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SET OUR HEARTS ON FIRE Chapter Eight
New Dimensions in Prayer
And in the morning, a great while before day, he rose and went out to a lonely place, and there he prayed" (Mk 1:35). Jesus was often in prayer, and we need to follow his example.
Nowhere is the work of the Holy Spirit more evident in our lives than in prayer. We experience a progression as the Spirit moves us from a starting point, where me are at the center of our prayers, to a place of usefulness, where God is the center. How rapidly we progress depends on us. Are we listening for the voice of the Spirit as we pray? Are we learning? Are we obeying?
The progress from self-centered praying to God-centered praying takes place in four stages:
Stage one: a personal crisis. Most of us experienced our first taste of the mercy of God in answered prayer when we reached a point of desperation.
For example, my friend Pat was feeling so low, she couldn't pray. So she asked a stranger to pray for her. One Sunday morning Pat was so beside herself with anger and frustration that she jumped into her car and just started driving. As she roared down Michigan Avenue, she wasn't sure she wanted to go on living in this absurd world. She had no idea why she turned right on Vinewood and slowed down at a gloomy railroad underpass. She noticed an old man filling his bag with empty cans for the deposit money.
Pat pulled over and rolled down the window. "Sir, can I ask you something?"
Pat is white. The stranger was black.
He approached her car and answered, "Yes."
"Do you believe in prayer?" she asked.
"Yes, I believe in prayer."
"Will you pray for me?"
"What's your name?" asked the stranger.
"My name is Pat."
"I'll pray for you, Pat," said the man. He turned and went back to his cans.
Pat drove around the comer and parked on Toledo Avenue. The first thing she noticed was that her burden had lifted. The anger and frustration and hopelessness had mysteriously left her for the first time in many days.
The next thing she noticed was our church, directly across the street from where she was parked. She noticed on the sign that there was a Bible study on Tuesday mornings at 9:30, and decided that, since this was the closest church to where the miracle happened, she would come on Tuesday morning and share her story. It was then that we all met Pat for the first time.
Pat's faith blossomed. Soon she was praying, not only for herself, but for her family and a host of others.
A serious prayer life begins, for most of us, with a personal crisis. We find ourselves in a situation where all human help has failed, and turn to God in our desperation. A door opens and we have our first living encounter with the God who answers prayer.
Not only did Jesus answer the cries of those who came to him with their sickness and sin, he also promised that his heavenly Father will always give good things to us, if we but ask him (see Mt 7:11).
Stage two: prayer for personal revival. We enter this stage when we begin to appreciate the God who answered our crisis prayers. Recognizing those answered prayers as signs pointing to a loving Father, we begin to follow the signs until they guide us into the Father's presence.
For example, while Jesus' miracles were signs pointing to the kingdom, the men and women who were healed were under no obligation to follow the sign. Nine of the ten cleansed lepers took their healing and hurried back to the world that had been closed to them during all their years of suffering. Only one leper followed the sign to the one to whom it pointed. Likewise, many people who receive answers to their "prayers of desperation" never see these answers as signs that point to something far more wonderful. Like the nine lepers hurrying on their way, these people are content to remain at stage one. Their next serious prayer will coincide with their next serious crisis.
But those who recognize an answer to a crisis prayer as the sign of a loving Father who has much more to offer begin to follow the sign. "Lord God, I want to know you. Set my heart on fire, so that I can clearly hear the voice of your Son Jesus, and follow where he leads! Bring me into the fullness of your kingdom! Use me for your purposes!"
The prayer for personal revival, as we have seen in chapter three, is prayer for a fresh outpouring of the Holy Spirit, a prayer that is always answered. Anyone who knocks on heaven's door and keeps knocking will receive this gift: "If you then, who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will the heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him!" (Lk 11:13).
Stage three: a crisis in the lives of others. I have a friend named Bill, who answered what he was sure was a call from God, and ended up as a teacher among the Masai tribes in Tanzania. Bill never claimed to be a biblical scholar or a theologian. Many times he would ask himself, "What am I doing here? What do I have to give these people?" Yet Bill was certain of one thing; he was there to serve them.
Bill may have been the most unconventional missionary these Masai tribesmen had ever seen. But they liked him and accepted him with his bulging blue eyes and his unkempt hair and the streams of sweat ceaselessly pouring down his flushed face.
A drought visited, and the herds were beginning to suffer. "If your God is so good, why don't you ask him for rain?" they said, half in anger, half in hope.
"I will," answered Bill. What else could he say? How could Bill explain to these people that it wasn't that simple? Bill knew he was no Elijah, but he seemed to have no choice. His Masai friends were standing there, waiting for him to pray to his God. Bill lifted up his heart and his voice to the God who had led him out to Africa and asked him to answer his friends cry for rain. Within thirty minutes the sky grew dark, and then came a long downpour that drenched the earth and revived it.
No one was more awed by this sign of God's love than Bill himself.
The tribesmen were grateful for the rain. But Bill brought them more than rain. The atmosphere of another world, God's world. God's kingdom washed over these tribesmen like that shower and softened their hearts to the word that was coming to them through their friend, Bill.
When people bring their needs to us, and ask us to pray, it is a sign that God is drawing us close to the destination of our prayer journey: intercession. "Pray for me," they say. "I'm going through a crisis at work." Or, "My marriage is in trouble." Or, "I received bad news from my doctor." What else can we say, but yes! Even though we may feel utterly inadequate, even though we know that they are overestimating our spiritual maturity, our answer is yes. And now we are under obligation to keep our word to them.
Which brings us to the fourth and final stage in the progression.
Stage four: we begin to join our will to the will of the Father. To join our will to the will of the Father involves a disciplined prayer life in which we come to prayer, not so that God can enter into our purpose, but so that we can enter into his. The Spirit helps us make the transition from our purpose to God's purpose as we allow Jesus to be our teacher.
Go into your room and shut the door and begin with Jesus' own words in Matthew 6:7-10: And in praying do not heap up empty phrases as the Gentiles do; for they think that they will be heard for their many words. Do not be like them, for your Father knows what you need before you ask him. Pray then like this: "Our Father who art in heaven."
The first thing we need to do – and the Spirit always helps us – is to lift our minds away from ourselves and our concerns and fix them on the Father who is in heaven. That is, he is our true Father who loves us with unspeakable love. And he is at the throne of all power. He is in control. I may be praying alone, but I am not alone. I am part of the family of the redeemed children of God on both sides of the grave who call him Father. He is our Father.
"Hallowed be thy name."
To say "Hallowed be thy name" is to say, 'I'm taking off my shoes before your majesty, Lord God. I bow in awe to your glory." Think about it. Take your time. You are in the presence of the living God.
"Thy kingdom come."
I've spent a lifetime building my own kingdom (and calling it yours). Now I turn my heart away from my kingdom. I repent. And I cry out for your kingdom to come in its fullness to this earth, and to me. I present myself in submission to your kingdom and to its authority over all things.
"Thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven."
"I pray, heavenly Father, for your redemptive will to be done on this earth. That the blind may receive their sight, the lame walk, the lepers be cleansed and the deaf hear. That the dead may be raised and the poor have the gospel preached to them. Raise up laborers for the harvest. And may your holy and healing will be done in me and through me."
There needs to be a daily discipline of submission to the Father's will in prayer, just as our Lord himself repeatedly withdrew into the presence of the Father to be renewed. Many patterns have been recommended for this daily time alone with God. The Spirit will no doubt help you develop your own. But whatever structure your private prayer may take, there are three essential ingredients: praise and thanksgiving; listening; intercession.
Praise and Thanksgiving
The first thing the Samaritan leper did, after he discovered that he was healed, was to give praise to God with a voice that echoed through the hills. Then he came to Jesus, threw himself at Jesus' feet, "giving him thanks" (see Lk 17:11-19).
It is a good practice to follow that man's example of expressing appreciation. Enter into God's gates with thanksgiving and into his courts with praise. If you are having trouble praising God in your private prayers, open your Bible to the book of Psalms. Read aloud Psalms 95 to 100. Let the Sprit of the Lord soften your heart toward God as you join the numberless multitude on both sides of the grave who are lifting their hearts in praise to God. Angels, who never cease to give God praise, will come to your aid and push the spiritual cobwebs from the room so that your praises will rise more freely. And remember, as you praise God, that you are not doing him a favor. You are giving God his due.
The twenty-four elders fall down before him who is seated on the throne and worship him who lives for ever and ever, they cast their crowns before the throne, singing, "Worthy art thou, our Lord and God, to receive glory and honor and power, for thou didst create all things, and by thy will they existed and were created." Revelations 4:10-11
Listening: Waiting for Guidance
Prayer is not a one-sided conversation. It involves listening.
The God who holds the universe together by the word of his power is not given to shouting. His voice is more likely to be heard as a whisper, as Elijah discovered on Mount Horeb. To hear that whisper we need to become still, not only with our mouths, but with our hearts. "Be still, and know that I am God. I am exalted among the nations, I am exalted in the earth" (Ps 46:10).
The Father will make his will known to you as you wait in silence before him. He will bring to mind people who need your attention. He will put his finger on areas of your life that need repentance. He will speak a word of hope, just when you thought there was no way out.
To wait in silence before God is not as easy as it may sound. Our minds like to "gather wool." They will ramble into the past, and tiptoe into next week and try out three scenarios for how things will go when we have lunch with that testy client. When we reminisce or daydream we are not being still before God, we are indulging ourselves.
Remember that when you are sitting or kneeling there in silence, you are in the presence of One who knows you better than you know yourself. He has heard your appeal to him and has drawn near through the Spirit to listen and to speak. When you speak, he listens. When he speaks, you listen.
One Sunday evening I went with "Sister Lee," an eighty-year old servant of God, as she conducted her weekly ministry at the Wayne County Jail. This tiny little saint in her long blue dress and peaked cap grabbed the bars and said to the men milling around behind them, "Young men, I've been talking to you about Jesus, and you aren't listening to me. So now I'm going to talk to Jesus about you. He'll listen!" That was not meant as a threat, but as a promise to intercede. And intercede she did. Intercession was her specialty. Lee understood that intercession is the primary ministry of every Spirit-anointed follower of Jesus. Intercession is meant to be your specialty and mine.
And intercession is work. Never think that because salvation is a free gift, the life of following Jesus is without effort. The Lord who paid for our salvation with his own blood calls us to come under his yoke and learn from him. We learn as we work at his side. Yes, his yoke is easy, compared with all the other burdens we have tried to carry. But once we are under that yoke, even while our souls find rest, our bodies and minds are engaged in work. And the major work they perform is intercession.
I'm talking about private intercession, praying for people before the face of God alone. There is an important place for corporate prayer, followers of Jesus coming together to "agree on earth" about things they lay before the Father. But beneath all corporate prayer is the Spirit's call for men and women of faith to get alone before God and lift up the needs of the body of Christ, of Israel, of individual saints, of stumbling prodigals, to the Father, who has mysteriously tied his redemptive movements to the prayers of his people.
Moses interceded for Israel: "Alas, this people have sinned a great sin; they have made for themselves gods of gold. But now, if thou wilt forgive their sin – and if not, blot me, I pray thee, out of thy book" (Ex 32:31-32). Time and again Moses stood in the gap between a holy God and a rebellious people.
The Spirit of intercession runs through the whole history of Israel. Every prophet was an intercessor. Jeremiah wept before God for his people. Isaiah urged intercession on everyone who cares: "You who put the Lord in remembrance, take no rest, and give him no rest until he establishes Jerusalem and makes it a praise in the earth" (Is 62:6-7).
And Jesus sets an example of intercession for all his followers. The night of his betrayal, Jesus said to Peter, in front of the other apostles, "Simon, Simon, behold, Satan demanded to have (all of) you, that he might sift you (all) like wheat, but I have prayed for you (Simon) that your faith may not fail; and when you have turned again, strengthen your brethren" (Lk 22:31-32).
There was a time in my life when, though I had a disciplined prayer life, I never considered intercession to be a priority. I was satisfied that every believer is given a small bundle of people for whom to pray. All we have to do is pray for our little bundle. So I would pray for my family, some friends, a few leaders in the congregation I was serving and some colleagues.
Then one summer, while on vacation, I found an isolated spot on the edge of the lake where we were camped, and prayed. But when I was finished, I had the strong sense that I wasn't finished. That God wasn't satisfied. It seemed that the Spirit was saying to me, "Your bundle is too small. We're going to enlarge it. From now on you are going to pray, not just for your family and friends and a few leaders in your congregation. You are going to pray for every member, every contact, everybody that has any connection with that church, by name. And you are going to do it every day."
"But, Lord, you're talking about hundreds of people. I'll never get anything else done!" And the answer that came back was, "This is more important than anything else you will do. Start now. I will help you bring them to mind."
The Lord may be calling you to a different kind of intercession. Perhaps he wants you to pray deeply for a few people that he lays on your heart. If you already have a "bundle" of people you pray for daily, trust the Spirit to enlarge it or reduce it as he pleases.
If you haven't been in the practice of interceding, start with you family, you pastor, your friends, the people who live near to you, the boss at work. If you commit yourself to the practice of intercession, you will receive help from the Spirit of God. Remember, it's not your program, it's the Spirit's, and he knows how and where you will fit. And he will empower your prayers to accomplish everything they are meant to.
But let's be practical, you may be thinking. Where am I going to find the time? A mother with three small children has very little time that she can use as she chooses. Most jobs these days are high stress. When the day ends, we're weary and drained. So where does a person with a tight schedule and a long commute find time to get alone (luxury!) and pray?
Once you're convinced that intercession is an essential part of your ministry (remembering that every believer has a ministry, no matter where a paycheck comes from) you turn to the Lord of time and ask for help. "Lord, if this is something you are calling me to do, show me where I am to find the time." He will. He may guide you to establish a beachhead of fifteen minutes a day – early in the morning or late at night, or when little Joshua is down for a nap. Better fifteen minutes every day than an hour off-again, on-again. Once the discipline of fifteen minutes a day has been established, it can be expanded. God will help you.
Be certain of this: God will use your intercessions, more than anything you do, to spread the fire of revival to others. Because this ministry takes place away from human eyes, it is less likely to be done with a divided heart. You are simply putting yourself at God's disposal as you lift these names before the throne. And the Spirit will move through those prayers to accomplish things that can only be accomplished when people pray.
Why God has chosen to tie his redemptive activity on earth to the prayers of his people is beyond our comprehension. But he has. "And will not God vindicate his elect, who cry to him day and night? Will he delay long over them? I tell you, he will vindicate them speedily" (Lk 18:7-8).
There Are No Experts in Prayer
When it comes to prayer, we are all at the same level – all our lives. We are beginners. The men and women who are most disciplined and developed in their prayer life are always the most childlike in their approach to the throne. They know that their prayers are empty without the help of God's Spirit.
Musicians continuously improve their technique. Doctors keep honing their skills. But prayer is different. It is not a skill. Prayer is not a technique. Of course there will be form and order in our prayer lives. We may find it helpful to write some prayers or to read the prayers of David or Daniel. But we need to follow the example of our Lord Jesus and keep them simple.
The minute our prayers become "clever," we are in danger of communing with our egos rather than with the Father. Prayer rises from our hearts with integrity and power only as we remain poor in spirit.
The apostle Paul had been a man of intense prayer for many years when he wrote to the believers in Rome:
Likewise the Spirit helps us in our weakness; for we do not know how to pray as we ought, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with sighs too deep for words. And he who searches the hearts of men knows what is the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for the saints according to the will of God. Romans 8:26-27
Paul confessed his utter dependency on the Holy Spirit to help him to pray. He never gave the impression that prayer was something he was "good at." Prayer was simply something he did and that he expected all believers to do.
The only "experts in prayer" are in the Godhead: the Son and the Holy Spirit. It is to them that we keep turning for help throughout our lives.
First, we turn to Jesus' teaching and example. Read whatever books on prayer you find helpful, but remember that the best instructions on prayer you will ever find are in the New Testament Gospels. Jesus left us no directions about how to preach. He just said, "Preach the kingdom." Nor did Jesus give us any guidelines on how to heal. He just said, "Heal the sick, cast out demons." But Jesus gave us a wealth of teachings about prayer.
• "And in praying, do not heap up empty phrases" (Mt 6:7) . • "Pray then like this: Our Father who art in heaven" (Mt 6:9).
• "Whenever you stand praying, forgive, if you have anything against any one" (Mk 11:25).
• And he told them a parable, to the effect that they ought always to pray and not lose heart. (Lk 18:1).
• He also told this parable to some who trusted in themselves ... and despised others: "Two men went up into the temple to pray, one a Pharisee and the other a tax collector" (Lk 18:9-10).
• And he said to them, "Why do you sleep? Rise and pray that you may not enter into temptation" (Lk 22:46).
Jesus' teachings were reinforced by the example of his life. Even though the Gospels give us only glimpses of Jesus' prayer life, they show us enough to reveal that prayer was the primary work of his ministry. In the Gospel of Luke we see every major event of Jesus' ministry accompanied by prayer: his baptism, his healing ministry, the choosing of the disciples, his transfiguration, his crucifixion. This record of Jesus' prayer life was preserved for our instruction.
Second, we avail ourselves of the Holy Spirit's ongoing help. "We don't know how to pray as we ought", says Paul, a man of prayer. But never mind, he insists, the Spirit of God is there to help us, and even to intercede for us. All we have to do is plunge in and begin to pray with open hearts, and the Spirit will be there to guide us.
Your personal revival is meant to be, above all things, a revival of your prayer life. The Spirit of God comes into your life to lift your prayers into a new dimension, where prayer is no longer your lifeline to God, it's your life with God. Deep within you, even while you go about the business of daily living, there is a region where prayer ascends and the heart listens. Your discipline of daily time alone with God produces a life that breathes prayer as naturally as your lungs breathe air. Through such a prayer life your will is joined to the will of the Father, and the fire within you begins to spread to others.
Prayer Is the Most Important Thing We Do
If preachers feel that preaching is the most important thing they have to do, then preaching will fall short. If teachers consider teaching their most important work, their teaching will lack authority. Far more important than preaching or teaching or healing or decision making is praying. All our service to God is built on a foundation of prayer.
To acquire bread for the spiritually hungry, we turn to the Father and ask (see Lk 11:5-13). To be able to walk through the chaos of this world without losing our vision of the kingdom, we discipline ourselves daily to ask God to renew our minds in his Spirit (see Rom 12:2). We do not pray so that our work will go well. We pray, knowing that prayer is the work. Prayer is the most important thing we do, because it brings us into communion with God. Prayer brings the atmosphere of heaven into our earthly lives. It is the miracle by which the Word becomes flesh in our daily walk. From the time we rise in the morning until the time we fall asleep at night, there is not an act that we perform that has more impact upon our day, and upon the tomorrows beyond, than prayer.
Prayer Is the Most Difficult Thing We Do
Picture a modern evangelist taking a break from his grueling schedule to visit his aging Aunt Lucy at Sunset Acres. Aunt Lucy is waiting in the chapel for the Wednesday afternoon service to begin.
"The preacher must have forgotten about us," says Lucy to her evangelist nephew. "Could you bring us a few words?" Graciously, the evangelist opens his Bible and begins to speak to the little flock of elderly residents about prayer. "I know that most of you can't do the things you once could. But you can still pray..."
It seems like an uplifting message to the evangelist. But, as he is about to leave, the evangelist feels a tap on his shoulder. He looks up into the face of a tall resident with a slight smile playing through his thin white beard.
"Just a minute, Sonny, I want to talk to you."
The evangelist isn't used to being called "Sonny." Besides, he is running late and doesn't have time to waste.
The man with the thin white beard holds the evangelist's arm in a surprising grip and, looking down into his harried face, says, "The arena, my friend, is not out there where you preach to tens of thousands. The arena is where you go into your room and shut the door and pray. When you assured us that we can 'still pray' it sounded as if you were telling us that prayer is the easy part. Believe me, Sonny, it's time you should know that prayer is the hard part. Learn that, and you'll see things happen in your ministry you never saw before."
Like the well-meaning evangelist, we sometimes think that prayer belongs especially to the elderly and the infirm. They no longer have strength to engage in the real battles of life, so they pray for us while we fight in the arena. There are indeed elderly and sickly people who are mighty in prayer, but only because they are much stronger than the world supposes. For nothing we do is more difficult to do well and to do effectively than to pray.
It is no secret that the enemy attacks our prayer life. If he controls our prayer life, he controls us. So distractions visit. A fly bounces against the window. Our minds wander. Fantasies crowd into our thoughts. Doubts challenge: What good is this doing? Is God really listening? To persevere through all this and continue to pray with a mind focused on God is labor.
The freedom and power with which the Father worked through Jesus was a tribute to Jesus' continuous labor in prayer. Observe him praying in Gethsemane. It was work. It was labor so heavy that he asked three disciples to stay awake with him and help carry the weight of it. When people approach prayer as if it were one of their lighter duties, they will soon be sleeping with Peter, James and John. They misunderstand what is involved. And they will be distracted or bored or lulled to sleep or demoralized by the enemy of prayer. Far better to come to prayer with the knowledge that this is going to be work. It is in fact the most difficult work we have ever begun. To pray well and to pray consistently, day after day, will require more perseverance than we have ever applied to anything in our lives.
Prayer Is the Most Effective Thing We Do
Before Jesus sent his disciples out into the harvest, he commanded them to pray. "Pray therefore the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into his harvest" (Mt 9:38). That is, first connect with God's will (through prayer), then move into whatever action is called for.
We would do well to save the breath we spend talking to a person who does not want to listen to us and convert our talk to prayer. The only access we have to that closed ear, that bitter heart, is through the Lord who hears our prayer. Pray for that person, in love, laying aside all resentment, and God himself will prepare the way.
When Jesus promises us that if we ask anything of the Father in his name, he will do it, we often thank him for the offer and refuse to take it seriously. We find it so hard to receive this promise with childlike confidence and start asking. So he waits. But when we repent of our proud unbelief, become children and draw near to the Father, asking in the name, the mind, the will, the nature of Jesus, things begin to happen. Always. The most effective thing we can do is pray.
Prayer Is the Most Lasting Thing We Do
What became of the prayer I prayed this morning? When the carpenter drives in a nail, it stays. When the mason builds a wall, it stands. But these words I uttered alone before God, this morning, seem to have left not a trace behind them.
The truth is that those fragile words of prayer have already left a mark on the universe that will remain long after the carpenter's nail and the mason's wall have ceased to exist
I do not pray for these only, but also for those who believe in me through their word, that they may all be one; even as thou, Father, art in me, and I in thee, that they also may be in us, so that the world may believe that thou hast sent me. John 17:20-21
The effects of this prayer of Jesus continue to this moment. Nations have come and gone. Entire civilizations have disappeared since this prayer was prayed in the Upper Room, and the answer to this prayer continues to unfold. Long after heaven and earth, as we know them, have passed away, the answer to this prayer will shine with splendor as the Bride of Christ walks with her Bridegroom without spot or wrinkle. The labor of prayer becomes easier when we remember that it is worth the effort. Not a word is wasted. The Father who hears our prayer lifts and holds our heart-cries in the eternal realm. If the evil that we bind on earth is bound in heaven, it is bound forever. If the captives that we free on earth are freed by heaven, their chains are broken for eternity.
And this is the confidence which we have in him, that if we ask anything according to his will he hears us. And if we know that he hears us in whatever we ask, we know that we have obtained the requests made of him. If any one sees his brother committing what is not a mortal sin, he will ask, and God will give him life for those whose sin is not mortal. 1 John 5:14-16
Death and decay cannot undermine the work that is accomplished as a result of our intercessions. The beauty of the Lord our God has come to rest upon us, and the work of our hands is established beyond all our prayers.
From "Set Our Hearts On Fire" published by Servant Publications 1998
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