“ He who dwells in the secret place of the Most High shall remain stable and fixed under the shadow of the Almighty [Whose power no foe can withstand]. I will say of the Lord, He is my Refuge and my Fortress, my God; on Him I lean and rely, and in Him I [confidently] trust! For [then] He will deliver you from the snare of the fowler and from the deadly pestilence. [Then] He will cover you with His pinions, and under His wings shall you trust and find refuge; His truth and His faithfulness are a shield and a buckler.” (psalm 91:1-4) In This post I will continue with the topic I started in my last post. I shared about the general importance of have a solid foundation so that in troubled times we will be stand strong and overcome. I believe two primary foundations are essential in our journey of faith. First the WORD Foundation and second PRAYER foundation. I already covered the first one in the last post “House Built on the Rock” and in this post I will continue with the second – Prayer Foundation Prayer is universal, the Bible is by a huge margin the No 1 best seller in the world, with 6 billion copies sold. Already that is a sign that people generally believe in the existence of God and the ability to do both the possible and impossible. Unfortunately there is a lot of misunderstanding when it comes to prayer, many times our lack of understanding and many lies told us by Satan often rub us of the confidence to approach God in prayer. Let me quick emphasis here, that this post is not a teaching on the subject of prayer. My reason for sharing this post is really to simplify prayer as much as possible. The unique thing about prayer, is that the more you cultivate the habit of prayer , the more you want to pray. There is never a time or a level in prayer that anyone can say “I have arrived”, because as long as we are in God we are been transformed from one degree of glory to another. The more time we spend in His presence the more we get addicted to the warmth of His glorious embrace and the beautiful fragrance of His glory and presence. The experience David captured so well, “As the hart pants and longs for the water brooks, so I pant and long for You, O God. My inner self thirsts for God, for the living God. When shall I come and behold the face of God?”(Psalm 42:1-2) AMP There is a burden in my heart for the discouraging and distressing season many are going through, and my earnest hope is that this post on prayer will be simple enough to inspire the desire and confidence to dwell in His presence abiding under His Shadow 24/7. This is the secret place David unveiled to us over and over in the Bible, many in the Book of Psalms. David was a man that went through the valley of death many times in his life time, but through it all, David learnt an important fact, that, there is a place we can run to hide and abide where death and no scheme of Satan can prevail against us. That secret place is in PRAYER Personally I can testify that prayer works, I have been through some dark seasons in my life, family break up, rebellious teenage, depression, overwhelming and agonizing dark times but in each and every one my valleys God carried me and not only that, I came out stronger each time than, when I went into the valley. What the devil planned for my harm God turned it around to be a blessing. To God be all the glory! It’s unfortunate that many times the general believe is that prayer is about getting God to do things for us, or it is part of a religious duties that has to be fulfilled in other to appease God. First, lets define what prayer is and what prayer is not. Prayer is not getting God to do things for us and neither is it about observing a religious duty. Put simply Prayer is fellowship with God. It’s communicating with God. In the true sense, fellowship means – sharing mutual desires, plans, likes and dislikes. And it is basically the same with our Prayer fellowship with our Heavenly Father The style of communication depends on personal preference. It can be loud or quite, in any preferred posture we find appropriate. The essential thing is sharing heart to heart with our heavenly Father. It is not a one sided dialogue, but two ways, we communicate to God and He communicates back to us. In prayer we share and pour out our heart to God and in return we listen to His heart as well. Like a father to son or daughter sharing and having fellowship together. To make it even more intimate, it’s like a husband and wife relationship where the two are so united that they are no longer two but one. Abraham’s dedication and loyalty to God earned him the reputation “friend of God” (James 2:23). Jesus in the New Testament called the disciples His friends (John 15:15). And no wonder God refers to us in many instances in the Bible as His Bride. In the Bible God calls Himself our maker and also our Husband. In the New Testament Christ is revered to as Bridegroom to us – the Church. As such, an aspect of our relation with the Lord is a Divine Marriage of Pure Intimacy. This should help us to capture the deep love He has for us. God desires our fellowship. We are on His mind 24/7, He is constantly thinking about us! David paints this aspect of God in the Psalms , “When I view and consider Your heavens, the work of Your fingers, the moon and the stars, which You have ordained and established, What is man that You are mindful of him, and the son of [earth born] man that You care for him? Yet You have made him but a little lower than God [or heavenly beings], and You have crowned him with glory and honor. You made him to have dominion over the works of Your hands; You have put all things under his feet” (Psalm 8:3-6) This is the heart of prayer – Divine union in intimacy of fellowship with the Lord. And this is where our strength comes from. The WORD is our beginning and PRAYER is our strength. The Bible says “But those who wait for the Lord [who expect, look for, and hope in Him] shall change and renew their strength and power; they shall lift their wings and mount up [close to God] as eagles [mount up to the sun]; they shall run and not be weary, they shall walk and not faint or become tired.” (Isaiah 40:31) When you come under the His Wings in Prayer, His Wings do not not only covers you, when you come into the Lord’s tabernacle of prayer you carry every area of your life into that secret place, your family, your business, ministry, your life and everything about you comes under the protection of Almighty God. Yet, there is more, In the Mark Jesus said “For this reason I am telling you, whatever you ask for in prayer, believe (trust and be confident) that it is granted to you, and you will [get it].” (Mark 11:24) Well, what more can be bigger than “Whatever”, this is more or less a Blank Cheque. This is more or less like God’s promise to Abraham in Genesis chapter 15 “And He brought him outside [his tent into the starlight] and said, Look now toward the heavens and count the stars—if you are able to number them. Then He said to him, So shall your descendants be.” (Genesis 15:5) We, like Abraham have the Word in written form saying “whatsoever you desire” meaning it’s up to us. We decide the limit based on how far we are willing to go in God. Abraham earned His friendship with God because of His dedication and loyalty to God . Whatever we need, we have the basis for it to be granted in His word and in the posture of Prayer lifestyle. The Lord desires to bless us as we go to Him in prayer, so that His name will be glorified in our life and on the Earth. Based on His promises no body should miss out! So let us be encouraged, to make prayer a priority, cultivating a prayer lifestyle. If we desire this and we ask the Lord, He will help us. The Holy Spirit will empower us to pray and He will also show us what to pray and how to pray. As we commit to dwelling under His Wings in prayer, we will diffuse the fragrance of His presence every where we go, we will stamp His presence on every thing we touch, and we will be strengthened to stand and be victorious in every situation. Under His Wings we will rise above every trouble, adversity and storm in life in Jesus name
Posted on: Mon, 02 Dec 2013 20:46:16 +0000
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