2014.10.12_Faith and Prayer

Prayer, the Way to a Life of Victory

God listens to prayers. Even when God sent His Son into the world, He always listened to His prayers. While Jesus was on the earth, the means by which He connected with God was no different to ours in the present. He who is the Son of God came out of God’s bosom, became flesh and dwelt on the earth; and we, the children of God have become the church today standing in this world.

The Lord had to bear the life of a man during His stay on the earth, and carry out a momentous task unheard of since the creation of the world. He successfully brought all those things to fulfillment. He is the victorious one. Now we have been assigned with the task to be victorious in our lives on the earth. The Lord is telling us to have victory in the battle of our lives. But how can we become victors like our Lord? There is a difference between the life that the Lord had constructed and what we construct. The main difference is in the power of prayer, which is the means of receiving God’s help. The way the Lord achieved a life of victory was through His prayer life.

If anyone has faith and believes in Jesus, he will be saved. People who misconstrue the essence of our faith life might be thinking, ‘now that I’ve secured my salvation, I have some room to concentrate on my flesh.’ It is easy to think like so if they overlook the Gospels and focus only on the Epistles of Paul. However, Jesus clearly taught us about living the life of faith. Salvation is only just the beginning of the life that manifests the sincerity of faith. For a redeemed person, his life is the time to demonstrate his faith and prepare for eternal life. The Lord said that the hardship we experience on the earth will ultimately bring forth a glorious and eternal outcome, which we will later see in Heaven.

Until the day we enter Heaven, what is most essential to our battle on the earth is prayer. Prayer is like a generator that generates and provides power to the life of a believer. Believing in Jesus means a life of praying unto God has begun. Christians should not cease their prayer life until their final moment.

Prayer is essential for us to overcome all sorts of hardships we face in our lives, as well as to keep our faith. In other words, prayer is essential for both our spirit and flesh. Prayer is a gracious gift God has endowed us with for the good of our spirit and flesh.

Prayer is the one and only channel that connects us to God. Hence a life without prayer is a life without God, and anyone who does not pray is no different to an orphan; such a person is living as though he has nothing to do with God.

One other crucial point is that even a person of faith cannot use his faith in his daily life unless he prays. Faith is useless to anyone who does not pray. The absence of prayer indicates a blockage in the channel through which comes the abounding grace that God has promised. Faith is incredibly precious but it does not serve any purpose for those that do not pray. The state of a person who does not pray is similar to when troops caught isolated in enemy lines are fiercely attacked while communication with the base camp is cut off and unable to receive their provision of rations and weapons.

The life of believers is truly worthwhile in that they can receive God’s help. The great will of God who saved us is to help man with what he cannot do on his own. And the way offered to man so that he can receive God’s help according to that will is prayer.

God saved us at such tremendous cost, yet He has left us to remain on the earth. The enemy is threatening us with vicious attacks while we are utterly weak to defend ourselves. Moreover, we are easily swayed by our human nature which we can hardly control ourselves. In spite of this, God promised us saying, ‘I will be with you always. I will not leave you as orphans.’ What is the reason that God was able to make such a promise to us who are in this most dreadful condition? It was based on the premise that we would pray. God had in mind that we would stay close by Him like a breastfeeding baby, and planned to embrace us like a hen gathers her chicks under her wings. In that sense, if someone does not pray to God, he has strayed from God’s guidance and protection.

A Life of Prayer 

Our faith life is a life of prayer. We are not talking about prayer as a single, one-off activity but as a routine practice or as part of our life. There is plenty written in the Bible concerning this life of prayer. One of them is the story about King Asa of Judah.

King Asa wanted to build a kingdom that receives God’s help. He strived for the people to have an attitude that was worthy of receiving God’s help. He commanded them to thoroughly observe the Law and announced resolute policies to eradicate idolatry by removing the image of Asherah for example. As a result, the kingdom of Judah enjoyed peace for a time. Then one day, an Ethiopian came out against them with an army of a million men. The number of soldiers in Judah who could fight back was only just over five hundred thousand. In terms of military power, it was impossible for Judah to defeat them.

At that time, Asa prayed to God. “Lord, it is nothing for You to help, whether with many or with those who have no power; help us, O Lord our God, for we rest on You, and in Your name we go against this multitude. O Lord, You are our God; do not let man prevail against You!” (2 Chr 14:11) King Asa had never heard the name of Jesus Christ nor did he ever receive the Holy Spirit. He prayed while he had no promise of an answer to his prayer. Yet everything went ahead according to his prayer. The invaders were defeated and the victors seized a huge amount of plunder. King Asa had victory after victory in each battle that followed thereafter.

King Asa made his people rely on God alone completely. He even made them enter a covenant so that whoever does not seek the help of God will be put to death. In regard to this, 2 Chronicles 15:13-15 says, “whoever would not seek the Lord God of Israel was to be put to death, whether small or great, whether man or woman. Then they took an oath before the Lord with a loud voice, with shouting and trumpets and rams’ horns. And all Judah rejoiced at the oath, for they had sworn with all their heart and sought Him with all their soul; and He was found by them, and the Lord gave them rest all around.” King Asa did everything possible in order that his people would be those who pray to God, and even removed his mother from being the queen mother because she worshipped an idol. The kingdom of Judah enjoyed peace for a long period of time thanks to such efforts he made.

In the thirty-sixth year of King Asa’s reign, Israel came up against Judah. Surprisingly, Asa did not rely on God but rather gathered the silver and gold in the temple and gave it to the king of Syria and sought his help. The prophet was shocked and when he rebuked him, Asa instead put him in prison. Three years later, Asa fell ill. Even then he did not seek God but the physicians. He died two years later. King Asa once had success after success by the help of God but when he no longer sought God’s help, that is, he ceased to pray, he drifted far away from God’s interest.

God is not interested in those who are not in the habit of praying. Prayer draws God’s attention; it is the way for us to have Him by our side and lavish His grace on us. If we draw God’s attention, He will have the desire to help us, and if we are then faced with tribulations, God’s help will come to us. Those who experience this over and over will know how to pray so that they receive answers.

Prayer is the way to keep God by our side as our Helper. Unless we have been drawing God’s attention consistently, we cannot receive His help no matter how righteous we are, how much spiritual knowledge we have, or how grave the crisis facing us might be. Thus, we need to have fellowship with God always. There is not a verse in the Bible that says, ‘come to Me only when you need My help. I will fulfill your wishes.’ We need to have a consistent life of prayer.

Specifically Ask for What is in Your Heart

Prayer is the process of delivering that which is in our heart to God. He does not automatically help us in times of crisis just because we are longing for His help in our hearts. He does not intrude in our hearts by force. One has to open his heart before God in order to receive His help. In other words, he must present his matters within the scope of God’s help.

God indeed knows all of our thoughts. However He does not intervene in the matters for which we have not sought for His help. This can be taken as a kind of rule or promise that God has offered us. We must abide by this principle of asking God what it is we want specifically. Otherwise, He will not intervene in our problems no matter how longing we are in our hearts or how critical our situation is, and even if we know just how merciful He is.

James 4:2-3 says, “You lust and do not have. You murder and covet and cannot obtain. You fight and war. Yet you do not have because you do not ask. You ask and do not receive, because you ask amiss, that you may spend it on your pleasures.” Such principle was equally applicable to the Son of God. He is in God and God is in Him. Yet while He was on the earth, He had to go before God and explicitly tell Him the anguish of His heart. The scene at Gethsemane two thousand years ago demonstrates this very clearly.

At that time, Jesus was at a most crucial moment of life and death. He offered up prayers and supplications, with vehement cries and tears to Him who was able to save Him from death (Heb 5:7). It was impossible for God to be unaware of the critical and unjust situation He was in. How dearly did God love His Son? The Son is everything to God. And how greatly did the Son honor God the Father? Even so, Jesus did not just keep His wishes in His heart but told God the Father of His critical situation. He explicitly prayed saying, “This is my desire, Father!”

The Bible makes a distinction between faith that is living and that which is dead (Jam 2:17). That distinction is made based on whether a person practices what is in his heart or not. There is an enormous difference between trusting in God simply in the heart and opening one’s lips and telling God of what is in his heart. Hence saying, ‘ask in prayer’ is essentially the same as ‘show your faith.’

Seek God’s Help Through Prayer

For man to be flexible and withstand each of the countless challenges he faces in the world, he has very little strength and ability. The environment surrounding the flesh does not adjust to our liking. What is more, man is devoid of any power to protect himself. The state of the spirit is even worse. Since man did not have a spiritual foundation from the beginning, he definitely needs help in order to succeed his spiritual life. Then again, there is a huge risk that he will fall into temptation during his faith life, and the risk of losing his faith is always around the corner. Hence, a life in absence of God’s help will have to face these forewarned adversities as they come.

If Christians do not establish a healthy prayer life, their lives may be worse than that of unbelievers. If people do not pray despite knowing their shortcomings, then it is arrogance from God’s perspective. Christians are those who acknowledge their flaws before God and rely on His help.

We need to seek God’s help in all things. We should establish a rigorous approach to prayer, to such a point of making it a rule not to do anything unless we have first sought for God’s help. Anything we have prayed for is already offered up before God and thus we must acknowledge that God will ultimately bring it to fulfillment even if nothing immediately happens. Sometimes it could be hard for us to receive answers because we asked amiss. Nevertheless, God will remember how we relied on Him and comfort us.

There are people who have faith but do not pray. They are struggling between how they used to live according to their human nature in the past, and depending on God as a way of life that is given to them. Such a person has lost his interest in prayer from the start without even having the chance to experience the Christian life that is founded on prayer or having his wishes fulfilled. Such people never get to start a proper spiritual life and are easy to waste away their lifetime on endless doubts and disappointment.

We have to pray so that we may also overcome temptations. This is our daily task. What we learn from the accounts of Ananias and Sapphira, Judas Iscariot and Peter is that everything they deemed to be right instead became a fatal injury to their spirit. Especially with Judas Iscariot, he took an eternally irreversible path to destruction. Even when Jesus was at Gethsemane praying for a matter of great concern, He was still interested in His disciples’ prayer. The Lord knew better than anyone about just how bleak man’s situation is. He knew that His disciples could thus fall into temptation any time and how they would need to stay awake and pray in order to overcome that (Matt 26:41).

Seek First His Kingdom and His Righteousness

The prayer of the Lord shows a consistent characteristic, which was more apparent at Gethsemane. His prayer was always in two aspects: one was praying about His wishes as a man, while the other was praying as one who had faith. With the Lord, the latter form of prayer had precedence over the other at all times.

The Lord taught us to pray each day for our daily bread (Matt 6:11). Hence we pray for that daily, and God the Father will gladly give us. For this reason the Lord told us to neither worry about what to eat, drink or wear, nor be in anguish and despair over such matters, but to seek first His kingdom and His righteousness (Matt 6:31-33).

These words of the Lord are in conflict with man’s nature. It is not easy to first seek His kingdom and righteousness when living in this world is in itself difficult. But as we follow the Lord’s command and prioritize God’s will, at some point in our lives we would find that we have become truly holy and doing God’s will. If we pray as those who welcome, pursue and do God’s will, our spirit will be made prosperous automatically, and God will fill the needs of our flesh.

We can pray to God about our wishes as much as want. However a mature Christian should first petition fervently for the great spiritual works which the church must carry out. Many people pray that God will help them find a good job or for their children to get into a good university. Such prayers are essentially the same as asking God to help them earn more money. For many, fifty-nine minutes out of an hour of prayer is filled with such requests.

Saints should be able to pray for magnanimous things as the Lord did. “Do Your will, O Lord! Let Your church abound with Your happiness! Let Your church be filled with Holy Spirit! Let Your church be full of dedication and service! Let Your church grow to fulfill God’s great works! Make us a church that is pleasing before You! When we pray, we should offer prayers that are holy and noble with our heart filled with love for the Lord, if not always. Our prayers should be, “I am Yours Lord. Use me for Your work! Use my precious children for Your will!”

We must seek God’s help in all things. Even so, we first have to pray for God’s will and His kingdom before anything else. Even if our personal matters fail, the church’s work must succeed; even if our personal matters fall into arrears, God’s work must prosper. We have been liberated from the Devil and have the assurance of going to Heaven and can now prepare for the glorious future with thankfulness and joy because the Lord surrendered His will and prioritized the Father’s will while He was on the earth. It was because He gave up His will and obeyed God’s will that we came to obtain life. We are able to enter Heaven because the Lord gave up His wishes as a man and submitted to God’s will.

God desires for us to be well. Why would He want to set a limit to our happiness when He has even given us His own Son? God is the One who gives us blessings. When we seek God’s will first, our life on the earth will also be prosperous. And the prosperity will endure forever. This is what God desires.

The Holy Spirit also helps us in our weakness and makes intercession for us with groans which cannot be uttered (Rom 8:26). When the Holy Spirit comes in us and intercedes for us earnestly, we should at least keep in step with Him. We need to rely on His inspiration and by His guidance pray with spiritual sense. When we do so, the angels will quickly take up our prayers to God (Rev 8:3).

God’s help, the power of prayer, and the mighty working of prayer should abound in our lives as it was with the Lord. We have to stop thinking negatively that we cannot do what the Lord has done. The Lord said we will do even greater things than what He has done (John 14:12). Those words will surely be fulfilled in those who seek God’s help through prayer.