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Part
5 TEACH
US TO PRAY (continued)
We are beginning today
a study of that matchless gem of the life of sonship called “The
Lord’s Prayer”. I trust that the precious mind that was in Christ
Jesus will lay hold upon our hearts as we take our place at the feet of
Jesus in the study of this prayer. No other form of words has a hold upon
mankind like the few brief sentences of the Lord’s Prayer. Not a day has
passed without their use since the firstborn Son of God taught them to His
disciples. Some portions of the Word of God are so rich and inexhaustible
that we come back to them again and again, as the Spirit quickens new
vistas and depths of truth in words long since familiar. Such a scripture
is the Lord’s Prayer. As we try to plumb the depths of these great and
wonderful words, let us do so with the continual prayer, “Lord, teach us
to pray!
I doubt that there is a teaching in the whole Bible that unfolds more
deeply the wonder, meaning, and power of prayer than does the Lord’s
Prayer. It is, it seems to me, the key which opens the door in the blessed
kingdom of prayer. The profound, eternal truths compressed into its few,
concise phrases shine with celestial brilliance. These truths radiated
from the very heart of our Lord as He moved among men. They embrace the
deepest secrets and the highest purposes of God, stated in human language
of disarming simplicity.
Some contend that this is not “The Lord’s Prayer” because He never
prayed it. It was given to His disciples, they say, therefore it should be
called “The Disciples’ Prayer”. But the prayer is called “The
Lord’s Prayer”, not because it was expressive of Christ’s own
relationship with His Father, or of His own needs, for He, who was pure
and sinless, certainly never prayed, “Forgive us our sins as we forgive
those who sin against US.” It is called “The Lord’s Prayer” simply
because it was taught by Him. The possessive form is used in the same
sense as when we speak of “Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address,” thereby
indicating that the address was authored and given by
It seems strange that Jesus’ disciples would say, “Lord, teach us to
pray” (Lk. 11:1). These men had grown up in religious homes. They had
attended Synagogue and had learned all the prayers of the rabbis. They had
been taught the eighteen petitions of the Shema. These were eighteen
prayers a Jew was to pray every day. Pious Jews paused three times each
day to pray the Shema. The workman would quit his task and the teacher his
lesson, to stand before God and “say” his prayers. A year earlier if
you had asked these disciples, “Do you know how to pray?” they would
have indignantly replied, “Of course, we know how to pray. We have
prayed regularly every day since we were children.” However, when they
saw Jesus pray, they realized they knew nothing about prayer as they ought
to know. To them prayer was a form-but to Christ it was a life and a
power. As those disciples witnessed Jesus communing with His heavenly
Father as a Son, as they saw Him go into prayer in one way and come out in
another, as they saw the power of the
Let me give you an illustration. Look at this number:
16175663451
It tells a whole story. Can you retell it? It is hiding a number of
secrets. Do you know them? It holds a universe of meanings. Do you
understand them? What does this number say to you? What does it mean? And
if it is not obvious, how do you go about unlocking its meaning? Try
commas. You can divide it into hundreds, thousands, and millions, but that
will get you nowhere. You can take out your calculator and look for
mysterious factors or perfect squares or multiples of pi, but to the best
of my knowledge that will lead you nowhere. Likewise, you can try to find
meaning in the number of times the sacred numbers 1, 3, 4, 6, and 7 are
used, or speculate on why the ? is missing, but this too is a dead-end. So
is any attempt to find historical significance to the dates 1617, 1756,
and so on. If you add all the numbers together, you’ll come up with 45.
It is a nice number, but it is not a story, a secret, a meaning, or a
revelation.
The real secret is hyphens. If you put them in the right places,
everything is revealed: 1-617-566-3451. Even though the information was
there before, now that you see the pattern, you understand almost
everything. Think about it! The “1” is the first clue. It says,
“This is a long-distance call.” The “1” works like a switch. When
the computer hears the tone for the one, it shunts the call out of the
local circuits and into the long-distance track. There are, however, other
clues to the same lesson. The “617” is an area code. You can tell that
both from the position and from the 1 in the middle. All area codes (and
no prefixes) have either 1 or 0 in the middle. That’s another way the
call is tracked as long-distance. In this case, 617 is in the eastern part
of
The Lord’s Prayer is exactly like the numbers 16175663451. Apart from
the spirit of wisdom and revelation from God, it is just as unintelligible
as those numbers. Ah, we can understand the words with the natural mind
just as we can identify each of the individual numbers above. But we are
still without understanding. Only the Holy Spirit can give us
understanding of these things. If you memorized this prayer as a child, it
is still spiritually a meaningless jumble like 16175663451. In these
Studies, with the Lord’s help, we are going to put in the hyphens and
unlock the pattern. We will examine each of the connections in this
wonderful prayer and trace its paths into the
One of the outstanding characteristics of the prayer is its exceeding
brevity. All-inclusive as the Model Prayer is -- all it represents is
compressed into seven brief petitions. And everywhere in scripture, seven
is the perfect number, the symbol of completeness. There is a beautiful
interconnection of these petitions. Each petition grows out of the
preceding one as naturally as the different parts of a plant grow out of
an original seed. The primary seed in the Model Prayer is the Fatherhood
of God. “Our Father” is like the “1” at the beginning of a
long-distance phone call-it is the access code that makes the first
connection that moves us along the path of omnipotence. It shuts us out of
the circuits of “this world” and guides us along the track to a
heavenly destination. The fruitage of that connection is the hallowing of
God’s name, the revelation of His Kingdom, the accomplishment of His
will, the provision of divine sustenance, the effectual dealing with sin,
deliverance from evil, and the full manifestation in and through us of
God’s Kingdom, power and glory. As the colors of the prismatic spectrum
spring from white light, so the Fatherhood of God is the white light of
the full beam, the source and the end of the seven petitions. Far from
being a prayer to be recited or a formula for talking to God, the Lord’s
Prayer enables us to explore the depths of God and His great purpose of
the ages. It reveals God as He really is and our relationship to Him in
sonship. Almost a billion people regularly repeat the words of this
prayer. If they really prayed it, they would bring the
Truly did Paul Mueller write: “Jesus taught us to pray, ‘For thine is
the kingdom, and the power, and the glory, for ever. Amen.’ These are
not idle, empty, meaningless words, but are words of life and truth. This
prayer is not merely a declaration of faith, or a set of words intended to
give Him the glory. It is that, and much more than that, for it is an
expression of trust and confidence in God, giving us the assurance that He
will do what He said He would do. The kingdom and the power and the glory
belong unto the Lord. By His mighty power He shall bring His kingdom to
earth. By His mighty, sovereign and omnipotent power, He shall cause His
perfect will to be done in all the earth as it is in heaven. By His
mighty, creative power, He shall give us our daily bread, both the natural
and the spiritual bread that we need every day. By His mighty, kingdom
power, He shall forgive us our debts, a truth we shall yet experience in a
greater measure. By His power He keeps us from temptation, and delivers us
from evil. And by His mighty, kingdom power, He shall subdue the nations
and bring them all into the peaceful and righteous dominion of His reign.
For His is the kingdom, the power, and the glory for ever. Amen.” THE PRINCIPLES OF THE
The
When Jesus taught this teaching, His fame had been spread abroad. He had
come announcing the THE PATTERN PRAYER
The disciples came to Jesus and said, “Teach us to pray.” They did not
say, “Teach us a prayer.” When you always go through the same form of
words in prayer you are simply in a rut, and not truly communing with your
heavenly Father. Your prayer is a form-you are “saying your
prayers”-not praying. One of the most obvious examples of this is saying
“grace” at the table. Most prayers said before a meal are merely
prayers that are “said,” not prayers that are prayed. A brother shared
this observation: “When I was in high school in
Saying “prayers” is a lone of professional praying. The preachers in
the pulpits of the church system are masters of professional praying. They
“say prayers” every Sunday as a part of their program, and on special
occasions. Long, written, discursive, dry, and inane are the prayers of
those who have never learned at the feet of Jesus how to pray! Without
unction or heart, without inspiration or revelation, they fall like a
killing frost on the dull ears of congregations that are just as dead as
the prayers of their preachers. Every vestige of life has perished under
their breath. The deader the prayers, the longer they grow until death
becomes hell in the name of God. “After this manner therefore pray
ye,” said Jesus. It was not a prayer to be repeated-it was to be the
“seed plot” of all sonship praying. The teaching is to “pray like
this,” not to “pray this.” It speaks of a way to pray, not a form of
prayer. If you direct the attention of a one-year-old child to some object
by pointing with your hand, he will look only at the pointing finger. He
cannot realize that you are referring to something beyond. In like manner,
the baby Christians of all generations have missed completely the great
truths and principles to which our Lord pointed when He gave this prayer
to His disciples. A mockery and a vanity are these words when said as a
memorized form, when nicely repeated before a crowd, or privately. It is
like a baby staring at the pointing finger. The great and eternal truth is
missed entirely in such empty and meaningless activity.
There is doubtless not a single man, woman, or child reading these lines
that cannot quote the Lord’s Prayer from memory. You can say it while
thinking of something else. You can say it while looking back upon
yesterday or forward to tomorrow. You have prayed it with the tender lips
of childhood. You have prayed it in the intimacy of the family circle. You
have prayed it in the small prayer group and in the great congregation.
And, yet, it is possible that with all your praying of it you have never
really prayed it at all! For saying a prayer is not praying. Elijah is a
splendid example. James says that “he prayed earnestly” (James ENTER THE CLOSET
“When thou prayest, enter into thy closet, and when thou hast shut thy
door, pray to thy Father which is in secret; and thy Father which seeth in
secret shall reward thee openly” (Mat. 6:6). How many varieties of inner
chambers there are! For example, Abraham’s “closet” was the oak of
Morey; Isaac’s closet was the field of
I have known saints who were embarrassed because of the frustrating
failure of being able to pray in public. Now, while there is an occasional
place for public prayer, the God-ordained place of prayer is in the
enclosed privacy where there is no other motivational influence than the
fellowship of a son with his Father. I do not hesitate to tell you that I
do not enjoy public prayer. I would rather never pray in public. It is
unnatural to me. Why do others need to hear the words that are addressed
to my Father alone? I cannot pour out my deepest heart or express my most
intimate thoughts, desires, concerns, and confessions in the ears of the
listening multitude, or even in the hearing of my most intimate friend.
Not one word of my prayer is meant for any but my Father, not one word of
my prayer is directed toward any but my God. It is this being with God and
God alone, that is the essence of prayer. And that brings to mind the
solitary nights of clear starlight which Jesus spent on the hills of
Galilee, when the holiest events that ever occurred in a human soul took
place in His, when marvelous discourse with the Father unfolded within His
consciousness the reality of His sonship to God, when it must have seemed
as if a quite unique tone released itself from our earth and made its way
to the farthest expanses of the heavenlies above. And now-in the secret
place of the Most High His younger brethren, the sons of God, are bidden
to live this over again! A reflection of it is still to be found on this
earth as long as there is one child of God coming to the secret place to
know the Father as his very own Father.
We live in a day of distractions. We are beset. Radios blare. Televisions
run from early morning till late at night. Traffic roars. Neon lights
flash and dazzle. Headlines explode. Advertising is a vast conspiracy to
make us look and listen. Our lives are incredibly busy, with more
responsibilities crowded into each day than can be done. Nerves are
frayed, emotions tense we are stressed out. We are assaulted by a constant
battery of sights and sounds and smells. The solution is not to be found
in the doctor’s office, the psychiatrist’s couch, or in a bottle of
pills. Jesus teaches us we must free ourselves. Man has been given
dominion over all things. The environment is not to rule us, we must rule
our environment. The first step to such liberty and power is found in the
words of wisdom which distilled like dew from the gracious lips of the One
who truly lived life as it was meant to be lived, “but thou, when thou
prayest, enter into thy closet, and when thou hast shut thy door….” We
can close the mind against the distractions, soul and body against the
pressures, and deliberately expose ourselves to the quickening,
transforming power of the presence of God. Prayers should be made in a
quiet and private place. The counsel is specific: the place should be free
from distractions, the door shut against the spirit of the world, and the
prayer free from influence or posturing, because it is in “secret”.
Jesus Himself set the example. He often went away apart into the desert or
into a mountain. At times He arose early in the morning, before the
awakening sun had kissed the clouds in the eastern sky, and went apart to
pray alone.
Close the door when you enter into your “closet”. Get into the inner
chamber and close the door. Sometimes it is a good thing to close the door
of the eye so that things that are suggested by sight will not come into
your mind. I have seen sometimes that it is a very good thing to close the
door of the ears, and not so much as listen to what anyone else has to say
about the issue. Go right inside and close even the door of human touch.
Do not put out your hand to lean upon your dearest one. There are times
when we need the counsel or support or help of another, but sometimes you
need to close the door of all the five senses and all that speaks to them,
and commune in spirit, as spirit with spirit, with the Father of Spirits-
our Father! Get inside and talk to God in Spirit, apart from all outward
sensation. You do not need to close the door of your inner chamber by
going to an inner chamber in your house. That is a good thing to do if you
have one; but you can close the door of the inner chamber- of your own
being by shutting the five great gates of sensation at any time and place
and communing with God there.
The life of sonship is a hidden, inner life, having to do with the
spiritual and invisible One who sees in secret. It is a secluded life, hid
with Christ in God. The life in Christ neither strives nor shouts, nor
does one hear its voice in the streets. It shrinks from all outward
displays, whether showy public almsgiving, conspicuous religious
exercises, oratorical prayers, ceremonious fastings, broadened
phylacteries, processional parades, clerical costume, titles, or degrees,
or holy tones. Like a planet around the sun, it rolls in its orbit of
obedience to the Father without fanfare or advertisement; like the sun
itself, it shines without noise. We live in a day of much feverish running
to and fro, and Martha-like preoccupation about much serving; a day of
organizations, conventions, television shows, and public meetings and
programs of all sorts. It has almost come to be understood, even in
“sonship” and ‘‘kingdom’’ circles that we can do nothing for
God unless we organize, promote, and hold a public meeting. The secret
life of aloneness with God has largely given way to the public life of
gatherings, meetings, and activities. The closet has given way to the
Synagogue. There is indeed a time for the corporate expression, but first
and foremost let your watchword be: Alone with God. We need to hide
ourselves with God before we show ourselves for God. Elijah did. God said
to Elijah, “Hide thyself,” before He said, “Show thyself.” “Get
thee hence, and turn thee eastward, and hide thyself by the brook Cherith,
that is before Jordan” (I Kings 17:3). “And it came to pass after many
days, that the word of the Lord came to Elijah in the third year saying,
Go, show thyself unto Ahab; and I will send rain upon the earth” (I
Kings 18:1). It is my deep conviction that we are living in the hour of
the hiding of the sons of God. The sons shall come to intimately and fully
know the Father in the secret place, and be prepared and equipped by Him
there, before they are shown to the world in the long-awaited
manifestation of the sons of God.
There is an aloneness that transcends physical location. We have all had
the experience of being in a crowd, but so occupied with our own thoughts,
that we were oblivious to all around us. We were alone in a crowd! The
true closet is within- in the secret place of the Most High in the depths
of our Spirit. We can, at any time and in any place, shut the door and be
alone with God, shut in with God in the secret place.
What do these four words suggest: “Enter into thy closet”? The word
“closet” is unusual. The original Greek word, TAMEION, is found but
four times in the New Testament, in one place being rendered “secret
chambers” and in another “storehouse.” To the Hebrew mind there was
one place that was pre-eminently a secret chamber: it was that inmost
court of the tabernacle and temple, where God especially dwelt, and which
was known as the
There is a quest higher than mere request- a search after knowledge of God
and communication from Him. In this secret place we are changed, just as
Jesus was metamorphosed on the holy Mount “as He prayed.” The closet
is the perfect school teacher for a son of God. One can learn more in an
hour alone with God than from many hours of study. Books are in the closet
that can be found and read nowhere else. Revelations are given in the
closet that are given and received nowhere else. Power is obtained in the
closet that is available nowhere else. The true closet of the son of God
is not built of stone and lime. The secret place of God is not a thing of
wood and nails, or bolts and bars. The man after God’s own heart builds
for himself a little sanctuary, all his own; he builds a house for God in
the inner world of the spirit. We say, “This is the house of God: this
is the gate of heaven.” This inner sanctuary of the spirit, in the
deepest part of our life, is the quiet place of inner reality where we
experience God as our ALL. “Be still and know that I am God,” saith
the Lord out of His holy place within.
The sons of God are predestined to be conformed to the image of the Son.
“Having PREDESTINATED us unto the adoption of children by Jesus Christ
to Himself, according to the good pleasure of His will” (Eph. 1:5). The
Greek word translated “predestinated” is POORIZO, a compound of the
preposition PRO, meaning “before,” and the verb HORIZO, meaning “to
fix a limit, to establish a boundary.’’ Our English word
“horizon,” the boundary that sets the limit to how far we can see,
comes from HORIZO. Thus, predestination means that in love God has PRE-ESTABL
Several years ago while teaching in a meeting a sister asked the question:
‘‘Brother Eby, don’t you think there are some people who are
predestinated to sonship in this hour, and, regardless of what comes or
goes, what they do or don’t do, they will make it?” Now, I perceived
by the Spirit where she was coming from, and what she meant was that there
are certain persons who are predestinated to be sons, and matters not the
depth of consecration, how they live, what they do, how they conduct their
lives, what is their lifestyle, whether they revel in worldliness, wallow
in sin, or any other thing, they will finally make it in by grace just
because they are predestinated.
I replied, “It is true that certain persons ARE
Nothing but the knowledge of God, as the Holy One, will make us holy. And
how are we to obtain that knowledge of God, except in the INNER CHAMBER?
It is a thing utterly impossible unless we take the time and allow the
holiness of God to shine on us. How can any man on earth obtain intimate
knowledge of another man, if he does not associate with him, and place
himself under his influence? And how can God Himself transform us into His
nature and character, if we do not yield ourselves to His holy promptings
to turn aside and be brought under the power and the glory of His presence
and life? This is how our Elder Brother teaches us to pray- He brings us
into the Father’s living presence. Nowhere can we get to know the
holiness of God, and come under its influence and power, except in the
inner chamber. No one can expect to be changed into His glorious image who
is not often and long alone with God. “Shut
in with God in the secret place, There
in the Spirit beholding His face; Gaining
new power to run in the race, I
love to be shut in with God.”
The following words of inspiration from the pen of Carl Schwing add
precious height and depth to this blessed reality. “There is a special
feeling in the forest during the winter which only comes with the absence
of man. All nature seems free as the cold wind howls through the frozen
fingers of the mighty monarchs of the forest. The bear rest safely in
their dens...the deer search for delicacies hidden in the snow, and birds
find warmth in the brush of the field. As far as the eye can see there are
no footprints in the soft white gift of winter…there have been no
intruders into this holy place. The only sounds are that of the blue jay,
hawk, or owl...or the screaming of a wildcat. In these precious moments
one truly knows that the earth is the Lord’s. Indeed there is a peace
and sacredness that exists in the absence of man. There is a still small
voice which can only be heard in the absence of man. Our spirits are free
as the wind as the Spirit gently moves within our hearts. There can be no
intruders into our holy place. We are alone with the Father...we hear His
voice...we know that we belong to Him, and that once again we are dwelling
in the regions of His Kingdom. Indeed there are truths that we can see and
know and become...in the absence of man.
“Let all who will, turn against us...God is for us, nothing else really
matters. We are the firstfruits of the Kingdom, not by choice, but by
predestination. We were created to sit with Christ in heavenly places,
yea, to sit with Him in His Father’s Kingdom. Soon the light of His
Kingdom shall cover the earth, and all shall see and know God’s Christ.
We can see the light of the dawn as it breaks through the darkness of an
old dying age. We can hear the Living Word as it flows from the ‘still
small voice.’ And with the mouth of the Spirit, we speak the things of
the Father. Alone, forsaken, rejected, and despised...how lovely to
worship in His presence...in the absence of man. In the absence of man,
there is truly an entering into the VAIN REPETITIONS
But when ye pray, use not vain repetitions, as the heathen do: for they
think that they shall be heard for their much speaking” (Mat. 6:7). For
centuries men have practiced their VAIN REPETITIONS before the Lord,
thinking they would be heard for their much speaking, hoping that by often
repeating their requests God would at last take heed to their supplication
and grant them the answer they desired, all the time forgetting that our
heavenly Father knows what things we have need of before we ask.
This element of wordiness, of reiteration of the same phrases and words
over and over, was characteristic of all heathen prayers. The idea was to
overcome the indifference or preoccupation of the gods by the continual
drum-beat into their ears of your desires and needs. This laborious and
time consuming custom resulted in the creation of the prayer wheels of the
Tibetans and other Eastern peoples. Thin paper prayers are attached to a
great wheel. Then the wheel is cranked and the devotee turns the wheel all
day long. Each revolution of the wheel is supposedly equivalent to the
utterance of the prayers inscribed on the wheel. Each time the wheel goes
around it means that your prayer has been made without you doing anything.
It is a mechanized prayer life! In Christendom the burning of candles is
supposed to fulfill a similar purpose. This, my beloved, is the
death-knell of all prayer, the chief aim of which is to bring man into
intimacy of fellowship and vital union with the heavenly Father.
Does our Lord forbid all repetitions of the same words? Certainly not.
There is misunderstanding here with some people that all repetitions are
vain. The emphasis is not upon repetitions, but upon vain. There are some
repetitions that are not vain. There are some repetitions that are good.
For example, how many times does our Lord Jesus say “Father” in the
17th chapter of John? Sixty-two times! Is that a vain repetition? Abba,
Father! You can say it adoringly. You can say it respectfully. You can say
it confidentially. You can say it tenderly. Again, Jesus repeated the same
prayer three times in
The howling Moslem devishes will yell, “Allah! Allah!” for hours
without any praise or petition. One Greek poet has in a single prayer
nearly a hundred verses filled with a repetition of the same invocation to
the gods. The Hindu fakir will stand all day long and repeat the name of
his god. The Buddhist thinks there is salvation in the endless repetition
of a magic formula. The pietistic Jews are still under the influence of
this error. When they read their prayers, nothing can exceed their
vehemence. They read with all their might, and then cry aloud like the
prophets of Baal. But is this much worse than the ritual of our
Pentecostal friends who gather at the altar and shout the same requests
over and over, as they cry out loudly and emotionally to God in much the
same way as the prophets of Baal on far away Carmel? Ray Prinzing once
wrote: “I remember standing outside the building one day, having gone to
my car to retrieve something I had forgotten, and I could hear the noise
rising in pitch as it came through the open window, and wondered what
others walking down the sidewalk would think. Is God so deaf He must be
screamed at? Or, was this simply an indication of their own soulish
frustration in prayer? I was used to this method of praying, having been
raised in a Pentecostal denomination where they would often say, ‘God is
not deaf, so you can pray in a whisper, but neither does He get nervous if
you shout.’ And often it was deemed a measure of the anointing upon you
as to how loud and fast you gave voice. We learned that loudness was not
synonymous with anointing. Prayer is not a screaming at God, but a
communion with Him. A child may demand attention with its screaming, and
the parent will immediately set about to first quiet the child, and then
gently minister to the need. But as that child grows into maturity, he
approaches the parent calmly, quietly, to share whatever is upon his heart
and mind. He has learned to get past the noise approach into an intimate
relationship.” SEASONS FOR PRAYER
All the various works of God know their appointed times. The wise man
said, “To every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose
under heaven (Ecc. 3:1). Everything in nature sets the example of precise
order and patterns, and so it is also in the realm of spirit. Every
spiritual activity has its appointed time and season. There is a time to
be a babe in Christ, a time to grow, a time to learn, a time to mature.
There is a time to give oneself to prayer, a time to devote oneself to the
Word, a time to share and witness, a time to work and bless, a time to
heal and encourage, a time to correct, admonish or rebuke, and a time to
simply BE the expression of God in the earth. But while I am asserting the
necessity of seasons for prayer and all other spiritual activities, let no
one think I am suggesting that we should carnally determine these seasons,
for instance, “I will pray for an hour every morning between
The seasons for spiritual work are spiritual seasons, not natural. They
depend upon the leading and moving of the Spirit of God, the flow of His
life, the discernment of His mind, the unction of His will- not the
position of the hands on the clock or the sun in the sky. Are you familiar
with the legend of Chanticleer, the rooster? Chanticleer thought that his
crowing caused the sun to rise. He even felt that if one day by accident
he should fail to crow, the sun would not rise at all. Of course, the
universe is quite different from what Chanticleer imagined. For in fact it
was the sun with its soft rays of dawn that awoke Chanticleer. He was only
a herald, the announcer of all the light and warmth contained in the sun.
It is so with God and us. We do not move God by our efforts and prayers-
it is God who moves us to pray!
There are times when I have “decided” to spend time in prayer, but
when I turned aside to give myself to it, no matter how I labored there
was no sense of His presence, no flow of His life, no quickening of His
Spirit; the heavens were brass and God seemed a million miles away. I
could get nowhere and the whole time proved unproductive. But there are
other times when I found myself praying, I found myself desiring to pray,
moved to pray, and that was the Holy Spirit urging me to do what was
necessary to enable things to happen the way they were supposed to happen.
It’s a mystery I don’t fully understand, but there are times when I
have to pray, there are times when the altar of my soul is full of clouds
of holy incense as I send up petitions, as I decree a word, not for
myself, but for others, and when I can’t articulate them in English I
send them up in an unknown tongue. This is the spiritual “season” of
prayer of which I speak determined, not by my carnal understanding or
soulish effort, but set by the Spirit Himself.
Ah, dear one, discern the “mood” of the Spirit, be sensitive to the
“times” of the Spirit, find the “stream” of the Spirit, and
If we would fulfill the divine function of the TO BE THE LORD’S PRAYER
It is one thing to understand. It is another thing to do. But it is yet
another thing to BE. “We shall be, like Him...” As we arrive at the
measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ we do not merely
understand the great truths of the Lord’s prayer; we do not only truly
pray the Lord’s Prayer; WE S
The greatest manifestation of power is not in what we say or what we do-
it is just simply what we are. If we are the image of God in the earth,
the Lord’s prayer will be inspired in the minds and hearts of men though
they have never heard nor learned it. Beholding in us the nature of God
lived out will create in men, the intense longing, the deep and insatiable
cry for God to be their Father, to know the Father as we know Him, to
receive from the Father what we have of Him, for His rule to come in their
lives, for His will to be done, sins be forgiven, temptation and weakness
to be conquered, and evil to be overcome. Simply, men will want what they
see in us. When the glory, power, love, purity, reality and life of God in
you evoke the desire for salvation and transformation into the likeness of
God in other’s hearts, YOU HAVE BECOME THE LORD’S PRAYER!
The entire Lord’s Prayer must be something that flows out of a
transformed heart. It must be a definition, a statement of your spirit,
the expression of God, what is inside you, what you are. Thus: I
can not say “our” if I live only for myself. I
cannot say “Father” if I do not endeavor each day to live and walk as
His son. I
cannot say “who art in heaven” if I am not seeing by the spirit. I
cannot say “hallowed be Thy name” if I am not expressing His nature. I
cannot say “Thy Kingdom come” if I am not making Him Lord in my life. I
cannot say “Thy will be done” if I am not following His leading and
obeying His word. I
cannot say “in earth as it is in heaven” if I do not yield my members
unto Him. I
cannot say “give us this day our daily bread” if His Word is not being
made flesh in me. I
cannot say “forgive us our debts” if I harbor a grudge or bitterness
toward anyone. I
cannot say “lead us not into temptation” if I deliberately place
myself in its path. I
cannot say “deliver us from evil” if I do not put on the whole armor
of God. I
cannot say “Thine is the Kingdom” if I do not give the King the
loyalty due Him from a faithful subject. I
cannot say “Thine is the power” if I fear what men may do or blame
things on the devil. I
cannot say “Thine is the glory” if I am seeking honor only for myself,
promoting my ministry, or taking any credit for what God does through me.
Jesus prayed. How He prayed! And yet, the fact of the matter is that when
we contemplate deeply the prayer life of Jesus we find that prayer was not
simply a part of His life; it was His life. Prayer was the underlying
attitude of His mind and heart. Prayer was the atmosphere in which He
lived, the energy that fueled His engine, the air that He breathed. So
true was this of God’s firstborn Son that the Hebrew of Psalms 109:4 was
literally true of Him: “But I am prayer.” The King James Version
reads, “But I give myself to prayer.” Notice, however, that the words
“give myself to” are in italics. That means they are not in the
original, but were supplied for some reason by the translators. Without
those added words the Hebrew says, “But I prayer.” There is no word in
Hebrew for “am”- it is understood. The correct way to say “I am
prayer” in the Hebrew language is to say “I prayer.” And that is how
it reads! Jesus was prayer. And God is making a people prayer in this
hour- it is becoming our nature, our state of being.
I would close by sharing these meaningful words by Ray Prinzing: “The
Greek word for prayer is PR
“There is a principle which we have spoken of over and over again
through the years, namely: The highest form of anything is TO
“James brings us a very enlightening point, when he says, ‘The
effectual fervent prayer of a righteous man availeth much’ (James [ENTER TEXT OF WRITING / SCRIERE HERE] |
Other Writings in This Series:
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