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Prioritise Prayer

Our daily routines reveal our priorities in a very tangible way.

With regard to the place that prayer ranks in our reasoning, what we choose to do each day is telling. Do we fit prayer around our busy life, or is life fitted around the priority of prayer?

I don’t say this to compare, convict, or condemn, merely to help you measure your present priorities.

If you are much like me, and I suspect you are, it’s very easy to allow the responsibilities and activities of everyday life to push eternity to the edges. Our days are crowd with temporal activities, and deepening our dependence and desire for God is dampened by all our to-do’s.

Prayer is not a favourite passtime for the flesh. TV is far more appealing than time in the tabernacle of God’s presence. Let’s face it, prayer can be frustrating, boring, confusing, dreary, a choreish unexciting excursion that leaves you unfulfilled and scratching your head. Why is it so darn hard to do the one thing that offers ultimate fulfilment? Because we live in an environment dampened and infused with unbelief!

The world and culture we inhabit is not given to the things of the spirit. It is designed by contrary powers to keep us as far away from reality as possible, crowded with activities of no eternal consequence, and cowered by natural needs, desires, and the pursuit of everything and anything but God.

The devil knows that once a man or woman breaks this mould and finally finds pleasure in prayer, he may as well sign off the deeds. That life is not only lost to him in terms of eternal destiny, their everyday is on track to become vinegar in his wounds and pricks in his eyes. A man or woman broken and broken-through is dangerous to the devil’s kingdom.

Is it any wonder that the “god of this world” does all he can to keep our eyes covered?

“For the god of this world has blinded the unbelievers’ minds [that they should not discern the truth], preventing them from seeing the illuminating light of the Gospel of the glory of Christ (the Messiah), Who is the Image and Likeness of God.” (2 Corinthians 4:4 AMP)

Carving out time for prayer so it becomes your delight will demand a season of daily discipline over several weeks to break addiction to the status quo in the spirit realm. I have found no other way to incapacitate and destroy the agreements that my flesh has inadvertently made with the devil’s way of doing life.

If we are not intentional in defining our priorities we will inevitable fall into the prevailing defaults that pervade the culture we are immersed in. I can assure you, unless you are presently involved in a significant revival of some kind, the culture around you will not applaud prayer as a viable or desirable pursuit.

As a praying person you are involved in the greatest rebellion of all. You are claiming your freedom from a system designed to swirl your days into an ever tightening cyclone down a plughole that to nowhere but regret.

Dear friend, when we stand before the King on that great day of judgement and reward, do you think He will be measuring success by the totems of this present age? I think not.

The riches of life well spent are not counted in dollars, they are defined by how many days we live dedicated and devoted to a bigger cause – the cause of the Kingdom.

As we seek His Kingdom first, thank God, He adds much that the world seeks to our account. The promises of prosperity are found throughout all of Scripture, but a Kingdom life of wellbeing that spans all aspects of our existence begins with prosperity of soul.

“Beloved, I wish above all things that thou mayest prosper and be in health, even as thy soul prospereth.” (3 John 1:2 KJV)

The place of soul prosperity begins in the prayer closet, because that is where we draw close to the Giver of every good gift.

Fierce Focus – Making Prayer a Priority

In a world of distractions, it’s easy to be pushed in every direction. Each day we are hounded by a thousand attention-stealers clamoring for our affections. All the while, the Holy Ghost waits patiently for us to turn out of the way and harness our time to rest in His presence.

This sounds easy, but our busy lives display the stark and shocking reality that more often than we want to admit, Jesus is bumped down the priority list day after day after day.

Prayer life languishes in the long grass while we tend to our natural fields of endeavor with increased fervor and feverish devotion.

It has always struck me that a man will rise without question to commute to his workplace, welcoming the dawn with bleary eyes but unquestioning obedience to necessity. Come to the call to prayer, however, and those same eyes close to the urgent needs and the crisis we are in, as the world plummets further into darkness while a passive church stands on the sidelines shaking its head.

Don’t mishear. These are not words of condemnation and legalism, they are strong words of calling. A trumpet in the mouth of angels gathering a mighty clan of men who clamor not for the world’s adulations. It is a rallying of risen sons to the battle that is raging for our families. A cry from the heart of the Father to come close so we can then go into the world clothed in power.

Such a conscript and calling requires fierce focus.

Paul the apostle put it like this:

“No man that warreth entangleth himself with the affairs of this life; that he may please him who hath chosen him to be a soldier.” (2 Timothy 2:4 KJV)

It is no accident that the language used here is the language of battle.

We are at war, whether you want to acknowledge it or not, and our invisible enemy will never cease his assaults and advance if we do not take up spiritual arms and become offensive in our warfare. Not a wrestling with men, not a religious ‘jihad’, but a war waged on our knees in fervency and deep distress until the clouds part and Heaven comes down.

The familiar words “Thy Kingdom come” are powerful and pertinent, but to commit to the attainment of them until it is so will cost you your life. Our Savior showed the way, and with strong crying and tears obtained the prize.

“Who in the days of his flesh, when he had offered up prayers and supplications with strong crying and tears unto him that was able to save him from death, and was heard in that he feared;” (Hebrews 5:7 KJV)

Why would we kid ourselves to think that anemic, weak and costless petitions, offered like a paltry tip to the ‘waiter’ who has provided all that we need can turn the tide? It is a deception to cram prayer into our schedule as if it were a secondary duty. It is THE one duty of men of God, and all else should be crammed around it’s exercise.

Jesus went so far as to say that in order to find the life of God, we have to ‘lose’ our own life in pursuit of it.

“For whosoever will save his life shall lose it: and whosoever will lose his life for my sake shall find it.” (Matthew 10:39; 16:25 KJV)

My favorite writer on prayer, and a man whose books have been read by millions of seeking saints through the centuries is E M Bounds. In his masterly work, Power Through Prayer, he says in no uncertain terms:

Praying is spiritual work; and human nature does not like taxing, spiritual work. Human nature wants to sail to heaven under a favoring breeze, a full, smooth sea. Prayer is humbling work. It abases intellect and pride, crucifies vainglory, and signs our spiritual bankruptcy, and all these are hard for flesh and blood to bear. It is easier not to pray than to bear them.
The little estimate we put on prayer is evident from the little time we give to it. So we come to one of the crying evils of these times, maybe of all times — little or no praying. Of these two evils, perhaps little praying is worse than no praying. Little praying is a kind of make-believe, a salvo for the conscience, a farce and a delusion.
The little estimate we put on prayer is evident from the little time we give to it… How feeble, vain, and little is such praying compared with the time and energy devoted to praying by holy men in and out of the Bible!
To men who think praying their main business…does God commit the keys of his kingdom, and by them does he work his spiritual wonders in this world.”

Such words are sobering indeed! But this is the kind of fierce focus wartime demands of its hardy males. How many draft-dodgers today are sitting in pews with their ears closed to the hot tears of their Savior as He intercedes for the darkened heart of the populace. Suffering screams from every pore of creation yet we muffle its cries with our excuses and busyness.

But I am a businessman, or a tradesman, you may protest. I too am a businessman. But if my house were ransacked and my children bound, surely my scurry for money would be laid aside as I wrestle my aggressors. Yet the devil is binding our posterity, while we sit by and watch him do it!

Ask the Lord for wisdom and He will give it. If your first commitment is to seek His Kingdom, all else will be added to you besides. He has plans to prosper you and to furnish your future richly and abundantly, on the premise that you “seek Him with ALL your heart”.

How can I continue without laying these promises squarely before our faces:

“But seek ye first (as your #1 priority!) the kingdom of God, and his righteousness; and all these things shall be added unto you.” (Matthew 6:33 KJV)

“For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the LORD, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.Then you will call upon me and come and pray to me, and I will listen to you. You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart.” (Jeremiah 29:11–13 NIV)

These verses and their promised results do not come cheaply. It will take courage to pull them from the ornate promise box of religious living and breathe manly life into them so they become a living reality. It will mean forsaking much that we call our securities, seeking beyond our seeming capacity, and trusting like never before.

Will it mean leaving work and living by faith? Why not try living by faith while you work? How about believing God for grace to discover new ways to generate wealth that leave you free to seek Him?

He has secret keys hidden for kings. Take off your cap of servitude to the world system and don your crown in bold assurance that God will provide all the necessary direction to lead you into expansive freedom. Never will he see his children begging bread if only they will believe Him. Wisdom is waiting, and new avenues of providence, even within your present workplace, are present. God will lead you, multiply your income, and leave much time for the works of the Kingdom. The desire and devotion you show with the little time you have now will place a faith demand that opens more.

My God! My God! Why have we forsaken thee?

How true these words of Jeremiah, shouting his warning through the ages to our ears today:

“For my people have committed two evils; they have forsaken me the fountain of living waters, and hewed them out cisterns, broken cisterns, that can hold no water.”(Jeremiah 2:13 KJV)

In our cleverness and commitments, we have left the ancient paths. Our dusty atmospheres so unconductive to the powers of the world to come are testament to our failure in the very arena we are called to rule.

Lift your voice and command the winds to blow across the carcass of the church and raise it again to full stature. Bone to bone, sinew to sinew, a praying army will arise. Generals are in the making, closeted from the world as God clothes them for war.

Darker days are rolling over the horizon, but in the thickness and the sickness of depravity and disease, a glorious light will shine. The people of God’s making will shine ever brighter as the day of Christ’s return approaches. This battalion of love will never bow to the suggestions of the enemy, not flinch when the world seeks to spear their searching words.

Such men are made out-of-sight, ready for revealing when the time is upon us.

Do you hear the call? Have the papers arrived demanding your transport to the front lines in the spirit? We are no longer living in peacetime. Do not be deceived.

“They dress the wound of my people as though it were not serious. “Peace, peace,” they say, when there is no peace.” (Jeremiah 8:11 NIV)

Don’t put a bandaid on the searing gash of the world around you. A form of godliness devoid of power will never heal the wounds. We NEED God above all else, and our generation is relying on men who will prioritize prayer and make it their chief aim to secure a revival in our day.

What, praying man, will be your response?

Visionary Prayer

God’s way of communicating is colourful. Far greater than 3D, 4D or virtual immersion reality. His realm is one of extreme wonder, and when He speaks entire worlds are thrown into motion.

It’s a sad note to sing when we see how the church has largely stripped the house of it’s imaginative roots and tools. Outwardly we may enjoy glorious buildings, tapestries and other artefacts, but inwardly the eyes have been closed and visionary encounters have been banished to another age.

God still shows up and shows off if we will only open our ways to see and ears to hear.

As a spirit, you live in a body. You are accustomed to your natural senses helping you navigate and comprehend the world around you. This is just as it should be. But you are far more than a body and several senses. You are a spirit!

You, the real you, the everlasting, God-shaped, image-bearing, you, is a spirit.

If pushed you’d say:

I AM a spirit.

I HAVE a soul; mind, will, and emotions

I LIVE in a body; a temporary earth-suit that allows you to operate in this natural realm.

But who you are is not a body. You are a spirit, and your spirit has senses just like your natural man.

You can “taste and see” that the Lord is good.

You can “hear” His voice.

Visions and dreams are normal, expected colours in His supernatural palette of communication. They are spiritually discerned, but no less real than the senses of the natural man. More real in fact. They are of the original substance from which all that we see found it’s genesis.

Prayer is the place of spiritual activation. It is the playground of the spiritual senses. It is the arena of activity in the realm of the spirit, and when we engage in Spirit-led prayer it awakens our senses in that realm.

Paul prayed that God would,

“..grant you a spirit of wisdom and revelation [of insight into mysteries and secrets] in the [deep and intimate] knowledge of Him, By having the eyes of your heart flooded with light, so that you can know and understand the hope to which He has called you, and how rich is His glorious inheritance in the saints (His set-apart ones),” (Ephesians 1:17–18 AMPLIFIED)

We enter into a revelation of insight into mysteries and secrets of God, and deep and intimate knowledge of Him, by having the eyes of your heart flooded with light.

Visionary prayer is so much a part of the rich delights of knowing God that each and every saint should pick up Paul’s prayer and make it their own urgent request.

“Father, open my spiritual eyes to see your mysteries, bring me into deep and intimate knowledge of your world and your ways, and reveal me to the hope of my calling.”

There is so much more for us to discover!

Oh, the endless pleasures of prayer.

Growing In God

You have a calling that spans an array of engagement with God. Your entrance into His family placed you at the centre of His affections, and connected you vitally to His Kingdom.

Both of these wings of ministry must be exercised to fully enjoy the benefits of prayer.

I think that they are best described in the Amplified Bible by the Apostle Paul when he said;

“God is faithful (reliable, trustworthy, and therefore ever true to His promise, and He can be depended on); by Him you were called into companionship and participation with His Son, Jesus Christ our Lord.” (1 Corinthians 1:9 AMP)

Companionship is friendship with God.

“The secret [of the sweet, satisfying companionship] of the Lord have they who fear (revere and worship) Him” (Psalm 25:14 AMPLIFIED)

It is seeking His face, experiencing the heart of the Kingdom.

Participation is the business of the Kingdom, partnership with God in His purposes. Seeking to see His hand in the affairs of men.

We are called to both; companionship and participation. The dual roles of servant and son (or daughter).

Like any friendship, it takes time to deepen and develop. Time is the currency of intimacy, and if you want to know God in this way you’ll need to reserve hours to that end.

Like any business, it requires skill to operate effectively. You’ll need to practice prayer and hone your sensitivity, equip yourself with spiritual technologies and techniques, to better serve your Master.

Unlike in natural things, people often fall prey to the idea that spiritual growth should just happen by accident. That it is something we cannot avidly pursue or intentionally promote. Too many saints waiting under the fig tree for Jesus to wander by and call them out.

The reality is far more exciting and empowering.

John 1:12 teaches:

“But as many as received him, to them gave he power (and authority) to become the sons of God, even to them that believe on his name:” (John 1:12 KJV)

We are born as children, but we become sons. We grow, and like a natural child, blossom through the stages of maturity.

John picks up this theme in his first letter, chapter 2, when he speaks of fathers in the faith, young men, and children. The children know they are forgiven, but young men have taken on their shoulders Kingdom responsibilities, wielding the Word of God with proficiency and overcoming the wicked one. Fathers (and mothers) have entered into a depth of fellowship and knowing that supersedes roles and responsibilities.

How wonderful to know we are not stuck, waiting for some spiritual bus to arrive and carry us to the next stop toward our destination. Your destiny in God places you in the driving seat and you are free to seek His Kingdom with as much or as little fervency as you please. No cap has been placed on your potential. No limit has been prescribed for how far, high, and deep you can go.

Don’t compare your journey with others. Don’t measure your progress by the crowd. Let your heart lead you in fervent pursuit to know and serve God with every ounce of your being.

Of Angels And Men

There truly is no end to the parameters of prayer. The further we venture the more surprising the delights that open to our understanding. The Person of God, the majestic Godhead, Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, are participants in this great orchestra. They conduct the universal symphony that is happening all around us in the spiritual realm, directing our heads, hands, and hearts to join with the other agents rendering service to the King.

Angels await their bidding, bound to act avidly upon God’s Word. The befuddling reality is that those words often proceed from the mouths of His saints on earth. Earth and Heaven meet in the place of prayer. Agents and residents of both realms work in tandem to produce God-like results.

“Bless the LORD, ye his angels, that excel in strength, that do his commandments, hearkening unto the voice of his word. Bless ye the LORD, all ye his hosts; ye ministers of his, that do his pleasure.” (Psalm 103:20–21 KJV)

Your words take effect in the heavenlies, operating beyond the scope of earth and its limitations. Prayers are more than just words, they are works. Like the words of our Father, they are active.

“For the Word that God speaks is alive and full of power [making it active, operative, energizing, and effective]” (Hebrews 4:12 AMPLIFIED)

Working together with the Word, in response to the Spirit, we direct our requests to the Father and BOOM!

Our prayers and declarations become:

Alive.

Full of power.

Active.

Operative.

Energizing.

Effective.

Never underestimate the strength of your prayers, dear friend. Don’t downplay the power of private prayer and corporate intercession. Invisible forces are put to work when we take to our knees.

Throughout Scripture we see this partnership of God’s earthly troops and Heavenly hosts in union, establishing the will of the One true God they serve. Angels stand in wonder at the place in God’s affections and the privileges that redeemed humanity has been afforded, and how the Father has placed the weapon of prayer in their hands to enter and operate beyond their realm of habitation.

We are working as one with God, His messengers and agents in the spirit realm, and with intercessors across the planet, to establish His Kingdom purposes here on earth.