Have you ever wondered my so many people struggle to discover deep satisfaction in prayer? Here’s why…

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The subject of prayer is something that I never tired of speaking about and seeking to explore in my own private devotions and desire to know know God, because really it is limitless in its scope. We’ve all heard the saying, and we’ve all heard it probably more times than we can remember, that God has a plan for your life. We’ve heard the statement many times. Yet how many believers still stumble forward day by day in kind of half darkness, wondering if they are actually in their father’s perfect will? Now, oftentimes there are more questions than there appear to be answers. Now why does God seem to be so mysteriously far off at times? And why are we so often overwhelmed and drowned out in the clamour of daily life? Why is that kind of spiritual attunement and spiritual connection so often hindered by the business of modern life? And the thing is, it’s not just secular pursuits that I’m talking about. I think the most nefarious of all are probably the religious disciplines that we try to impose upon ourselves. Now, these outward pursuits and religious observances ultimately offer a little or no relief for the seeker, because the thing is, they’re looking to honour God and please God from the outside in.

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They may look very Noble and Holy in appearance, but duty and restriction in any form alone cannot open the door to the kind of peace and joy that we are desiring. Absolutely. And don’t misunderstand me. We are to be disciplined. And there are outer disciplines that we can apply that will help us connect with an inner reality or at least align ourselves with the truth that is living within us, because we are, in fact called to be disciples of Jesus Christ. And that word disciple, literally means a disciplined one. It’s kind of fallen out of Vogue, really, in the days in which we live. So much of the modern gospel, if it can be called that, is about how Jesus has come to fulfil our comforts. But it’s a very different gospel than the one that we find in the Scriptures. We are called to a life of disciplines, spiritual disciplines, natural disciplines. But these disciplines and delights of Holy living are really an overflow of an inner Communion with a Holy God, not the Avenue to reach him. They flow from him, not to him. It’s got to begin with the move. It begins with the Holy Spirit at work within us and flows from there into our outer living, our outer life.

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And it’s that reality that I want to highlight today in really what is the pattern of true prayer as revealed in the Scriptures in so many places. But I want to draw from the pattern that God gives when he lays out for us the blueprints of the Tabernacle in the wilderness. In the Book of Exodus, we see a picture of this house of God, this dwelling place of God, where God would dwell in the midst of his people. We see a picture so profound that the Lord actually sought to dedicate more chapters to its construction and its function and the plans for this particular structure than almost any other subject in the Scriptures. Beginning in Exodus, chapter 25, God describes his blueprints for building this Tabernacle and revealingly and I think not by accident. I don’t believe that anything is in the Scriptures by accident. I believe it’s penned, inspired by and written by one author. He may have used various instruments to do it over a span of many years, but it is ultimately one author. And there’s nothing here. There’s no construction within the books, not even a dot of an I or a cross of a T in the original books as they were written in Hebrew or Greek.

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That is out of place. And here in the construction of the Ark, we see it from God’s perspective. He begins with the Ark of the Covenant, not the outer courts. The pattern begins with his presence. That’s the way that I read this. That’s the way that I understand this and the way I relate it very powerfully and personally to my own prayer life, and I believe how you can apply it to your prayer life as well. I do think it unfortunate that we often begin at the opposite end of things. We come with our human understanding, and we approach things right on the threshold of our approach to God way out in the outer courts and in that place in the outer courts, we can come in sometimes concerned with the right and wrong way to do things. We can impose patterns and prayer rules before we even get to the place where we can actually honestly pray. It’s pointless to pray at a distance. God calls us to come close to come intimate with Him, to stand before Him, to stand before his throne, full of bold, bloodwashed confidence. And there begin to pray, not from a distance, not trying to reach Him, but very much engaged together with Him in this enterprise.

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Sometimes we can be more aware of the world around us than we are of the hidden place of his presence. And we attempt to reach God, who seems far away and shrouded from view and just dump a list of requests and requirements on his doorstep. And that’s why I believe our attempts to pray sometimes fall flat, because we fail to position ourselves to pray effectively. The Bible tells us that no flesh can appear before God, and all of our efforts come up short at times because they are works of the natural man trying to reach a distant deity. That, my friend, is religion. That’s not reality. We’re called instead to a bold humility, the position that prayer takes, that the position that the prayer takes is one of humility and boldness. And in some ways these two things may seem like opposites humility and boldness. In prayer, though, are two sides of the same coin. Humility, number one, recognises your inability to produce any results in your own strength. And if you’ve not realised that yet, let me just give you a quick leg up. Let me help you over that wall. Let me give you a quick start on effective praying.

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You cannot produce results in your own strength. Okay, you can have that one for free. So we come in weakness and with a genuine understanding of our need for Grace. But the blood on the mercy seat of the very arc that we Lee here, that God begins his pattern. God begins his plan of this dwelling place and this place of connection and intimacy with his people. He begins with the Ark. And on the Ark was a mercy seat. That mercy seat is Jesus, we are told, is now our mercy seat. He is the place of intimate speaking. He is the place where the presence of God is manifest and through which we can approach that presence without fear. Heaven invites us to a Holy confidence and to approach certainly in awe of God fear in the right sense. But without that fleshly human fear or trepidation, we can come very, very confident that God will receive us on the basis of the blood of His Son, Jesus. And this is the beauty of prayer. It’s not just you standing there with whatever accolades you feel may place you in a position of favour. All of those are left outside.

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When we come in to the place of prayer, we come without credentials of our own. We come instead with the credentials of Jesus Christ Himself. He has taken our credentials upon himself. And believe me, they weren’t deserving of the presence of God. They were deserving of death on a cross and he exchanged his credentials for us. You have now been made the righteousness of God in Christ Jesus. And so we come in his right standing, and it is as if he himself were standing before the Father. I got a few stories to tell of that, but I won’t tell them now. But just believe me, it’s powerful when you understand that you’re not coming on the basis of your own behaviour. You’ve not got out for good behaviour, you’ve not been allowed in because you’ve earned it or deserved it. Quite the opposite. You come in, discover mercy and find Grace to help in your time of need. And again, another freebie. If you don’t think that this is your time of need, I would probably reverse and think again. Because every moment of every day is our time of need for God to touch us, God to move in our lives and God to move and touch through our lives, even if it’s not your own needs that drive you in with that sense of emptiness, that sense of lack, that sense of being unable to produce the necessary results.

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Then let it be the needs of other people. You do not have to look far to recognise that there is a great need for God’s power, God’s presence, God’s Grace and God’s provision in the world in which we now live. And we can become if we come close to Him and familiarise ourselves with his ways, we can become conduits and not only be the one who requests, not only be the one who comes with the question, but we can become conduits for the answer to those prayers too. And so the pattern we see flows from presence. As I say, the first introduction to the blueprints for this wonderful place of God’s dwelling begins with the Ark of the Covenant and the mercy seat. And then from there, as we go through the chapters of Exodus, the pattern unfolds again. I don’t think this is my accident. The pattern, the plan, the blueprints flow from God’s presence. God’s presence is first and foremost. And I guess the question that we need to ask ourselves with regard to our own prayer life is, do we have his presence? Seek nothing else until you do. Without his presence we can’t go forward.

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Without his presence, we cannot deliver the goods we need that above all else. And here too, at the Ark, it is the seat of his speaking. God speaks and his plans then unfurl before us. It’s here in this place of hearing that prayer is spoken, heard and answered. There is a tangible and fearfully awesome reality to the words of the famous prayer that the Lord gave to his disciples, our Father in heaven, when they are spoken in the presence of the One whom we are addressing with our supplications. But we have to be in his presence in order to address Him in that manner. We don’t want to, like in the picture of the Tabernacle, if you like, be shouting it from way over the other end of the structure, like right outside the gate, shouting like our Father, hoping he might hear us. We’ve actually been given the opportunity to approach his presence and stand before Him, come to the throne of Grace and boldly present ourselves first and foremost and then our requests to Him. So instead of cold heartless repetitions, our heart Burns within us and prayer becomes this flame that licks up from our inner man, blazes within us.

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I love the scriptures in the New Testament where the two guys were walking on the road to Emmaus and Jesus comes alongside them and describing the encounter afterwards, they say, did our hearts not burn within us when we encounter Jesus, when we encountered the presence of God, there is an inner flame and inner burning that is stirred up within us. Friend, this is prayer. And sometimes because of this reality, we also need to understand that we need to pray until we pray. There’s a lot of truth in that statement. You may have heard it before. Prayer really is the natural outbreathing of a spirit in the presence of the Father of Spirits. But prayer begins in and flows from his presence and his voice speaking to us and within us. And that’s why we need to pray until we sense his presence and leading, until our awareness of God overshadows the splintered attention and preoccupation with the world that we so often find ourselves caught up in. Not much praying actually happens. There may be a lot of prayers spoken, a lot of songs sung, but they’re not really being sung in the right realm.

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They’re just natural. It’s just vibrations going out into the natural atmosphere, as opposed to a divine connection taking place in the realm of the Spirit. And so sometimes we need to pray until we sense that divine flow and until we connect with that reality. And then friends, you know, when you begin to pray, you know it, you know it, you know it, you know it. When the fleshly appetites fall away, hunger for eternal things begins to grip our inner man. And prayer is actually drawn up from deep in our heart, like calling to the deep of God’s heart. It’s a hunger that only God’s presence can satisfy. It’s a hunger that finds its satisfaction in his presence alone. I love this verse in Exodus 25:22, particularly in the Amplified translation. And it reads like this, there I will meet with you, and from above the mercy seat, from between the two Cherubim that are upon the arc of the testimony, I will speak intimately with you of all which I give you in commandment to the Israelites. Those words I will speak intimately with you right here before the Ark, before the mercy seat, from between the Cherubim, under the covering of his presence, overshadowed by his presence, he will speak intimately with us.

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God’s pattern, his perfections and his purposes proceed from his presence. We’re called to intimate, unashamed fellowship. God’s praying people have an invitation in Christ to come boldly into his intimate presence and to fellowship with him, with the Father, with the Son, and with and through the Holy Ghost. As Hebrews Four tells us, we don’t have a high priest who cannot be touched with the feeling of our infirmities, but was in all points tempted like as we are yet without sin. Let us therefore come boldly to the throne of Grace, that we may obtain mercy and find Grace to help in time of need. What an absolute relief to discover that our bold approach is not based on our own Holiness or strength. But we come on the basis of Jesus perfect sacrifice, first to obtain mercy, not getting what we deserve, and then to be empowered by Grace to be given what we don’t deserve. If you like. As the New Testament believer, I believe that this is the pattern. I believe that there is a Tabernacle in heaven, that the earthly Tabernacle was given as a sign as a symbol as a pattern of things that have their reality in the heavens that through Jesus we can come and fulfill what was presented to us as a shadow in times past and we have this wonderful invitation to come.

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Presence precedes prayer awareness of God and his ability comes before we make any request. But when we come, when we sense when we connect with his presence prayer is the natural outbreathing worship prayer and praise is the natural response of a spirit engaged with its maker. So when we come to pray, don’t come with your arms full of your own plans insisting that God fulfill them come instead to his presence to the place of his intimate speaking and let him determine your direction. Come if you like poor in spirit come with your hands open empty handed, ready to receive. Now ask her what would you have me ask you today, Lord Holy Spirit? How would you have me pray? First hear, then speak first presence, then prayer.

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Thanks for listening to today’s episode.

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Hopefully it was a blessing to you if it was do please consider leaving.

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A rating in a review on whatever.

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Platform you are listening on. I also would love to encourage you.

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To check out my new book faithful creative. We’ve got a package of resources designed specifically to encourage you in your Christian creative call. You can check that out at faithfulcreativebook.com and if you choose to pick it up, use the Promo code podcast for 50% off so you’ll get it for half price. Have a great rest of your day and God bless Jesus first everything else follows.