“If you abide in Me, and My words abide in you, you will ask what you desire, and it shall be done for you.” John 15:7 NKJV
Prayer is most essentially the Godhead communicating with Himself in union with us. We pray with the help of the Holy Spirit in the name of Jesus to the Father. The Holy Spirit makes intercession for us according to the Will of God (Romans 8:27). Jesus said the Holy Spirit will remind us of God’s Word. That means God wants to exercise His authority through us.
Jesus has granted access to ask the Father whatever we wish for. The Father always grants the wishes of His Son. That’s why we pray in His Name. That’s His authority. But prayer is not only praying in His Name, it’s also praying His Word. We pray God’s Word in God’s Name to God as God’s way of involving us in God’s Will for us. We are partakers of the divine nature.
God’s Spirit dwells in you. God’s Word abides in you. What is more intimate than this? You in Christ and Christ in you. The indwelling of not just God’s Spirit but also God’s Word. This is what changes our lives forever. The Spirit of the Word is the Word of the Spirit. The Spirit and the Word work hand in hand and are One (1 John 5:7). God not only wants us to be One with Him in Spirit, but also one in Word, where His Word is our words. 2 Corinthians 4:13 says, “And since we have the same Spirit of faith, according to what is written, “I believed and therefore I spoke,” we also believe and therefore speak”.
Since we have the same Spirit, we can also speak according to the same Word. That’s the only way all our prayers are answered. It’s when you’re so intertwined with God’s Spirit that He speaks His Word through you to Him and He fulfills His Word to you through Him. Thus, even in a prayer of request, we get to participate in the eternal communion that exists in the Godhead.
It’s that place of intimacy where you’re so full of God’s Spirit and God’s Word that your wishes and desires are His wishes and desires. And when you pray God’s own Word to Him, God answers because He always fulfills His own Word.
The main reason for prayer is intimacy – let’s not miss that. Prayer is also important for alignment and agreement. Prayer is a technology by which we agree with what God has predestined in our lives, and it gives God the legitimacy to align us for its manifestation. Let me tell you a story: My boss issued the printer on Friday, but the lights were out, and the printer was off. When I came to work on Monday and turned on the printer, guess what? The command was issued, and the printouts came. Then I caught the revelation.
I can submit my requests before God, no matter the season. When the set time comes and the gates are opened, my requests will become a reality. It doesn’t matter how long it takes…as long as that command has been issued, it will come to pass. Just as printers are so stubborn that once you issue the command, it will continue to print even while you try to stop it, that answer to your prayer cannot be stopped.
My dear, no prayer made according to the Will of God goes to waste. You made a petition to an Eternal God who remains the same generation after generation. This is the Kindness of God. He gives us more than we ask for, and gives us all that we ask for in His Name so that we lack no good thing. This technology is not only for things. It is for everything in God. Anything God can give by His Omnibenelovence, you can ask according to His Will.
In Revelation 6, we see martyrs in Heaven reminding God of their prayers. No prayer according to His Will falls to the ground. It may not come to pass while you’re alive, but it shall all surely come to pass. The LORD told me, “There comes a season where every seed you have sown in prayer will bear fruit in its season. Sow more seedlings“. Let God send His angels ahead of you; pray for your children’s children. Pray for your future. Pray for your children’s marriage. Be proactive in prayer; don’t wait for something to go wrong or be missing before you react in prayer.
If I had known that prayer had this technology, I would have started praying at the age of 3. It’s not too late. Pray ahead. Let your prayers go ahead of you. Pray for your children’s workplaces. It doesn’t matter if you don’t have children now. Pray for your retirement. You can pray ahead of time. Every effectual fervent prayer of the righteous shall come to pass. Every single one of them. Agree with God with what He wants done in your life and in the earth, and behold His faithfulness in answering when you call.
You may not know this but you’re walking in the prayers of old. About one-fifth of the Bible is prayer. Many if not all directly apply to you. You can take it as a receipt, send it before God and cash out. After that, you put in as many requests as possible so you can continually cash out always at all times. In fact, the measure of the supernatural in your life is directly proportional to your prayer input.
Before we move on to corporate altars, there is the need to realise the need for continuous prayer.
Praying Regardless of Seasons
If you pray only when there are problems, problems become the reason why you pray fervently. At a point, the enemy will realise and will now make sure you have no pressing problems. That has been the end of many people’s need for God. God is not relevant because there are problems. God is relevant because He created us and we depend on Him for everything.
Attend to your altar. Whether you’re full or hungry, fit or tired, strong or sick, in good times or in bad times, one thing that shouldn’t change is your prayer. When we wait for problems to overwhelm us before we become serious in prayer, our prayer life will be seasonal. Whenever you’re full, pray. When you’re prospering, pray. Whether you break through, pray. When you make it, pray.
Whereas there are people who give up on God when there are good times, some also give up on God when things become overwhelmingly hard. However, the one who yields to the training of the Holy Spirit will soon become immovable and unshakable throughout the ups, downs, twists and turns of life. If you stop praying, the anxieties will come back; you’ll doubt God; you’ll fall into sin afresh; your life will be stagnant; your relationship with God will dwindle; your life will feel miserable even if you prosper.
Consecration in the Midst of Corruption
We live in a foreign world where bad apples corrupt good apples but good apples cannot turn bad apples good. If a leper touches you, you become unclean. Thus, consecration in the Levitical order was to make sure one is not defiled by any indulgence with evil. I ask myself how Daniel could survive Babylon. Daniel prayed three times; 9am during the morning sacrifice, 12 noon and 3pm during the evening sacrifice. That is practically how he was able to remain blameless in the midst of evil Babylon. We are talking about someone living in the Old Testament.
This is a cold world. It’s like being in a fridge. It’s only a matter of time until you become cold by conforming to the systems of this world. However, the technology of prayer practically connects our minds and realities to God, the One to whom we belong. It’s like being connected to an electric stove while still in the fridge. Although we are in the world, we are not of this world. Therefore, we don’t look to the world, nor do we conform to it. Soon, the fire on our altar begins to affect the temperature of the fridge.
When Jesus came on the scene, He could touch lepers and make them whole. Instead of He becoming corrupted, the corrupted rather became whole. It was by prayer before dawn that He performed miracles during the day. There was never a day Jesus started without having prayed. Prayer is making effective use of the fellowship with the Father. It is by prayer that we download spiritual realities into physical possibilities. By prayer, we remain hot in a cold world. Show me a prayerless Christian, and I’ll show you that that one is no different from a carnal Christian.
Praying God’s Agenda
As you pray, you begin to download prayer points. I know at the beginning, you really have to fight off distractions that come in the form of imaginations. How we deal with that is by being fully involved in the prayer. Put your focus, your attention, your heart, your mind into the prayer. That’s the fervency. Any prayer that doesn’t move you will not move anything. Putting your mouth on autopilot while you allow your imagination to roam all over the place is not fervent prayer. If you forget that you’re even praying, although your mouth is moving and making sounds, you’re not involving yourself.
Once you’re able to fully engage, the imaginations don’t go away. Rather, God begins to use your imaginations to draw your attention on what to pray about. Allow the Spirit to move, and pray in all those directions. If you come to God with your issue, God will use you to deal with many other issues and still answer you in the end so don’t worry. Don’t play stubborn with God and rather bow to your situation. Don’t insist on what you want to do with God and rather allow your circumstances to have its way. God is not your problem so please don’t treat Him as such.
You Cannot Control God
Don’t give God timelines. Don’t command God. If you want to be angry, be angry at the problem. Insist that your situation changes. In your mind, you want to pray for 3 days and everything will change. Meanwhile, God is looking at the bigger picture and wants to solve problems you’re not even aware of. Be flexible with God. Abraham waited 25 years. Joseph waited 13 years. David waited 15 years to be king. Jesus waited 30 years to start His ministry. God already has His own way. As for God, His Way is perfect. If you surrender to His Way, He will make your way perfect.
At the beginning, you can set your own time for prayer. You can even choose how long you want to pray. However, with time, the Holy Spirit would want you to do certain things His way. Don’t insist on yours. If He wakes you up at night to pray, don’t say you can pray in the morning. When He tells you to make the 3-day fast 5 days, don’t say He should have said it earlier. If He wants you to break the fast at 3pm rather than the 12pm you planned, please listen. Every prayerful person receives instructions. Usually, it’s simple simple instructions. If you don’t obey, your prayer will not promote you.
It’s not about taking pride in how long you pray. It’s about loving God and obeying His commandments. As you attend to your altar, it is by that same altar that you’ll receive feedback from Heaven. It doesn’t have to be dramatic but it has to be taken seriously. Whatever little assignment you receive, you will be given enough grace to perform it. That is how God builds us and removes all the insufficiencies of our soul, hasty desires of our flesh and conforms us to the Image of His Son. Enjoy the process. There’s no destination. It is an eternal exercise.
Communication is the transfer of information from one entity to another through a medium. What makes communication possible is understanding. This is usually why it needs a medium. We can be discussing (exchanging ideas) or conversing (receiving feedback from making inputs) without communicating. If I speak a language you don’t understand, you can reply every time I say a sentence but we are not communicating. The foundation for communication is understanding. This post is meant to communicate the systems God has put in place so you understand the feedback He gives you when you talk to Him. No more one-way street in your praying anymore. Amen?
The Medium
The only medium through which one can communicate with God is via God. God in the Old Testament was tremendously misunderstood by many generations. It took the coming of Jesus to reveal the Father to us. That’s what John 1 is about. Jesus is the Only Way we have a relationship with the Father. He is the Mediator, the medium. He is God and Man, revealing God to man and presenting man to God. The thoughts of God are higher than our thoughts but through the Mind of Christ, we are able to communicate the thoughts of God to ourselves and even to others. God is Spirit and only communicates via spirit. We being spiritually dead was a tremendous hindrance to our communication with God. It’s not that God was not conversing; we just didn’t understand because we were dead in that way. Now, because of God the Son, through God the Spirit, we communicate with God the Father. We have been invited into the communion of the GodHead.
The Model
The speakings of God is multi-dimensional. That means when God communicates one thing, He communicates that one thing in several ways. A lot of people seeking God cry out to Him for years, asking God what their purpose in life is. Jesus said He has a lot to tell us but we can’t contain it now. Thus, He uses a season as a preparation period to bring you to the place where you have the capacity to even do what He has purposed for you. There’s the knowing part and the doing part. Let me break it down;
How does God communicate His Will for us on a daily basis? He is a Lamp to our feet and a Light to our path. Sometimes He chooses to communicate it to us in a step-by-step manner, being a Lamp to our feet. You don’t know what He wants you to do in 10 years time but you know what He expects of you in this current season. Do you know Mary was not pre-informed that she was going to give birth to the Messiah? This has been God’s most important agenda but the woman who will give birth to Jesus did not know until 9 months prior. Other times, He chooses to Light your path. You get to know what is written in your books; when you are 50, 12 years from now, when your 3rd child is born, when a nation is 250 years etc. In both cases, you still walk step-by-step on that set path. God in His own Wisdom chooses which method to use and in which period to use it.
In the doing aspect, trust that although God had not given you all the details for you to know, He was still training you. Mary immediately gave in to be used by God to give birth to the Messiah. Although she didn’t know, God had trained her to bring her to the place where she will submit to God’s Will fully. Same goes for Joseph. God does not leave anything to chance. As long as you heed to every Word that comes out of the mouth of God, you are walking in the volume of the books written of you. You can know what to do and still not do it. If you got to know all the things you had to go through, this current version of you will give up today. Trust the Wisdom of God to draw you to a place where you are capable and willing to do what He wills for you.
The Method
As long as we are in this limited flesh, we can only see in part and know in part. However, we are dealing with a limitless God so He can be fully trusted. Never forget this; God has never done anything without pre-informing someone. Anyone who tunes into His frequency will pick up signals. He is ALWAYS communicating. Jesus told Nicodemus that if he doesn’t understand earthly things, how can he understand heavenly things? Do you get it? Since the bedrock of communication is understanding, God will only communicate what we can understand. God will only speak in vocabularies we understand. I thank God so much for the gift of tongues because hitherto there was such a huge barrier in communication and expression.
If God is always communicating, and communication is based on our level of understanding, then what are the signs? When Jesus was born, we see several communication methods God used for different groups. Mary encountered an angel and so did the shepherds. Joseph, just like the Old Testament Joseph, was reached through dreams. The wise men picked a sign from the stars. The birth of Jesus was thoroughly communicated to the whole world, yet people from afar picked the signal while those nearby may have missed it. Increase your capacity to communicate with God. Take your dreams seriously, and see how He begins to communicate frequently through your dreams. Take those promptings seriously. Don’t be ignoring your convictions and intuitions. God is communicating with you everyday. Are you listening?
The Meaning
The people of Israel understand the importance of signs. They know God doesn’t do anything without first communicating it. On Pentecost day, for instance, there was a sound from Heaven, a mighty windstorm and tongues of fire. The first question they asked was, “what does this mean?”. In other words, when did God in past times pre-inform us of what we are seeing? Peter got up and explained that it was from Joel 2:28. We Gentiles rather love wonders. Signs can be everyday occurrences. A sign that you shouldn’t go can be a car fault from nowhere. A sign that Balaam shouldn’t go is how his donkey is behaving. A wonder that he shouldn’t go is that the donkey began to talk.
There are signs littered everywhere. Perceive, receive and believe. Be open to the signs. The sign is as powerful as your ability to understand and communicate it. This Kingdom has no room for assumptions and guesswork. A baby you see in your dream can mean marriage. You don’t base it on your reasoning. Sometimes God communicates signs that are hard to understand so that He can draw us in to inquire. Rebekah felt her babies kicking a lot and inquired of the LORD, only to realise she had two nations in her womb. You have been seeing a lot of signs. Inquire! God is communicating with you everyday. Are you listening?
The Message
This is one of the reasons why the Bible is the most primary way of communicating with God. The Bible is complete. There is nothing major that will ever happen that hasn’t been already communicated in the Bible. All the signs till the end of the age, and even in the ages to come, have been revealed in Scripture. Tell me what God wants to do in the next season and I will show you a sign from Scripture. We love to see wonders. We want God to rain bananas to confirm that that guy is the one. Meanwhile, He has been communicating signs. He is using everyday things you can easily understand. God is communicating with you everyday. Are you listening?
So you see, our faith is not blind. We are not hoping that Christianity is true and all other religions are false. We are not hoping that our decision will be right. We are not hoping that there is an afterlife. We are not hoping that God is indeed real. No, that’s not where our hope lies. We are witnesses to these signs. It has been clearly communicated to us. It is not “blind” faith. Our faith is based on this solid truth. It is logical faith, for our faith is based on the Logos, the Word. Logos is a greek word from which we get the word “logic” from. Faith is the realest way of seeing. The message has been clearly communicated to us, and we fully believe it because the signs have been fully confirmed.
