when we take on the role of prayer. Jesus is moving powerfully in the midst of prayer. That's why I gave you these particular examples. It will happen if you come before God in prayer. Gods plan was for man to represent Him on earth. God created man and blew life into him and from that point called him good. In that goodness man chose to do something else and dropped from that goodness. The Bible tells us what is good and nothing is good save God. He said that man was His image.

Genesis 1, verses 26: "Then God said, Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness; let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the air, and over the cattle, over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth. " There are some interesting points in this verse that I want to break down and took a look at because I think its the reason why we come in prayer to God.

In Psalms 8, verses 3 - 6: "When I consider Your heavens, the work of Your fingers, The moon and the stars, which You have ordained, (4) What is man that You are mindful of him, And the son of man that You visit him? (5) For you have made him a little lower than the angels, And you have crowned him with glory and honor. (6) You have made him to have dominion over the works of Your hands; You have put all things under his feet," These are some pretty powerful statements aren't they?

Let me run through some Hebrew words. The word translated rule in Psalms means to manage or to govern, to be the go-between, to represent for God, God on the earth. The idea of rule as a king would rule is not there. He's in the place of God as the authority from God to rule on earth. God didn't give up ownership of all that He created, but He did give over to man the stewardship of what He created. In Psalm 115, verses 15 - 16 it says: "May you be blessed by the Lord, Who made heaven and earth. (16) The heaven, even the heavens, are the Lords; But the earth He has given to the children of men." He set man here to represent God here on a regular basis, to be His example here on the earth. So committed was God to this that He had to come in the Incarnation and take it back.

In the fall we lost the authority on the earth. Who took it? Satan did when he beguiled Eve in the garden and Eve convinced Adam that he wasn't the authority when he ate the fruit. In that move he was stripped of a number of things. His position on earth as the representative of God and at that point Christ had to come as the second Adam and restore that to humanity. God works through humans. He calls the prophets, the apostles, the church and us. We are the image, the likeness of God. His glory left Adam and only returned when Christ qualified. Adam lost it all when he chose not to listen to God. In 2 Corinthians 18: "But we all, with unveiled face, beholding as in a mirror the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from glory to glory, just as by the Spirit of the Lord." God is fixed on His plan. When I asked if He needed us to pray because He needed something, its because He's decided something. He wants to work through us on this earth.

You need to read the story of Elijah in 1 Kings because its an incredible story of a man, like us as James says. In verse 1 of chapter 18 we read ". . . Go, present yourself to Ahab, and I will send rain on the earth. He encounters Ahab and goes up on the mountain and prays, but there was no rain even after seven prayers. God said He was going to make it rain and still yet had Elijah pray seven times.

Lets talk about Daniel, a man of God, reading the scrolls and discovers the plan of God is for Israel is to be in captivity 70 years. He goes into the most intense prayer and fasting movement of his life. An angel who had been buffeted by Satan comes and says that the moment Daniel started praying was when he started to come. God hears our prayers and wants to answer them. There was warfare and Gabriel stayed there and gave the message to Daniel that he was loved, his prayer was heard and it was going to be done. God lets us know what's going to be done and wants us to get fired up.

Why is He asking for us to pray if there isn't some way that with our prayers we release Him into the world? We release His power! One of the most devastating scriptures I've read was Ezekiel 22:30-31: " So I sought for a man among them who would make a wall, and stand in the gap before Me on behalf of the land, that I should not destroy it; but I found no one. (31) Therefore I have poured out My indignation on them; I have consumed them with the fire of My wrath; and I have recompensed their deeds on their own heads. says the Lord God." As I looked at this it convicted me that "Am I this person? Is He finding me?"

Figuratively, God came to this earth, looked around and wasn't anyone who would stand up and ask for Him to forgive Israel. There was no one willing or wanted to, but of course, we understand that this is a precursor to the Man who can stand up . . . Jesus Christ. I wondered if I was a man who would stand in the gap? Am I one of those men that God would find praying, asking for things, interceding for people, wanting and desiring His presence so much that He will do His will on the earth. That He will send laborers into the harvest, feed the people who need to be fed, that His kingdom will come and am I a part of that movement? Or am I one of those who cannot be found?

Why pray? I believe because we need to! I believe because that God needs us to by His sovereign choice to work through mankind on this earth. I believe, most importantly, because He wants to talk to me. Doesn't it make you excited that the Great God of the universe doesn't necessarily want to talk to the great angels, but to talk to us? He wants an open and passionate relationship with us. We just participate in the heavenly pattern. Jesus is the Victor and were the enforcers on the earth. Jesus is the Redeemer and were the releasers. He's done the work and we need to be out there talking about it, sharing it and praying about it. Jesus is the Head and were the body. My prayers release His work and His work empowers my prayers. Mine extends His, His affects and effectuates mine. In that kingdom enterprise were not the producers, God is. If were not being a part of that then were not participating in the Divine Plan, the Kingdom Plan for us.

That's why we pray . . . because He is holy! He wants us to go out and touch people so He can heal them. He wants us to visit people so that He can feed them. He wants us to be involved so that He can be involved! Prayer is one of those ways that we can be involved in this life. God has given us His plan and was set in motion at the inception of the church. It was prophesied in Joel and called for by the apostles. Peter said the Holy Spirit was now falling upon all people! He wants prayers that will start to activate our role in this world. Why don't we all speak in tongues, have visions, have dreams? I believe its because were not asking for them! Were calling on the Holy Spirit to come and be powerful amongst us. Things will happen! Hearts will be transformed, healings take place and visions will come because were asking for God to do what He wants us to do. He just needs to be released by our prayers! He doesn't force anything on us. He wont even force the Holy Spirit on us even though He knows we desperately need it. Is there anyone out there who will call on it, prayer for it and activate My desire?

Prayer is the work were to be about, what we were called for here and now.