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“I, the LORD, am your God, who brought you up from the land of Egypt; open your mouth wide and I will fill it.” – (Psa 81:10 NASB)
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Journal,
There was a man in England named George Muller who cared for thousands of orphans. He kept a prayer diary. Muller recorded over 50,000 specific prayers that had been answered. The strange part is that Muller never took up offerings. He would only accepted unsolicited free-will offerings for his care of the orphans. He felt that these gifts had to be from the heart or he did not want them.
It was not always that way. Before he met Jesus, George Muller was a drunk, a liar, a thief, and spent time in jail. Naturally the Lord was not pleased with his life. And so Mueller was brought to a saving knowledge of Jesus Christ as his own Lord and Savior.
But why did George Muller decide to never let his needs for the care of the orphans be made known to anyone other than his staff? It was because Muller took God at His word. He was what we would call a radical believer.
On a personal note, it was George Muller who gave me inspiration to raise up a ministry to be called Christian Challenge International, on the same basis of taking God at His word. The ministry would be built on prayer and faith alone. Here it is thirty four years later and we still do not take up offerings. I have found that God is the God of His Word.
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Let’s talk about how prayer and faith work together.
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Notice carefully what Jesus had to say about prayer:
“When you pray, you are not to be like the hypocrites; for they love to stand and pray in the synagogues and on the street corners so that they may be seen by men. Truly I say to you, they have their reward in full.x“But you, when you pray, go into your inner room, close your door and pray to your Father who is in secret, and your Father who sees what is done in secret will reward you. And when you are praying, do not use meaningless repetition as the Gentiles do, for they suppose that they will be heard for their many words. Pray then in this way…” (Matthew 6:5-9 nasb)
Jesus gave a simple prayer model. The whole sum of the prayer is based upon a personal relationship with the Father. And this is the very thing that George Muller grounded his prayer on. Actually Muller based his prayers on a single Scripture, where Psalm 81:10 says, “I, the Lord, am your God, who brought you up from the land of Egypt; open your mouth wide and I will fill it.”
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Sometimes it only takes one verse to change our whole course of life.
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The point is that as sons and daughters of the new covenant, our interchanges with heaven should always be on a heart level and deeply personal. It is to be One on one. The reason is because the new covenant is filled with rich promises that are made literal between the heavenly Father and his children, One on one.
For every believer, the real issue is singleness of heart. And this brings me to the most important element in prayer. It is important to understand that God is not to be separated from His Word. How can a believer have a rewarding walk of faith if he knows so little about God Himself? Faith is believing what God says is true. But if we don’t know what the Word of God says, then our prayers will lack a foundation.
God doesn’t answer our prayers simply because we pray loud and long. Some people have the idea that we have to ‘pray through’ to God, as though our long prayers will eventually obtain God’s attention. That is a sad note on prayer. We are the very children of God. We have His full attention every moment of every day.
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The whole purpose of Jesus coming into the world was children!
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Paul said,
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“For this reason I bow my knees before the Father, from whom every family in heaven and on earth derives its name, that He would grant you, according to the riches of His glory, to be strengthened with power through His Spirit in the inner man, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith; …x“…and that you, being rooted and grounded in love, may be able to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ which surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled up to all the fullness of God. Now to Him who is able to do far more abundantly beyond all that we ask or think, according to the power that works in us, to Him be the glory in the church and in Christ Jesus to all generations forever and ever. Amen.” (Eph3:14-21 nasb)
I realize that the foregoing is a lot of reading but it truly lays out the very heart of our childhood in Christ and of prayer. We have a loving Father who has caused us to be born of His very Spirit, and who desires to have true spiritual interchanges with us. The prophet of old said that our Father God longs to be gracious to us. (Is30:18)
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And this was the secret that George Muller came to understand.
The second issue with regard to God’s Word and prayer is that the prayer itself is divine communication. We speak to God in prayer. He speaks to us largely through His Word. This is why David said, “Open my eyes, that I may behold wonderful things from Your LAW.” [Torah means instructions.]
It is on the basis of divine communication that we begin to understand where our faith really comes from. Paul said that our faith is the result of Christ communicating to our hearts. Jesus said it thus, “My sheep hear My voice, and I know them, and they follow Me.” (Jn10:27)
The faith we are called to live by is not something that we conjure up. It is not a matter of working five principles of this or seven principles of that. We have a living faith and this living faith is a matter of divine communication, that is, from the heart of God to our heart.
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Let me share three reason why we should be devoted to prayer.
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First of all, prayer is balm for the soul. It is not merely a matter of who you are praying for. The one who receives the greatest benefit is the person praying. Balm speaks of God’s healing medicine. It is in prayer that our souls become settled with God’s peacefulness.
A second issue is that prayer actually gives the believer power over temptation. This is the major reason Satan does not want believers to pray. The point is that a simple prayer under the Holy Spirit guidance is worth more than a thousand rote prayers. Jesus said to the disciples, “Keep watching and praying that you may not enter into temptation; the spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak.” (Mt26:41)
Then the third reason for prayer, is that prayer puts us on God’s page. And this is where I need to tread lightly. In all our teachings on our security in Christ, and of God’s love for us, we must take care that we do not neglect our part in the walk of faith. Knowledge by itself can cause a person to lose their spiritual bearing and become prideful. This was the the major accusation against the church of Laodicea.
Jude said, “But you, beloved, building yourselves up on your most holy faith, praying in the Holy Spirit, keep yourselves in the love of God, waiting anxiously for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ to eternal life.” (Jude 1:20,21)
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This brings me to a great key with regard to prayer in the new covenant.
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Where Jude says, “Praying in the Holy Spirit,” he is telling us to pray under the auspices or direct influence of the Holy Spirit. This kind of praying simply speaks of Spirit guided prayers.
Were it not for the Holy Spirit we would be left drifting about in the land of prayer with little knowledge of what we should be praying for. Nor does this mean as some teach, that praying in the Holy Spirit means to pray in an unknown language. That is a grave misteaching of what praying under the influence of the Spirit really means.
God sent the Holy Spirit into the church to be the divine administrator of all that pertains to God’s family and to kingdom business. This is why Paul said, “For the kingdom of God is not eating and drinking, but righteousness and peace and joy in the Holy Spirit.” (Rm14:17)
Having the Spirit of the Lord in our hearts is the awesome treasure of the new covenant. Jesus said, “But the Helper, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in My name, He will teach you all things, and bring to your remembrance all that I said to you.” (Jn14:26)
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From this the Lord gave us a basic model of simple prayer. He wasn’t give us a rote prayer as some suppose. He was telling us how to honor God in our prayers.
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It seems that George Muller found the secret of prayer. Have you found the secret? Just something to think about.
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In Christ always,
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Buddy
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