5. The sound of prayer - intercession!   

This morning, after my hard gym workout, I was reaping my reward sitting in the spa pool in the complex, chatting to, amongst others, a Christian friend who shared with me that she has difficulty praying publicly, but spoke to God in a normal voice, in her mind, and He spoke back to her in a similar way (Not in King James English it might surprise some to hear!) I understood what she was saying, for that is similar to me.     

Most prayers we hear and say, sadly, are actually very self-focused. After a short preamble about how great our God is, we quickly continue "God please give me this", "God please do that for me", "God please make life easier and better for me."   

Do you recognize yourself here? I can at times.    

I often think, and occasionally say to others, "How long would your marriage last if all you did was tell your spouse everything you wanted, without taking any interest in their desires and needs?" So how does God feel when we do the same to Him?      

MMMMMM!!!

Prayer

5 ‘And when you pray, do not be like the hypocrites, for they love to pray standing in the synagogues and on the street corners to be seen by others. Truly I tell you, they have received their reward in full. 6 But when you pray, go into your room, close the door and pray to your Father, who is unseen. Then your Father, who sees what is done in secret, will reward you. 7 And when you pray, do not keep on babbling like pagans, for they think they will be heard because of their many words. 8 Do not be like them, for your Father knows what you need before you ask him. (Matthew 6:5-6)    

Did you notice the last sentence? God knows our needs before we ask Him! These are often quite different to our 'wants'. James, in his usual way, was blunt about this!        

2 You desire but do not have, so you kill. You covet but you cannot get what you want, so you quarrel and fight. You do not have because you do not ask God. 3 When you ask, you do not receive, because you ask with wrong motives, that you may spend what you get on your pleasures. (James 4:2-3)        

Prayer, as I understand it then, is primarily talking to God, one on one.

The public prayers our God truly desires of us are those of intercession, which is praying prayers not from our own mind but the words that he gives us. Of waiting upon the Lord until He tells us what to pray.        

But if we hope for what we do not yet have, we wait for it patiently. In the same way, the Spirit helps us in our weakness. We do not know what we ought to pray for, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us through wordless groans. And he who searches our hearts knows the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for God's people in accordance with the will of God. (Romans 8:25-27)    

As Jesus intercedes for us.....  

23 Now there have been many of those priests, since death prevented them from continuing in office; 24 but because Jesus lives for ever, he has a permanent priesthood. 25 Therefore he is able to save completely[c] those who come to God through him, because he always lives to intercede for them. (Hebrews 7:25-7)         

So we are to intercede for our God. This is a mystery, but God uses us to pray in His desires for the world and His people. This is a step of faith for us to do this.

Too many years ago now I belonged to an Intercessors Group at the church we attended at the time. We would meet and wait on the Lord to tell us what to pray for - and He did. They were things completely separate from ourselves and the church to which we belonged. Some we did not understand. Some we prayed in the Spirit, others in the natural. But our prayers were determined by God, not by us. 

To change the world, these are the prayers God desires of us.  

Jesus however did have one prayer He commanded the disciples, and us, to pray. It is a simple prayer and sets a pattern of prayer for us.   

9 ‘This, then, is how you should pray:

‘“Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name, 10 your kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven. 11 Give us today our daily bread. 12 And forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors. 13 And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from the evil one.” (Matthew 6:9-13)

Prayer too, requires action. I saw a quote today on Facebook, from Pope Francis, along the lines of 'Pray for the poor, then feed them.' This reflected the tenor of the words of Jesus in the verses following the Lord's Prayer.       

14 For if you forgive other people when they sin against you, your heavenly Father will also forgive you. 15 But if you do not forgive others their sins, your Father will not forgive your sins. (Matthew 6:14-15)    

Amen.

6. A people of God who will discern between the holy and the unholy! 

Discernment, or rather the lack of, is a huge problem in the church today.  

Why is this? At its heart, I believe, is the extra busy society in which we live. This means there is enormous pressure on all of us to do what we believe, rightly or wrongly, we have to do. The logical consequence is that we have become a 'soundbite society' where, through busyness, we only learn a little about a lot. An article over a page long is considered too long - "please summarize the highlights for me", is our attitude. We cannot concentrate to listen for long either. Our attention span has decreased as the jumble of, and in, our lives has multiplied. Relationships have fractured, problems are avoided rather than overcome. For relationships take time to build and maintain. We all (should) know the consequences ......     

But mark this: there will be terrible times in the last days. 2 People will be lovers of themselves, lovers of money, boastful, proud, abusive, disobedient to their parents, ungrateful, unholy, 3 without love, unforgiving, slanderous, without self-control, brutal, not lovers of the good, 4 treacherous, rash, conceited, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God – 5 having a form of godliness but denying its power. Have nothing to do with such people. (2 Timothy 3:1-5)        

This 'time deficit' has also had huge consequences for our relationship with Jesus. As with marriage, the only way we can develop a deep relationship with Him, is to spend time with Him. To spend time in His Word, to spend time in contemplation and time in prayer. Then to follow the instructions He gives us to build His kingdom upon the earth.  

your kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven. (Matthew 6:10)

What is happening, indeed has happened, is that we are entering a new Dark Age in relation to biblical knowledge and discernment! We are, once again, relying upon modern day 'priests' of pulpit and TV to illuminate us with God's word in as few minutes as possible. We believe what we hear, whether it is true , false or just slightly off, as we haven't the time to check it out for ourselves. Jesus warned about this.....

True and false prophets       
15 ‘Watch out for false prophets. They come to you in sheep’s clothing, but inwardly they are ferocious wolves. 16 By their fruit you will recognise them. Do people pick grapes from thorn-bushes, or figs from thistles? 17 Likewise, every good tree bears good fruit, but a bad tree bears bad fruit. 18 A good tree cannot bear bad fruit, and a bad tree cannot bear good fruit. 19 Every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire. 20 Thus, by their fruit you will recognise them.

True and false disciples       
21 ‘Not everyone who says to me, “Lord, Lord,” will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only the one who does the will of my Father who is in heaven. 22 Many will say to me on that day, “Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name and in your name drive out demons and in your name perform many miracles?” 23 Then I will tell them plainly, “I never knew you. Away from me, you evildoers!”   (Matthew 7)

Let us look to people's fruits, not talk, before we take notice of them.

Peter too, warned about the scoffers, who will ridicule God's Word and make us doubt, or destroy, our faith.    

3 Above all, you must understand that in the last days scoffers will come, scoffing and following their own evil desires. 4 They will say, ‘Where is this “coming” he promised? Ever since our ancestors died, everything goes on as it has since the beginning of creation.’ 5 But they deliberately forget that long ago by God’s word the heavens came into being and the earth was formed out of water and by water. 6 By these waters also the world of that time was deluged and destroyed. 7 By the same word the present heavens and earth are reserved for fire, being kept for the day of judgment and destruction of the ungodly. (2 Peter 3:3-7) 

Reality is, we cannot totally rely upon others to develop our relationship with Jesus. We are moving from the medieval Dark Ages where only the Roman Catholic priests had access to the Word, and manipulated it suit there own purposes to a new Dark Age, where we have lots of Bibles, but not the time (we think) to read and contemplate upon them.     

Until we get back into the Word and spend time with our Saviour and Lord Jesus, our ability to discern between the holy and unholy will not change.    

The choice is ours!