Re-Dedication: Our Movement Towards Fresh Fire (Anointing & Power)
Today: Revival of Prayer in Our Lives
My dear friend and partner in divine purpose,
None of us has given prayer the priority it really deserves.
Yes we pray but not as we should.
Why do I say that? Because ‘we pray’. That is confusing isn’t it?
What is Toks trying to say?
I think what God is trying to say to Toks and you is that, there is a place where prayer is a ‘joint venture’ between God and ourselves.
Let me explain. The disciples had asked the Lord to teach them how to pray “as” John had taught his own disciples to pray. Notice – as John.
He responded “And when thou prayest, …………………..
After this manner therefore pray ye:
Our Father which art in heaven, Hallowed be thy name. Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done in earth, as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread. And forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors. And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil:For thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory, for ever. Amen. For if ye forgive men their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you: But if ye forgive not men their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses”
I want you to take notice of the expression “when YOU pray”.
This instance,YOU are the only initiator of the prayer. This is what I call Level One – Prayer.
I believe our Lord would like us to advance to another level. Which one again, you may ask?
When God and You pray! When God’s Spirit prays through and in concert with our individual spirits! Is this scriptural?
1Timothy 2: 1-3
“I exhort therefore, that, FIRST OF ALL, supplications, prayers, intercessions, and giving of thanks, BE MADE (by us) for all men; For kings, and for all that are in authority; that we may lead a quiet and peaceable life in all godliness and honesty. For this is good and acceptable in the sight of God our Saviour”
Romans 8: 26-29
“Likewise the SPIRIT also HELPS our infirmities: for we know not what we should pray for as we ought: but the SPIRIT ITSELF MAKES INTERCESSIONS for us with groanings which cannot be uttered. And he that SEARCHES the hearts knoweth what is the MIND OF THE SPIRIT, because he maketh intercession for the saints ACCORDING TO THE WILL OF GOD.
And we know that ALL THINGS WORK TOGETHER (God’s Divine Orchestrations) for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to his purpose. For whom he did foreknow, he also did predestinate to be conformed to the image of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brethren”
This is the ultimate, my dear!
When we pray, we pray amiss some times. Even great Elijah made ‘unacceptable’ prayers or Intercessions!
Romans 11: 2-4 “………Wot ye not what the scripture saith of Elias? how he maketh intercession to God against Israel, saying, Lord, they have killed thy prophets, and digged down thine altars; and I am left alone, and they seek my life. But what saith the answer of God unto him? I have reserved to myself seven thousand men, who have not bowed the knee to the image of Baal”
How do we go forward?
God has never told us to JUMP, no! Neither are we encouraged to CRAWL, no way!
He asked us to WALK with Him gently and firmly. Steady progress is expected.
Therefore, with the love implanted in my heart for you and with you, let us walk with Him together from LEVEL “first of all” to LEVEL “all things work together”.
Are you ready to move with Bro Toks?
Okay, let us examine someone, as our beginning starting example today.
“Hezekiah received the letter of the hand of the messengers, and read it: and Hezekiah went up into the house of the Lord, and spread it before the Lord” 2 Kings19:14
Here is one of the best pictures of prayer in the Bible. Hezekiah is king over Israel when the cruel and powerful Assyrian army marches against them. Rabshakeh, the army’s spokesman, sends a threatening letter and tells Hezekiah not to trust in his God for deliverance.Here was an enormous temptation and a trial, all wrapped into one little scroll. There is the imminent danger of being razed to the ground by the Assyrian empire; then there is the verbal prompting not to trust in God for a rescue.
But how does Hezekiah deal with this letter? He receives it, he reads it…and then he takes it straight to the Lord and spreads it before him. What a wonderful picture of prayer! It is the spreading of our problems, our temptations, our struggles before the Lord in the face of every temptation to do otherwise.
Are you today wrestling with a temptation to sin that is threatening to conquer you? Spread it before the Lord. Is you heart weighed down with some terrible worry, or sorrow, or pain? Spread it before the Lord. Have you felt the weight of your guilt before a holy God for the first time? Spread it before the Lord.
No one has every come to the Lord and gone away disappointed. Hezekiah did not, and you will not.
Prayer:
Lord teach me how to pray.
Lord make me make progress with you in prayer.
Good morning.
Love always.
God is our goal.
The Liteman Toks
London