The Holy One calls to me this morning. Tragedy seems to be our daily fare. Reports of the natural disasters have been eclipsed by the heinous act of an evil mind and the victims are many. People from all around the world are praying, each of us touched in our heart of hearts, grieving and crying out to our unseen Comforter.
The Holy Spirit speaks from the darkness of the early
morning watch, and offers His light:
“Your
prayers must be more than just an exercise of your human good-will”.
Before I can put my mind to defend against the shock
of His statement, He takes me back in His Word to a day in the life of my Lord
Jesus. John 11 is the account of His
response to the death of His friend, Lazarus Most
of us know the story and the miracle of the Lord’s power over death, but the
Holy One has a lesson for me on the subject of prayer, intimate prayer.
John 11:43-45 NKJV “Then they took away the stone from
the place where the dead man was lying.
And Jesus lifted up His eyes and said, “Father, I thank you that you
have heard Me. And I know that You
always hear Me, but because of the people who are standing by, I said this that
they may know that You sent Me. Now when He had said these things He cried out
with a loud voice, “Lazarus, come forth”
Prayer is our way of connecting with God who is, at
the moment, unseen. It can and should be
intimate and personal and filled with the evidence that the connection is real
and represents a two-way conversation.
As we make that connection, we have a wonderful
opportunity to come to “know” God and to understand (in part) not only His will
as in the written Word of God but through wisdom provided by the Holy Spirit
within, begin to grasp an understanding of His ways.
In the arena of true Prophecy, the Lord shares with us
what He is about to do as He did when He visited Abraham on His way to check
out what was going on in Sodom and Gomorrah. (Genesis 18:17-33). True Prophesy comes directly from the mouth
of the Lord to the mind of the human recipient.
I would say that Prophecy or a prophetic “word” does
not come “out of the blue”, but rather out of a conversation that the human is
having with the Creator, Who is the Sovereign God of all things created. This is the true relationship that God
desires with us and the relationship we can have through the indwelling Holy
Spirit. Prophecy is really just knowing
what the Lord is about (or willing) to do and proclaiming it as done. We
must beware, however, of speaking in an uninformed way FOR God rather than in a
knowledgeable ABOUT Him.
As I process our conversation and make application to
my personal prayer life, I need to see how and in what ways prayer, on my end,
has become just an exercise, lacking the power and privilege of Divine answers.
It is easy to get offended when the Lord questions my “work”
and points out a weakness, but if I want to improve my “serve” and meet the
goals of His assignments, I will take what He is pointing out and ask for His
help to correct and strengthen what He determines is weak.
Much prayer is being offered out of the deepest desire
to relieve the pain of evil’s victims, but the real goal in prayer is to see
what the Lord will do in direct response to our prayers and I am sure it will always
involve His Glorious and miraculous intervention.
It is critical in prayer, that we know that we know
that He hears us and will respond to our cries for intercession and in THAT (His
response) all will come to know Him as One who loves each and every one of us,
bringing rescue and remedy not just for the here and now but for all eternity.
As we enter into the Holy place of communion with the
Father that Jesus died to provide and engage the power of heaven, people will
be healed, delivered, and even
resurrected according to God’s Will.
How can we know His will in specific ways unless He
tells us? How can He tell us if we are
not willing to stay long enough in His presence to listen?
We are told that Jesus spent long hours in solitary
(intimate) prayer, most likely to get His marching orders directly from His
Father in Heaven, to know and activate the Father’s will on earth. That is our
legacy and how we too, can become a conduit of His authority in the world of people
that touch our own life.
I truly believe that in prayer, my desire and the Lord’s
will become one and then ultimately come to pass, but in His time and in His
way.
Jesus said of His upcoming act of calling forth the
dead, that the audience would see it and then know that God the Father sent
Him. May our outspoken prayers for help
and recovery enable others to see God the Father as the source of the blessed
answers and Jesus as the One who makes our relationship possible. May others experience
Him, not just the compassion of the one praying.
In these dark days we need our prayers to be more than
sympathy for the ones who are hurting.
We need them to be more than just an expression of worthy comforting
words. We need them to bring down the power of
Heaven’s healing and the knowledge of the One who answers.
Today I feel the need to repent and ask forgiveness
for the times and ways my prayers were merely an exercise in speaking fine
sounding words to impress others rather than a connection and completion of a
powerful and Divine circle of communication between the Creator and the
created, the Lover and His beloved.
The Spirit is Calling.
Can you hear Him?
