What is prayer?

           What is prayer?

            There are many explanations of what prayer is, they are all correct. Because prayer is manifold, it has different purposes at different times. For some it is, praying for their needs to God.

                   For some it is praying for others, for some just simply being with him thinking about him, worshiping and adoring him, for some it is waiting on Him to experience His tangible presence and to the listen to His voice. Here in this chapter I would like explain to you in simple terms what actually prayer is.     

            First and foremost prayer is talking to God.  It is basically expressing your heart and spending time talking with God, the Creator.  The most common type of praying is speaking to God; it is petitioning to God their needs or in other words supplicating their wants to the Heavenly Father. This is a type of praying that has been approved by heaven. This kind of praying has been prayed by the prophets, the kings and the priests in the Old Testament.

In the New Testament we also find Jesus praying in this manner. And we are also commanded by the Scriptures to pray the prayers of petition and supplication.

            “Do not worry about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your request be made known to God...,” (Philippians 4:6).

            For some prayer is just being with him, worshiping and adoring Him. Calmly sitting at the feet of Jesus and gazing at his face by faith.

            “As an apple tree among the trees of the wood, so is my beloved among young me. With great delight I sat in his shadow, and his fruit was sweet to my taste. He brought me to the banqueting house, and his intention towards me was love,” (Song of Solomon 2:3, 4).

            For some prayer is not a one way action, God speaks, they listen. They speak and God listens to our voice and talks back. Conversational prayer is like talking to a friend; you talk for some time, and keep silent to listen to what he or she has to say.

            “Moses said to the Lord, “See, you have said to me, ‘Bring up this people; but you have not let me know....The Lord said to Moses, I will do the very thing that you have asked; Moses said, “Show me your glory, I pray.”... “And he said, “I will.....”(Exodus 33:12-23).

            For some prayer is spiritual warfare praying. They keep wresting in prayer for the will of God to be established on earth and in the hearts of men.

            “Ep-aphras, who is one of you, a servant of Christ Jesus, greets you. He is always wrestling in his prayers on your behalf, so that you may stand mature and fully assured in everything that God wills,” (Colossians 4:12).

            For some praying is just “resting in him” or just “soaking” in the tangible presence of God.

            “Come to me, all you that are weary and are carrying heavy burdens, and I will give you rest, “(Mathew 11:28).

            All types of praying are a necessity in our life; we need to learn to move as the Spirit prompts us in prayer.           

           

             “In the New Covenant, prayer is the living relationship of the children of God with their Father who is good beyond measure, with his Son Jesus Christ and with the Holy Spirit. The grace of the Kingdom is "the union of the entire holy and royal Trinity. . . with the whole human spirit,” (2565).*

The Bible tells us God is Spirit, and Bible also tells us that God created man in His image,  as God is triune, God has also made man tripartite, we have a spirit, a soul and a body. As somebody said man is a spirit being having a soul and living in a body.

           

            “May the God of peace himself sanctify you entirely, and may your spirit and soul and body be kept sound and blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ” (2Thessalonians 5:23).

           

            So we see man is spirit, soul and body, and God desires that the spirit, soul and body be kept sound and blame less. We also need to understand that the spirit and soul are not one.

            “Indeed, the word of God is living and active, sharper than any two edged sword, piercing until it divides soul from spirit, joints and marrow, it is able to judge the thoughts and intentions of the heart.” (Hebrews 4:12).

We find here that the spirit and soul can be separated. That it proves that the soul and the spirit are not one.  The soul is the realm of our mind, emotions and will. The spirit and the soul have to be separated in order to become a spiritual man. The all powerful word of God can do it.

           

            The Bible speaks a few words about our spirit,

“...Thus says the Lord, who stretched out the heavens and founded the earth and formed the human spirit within.”(Zechariah 12:1). The human spirit within us, was formed and placed within us by God

           

            And Bible tells us “God yearns jealously for the spirit that he has made to dwell in us”? (James 4:5).  God has a great desire for fellowship with the spirit he has made to dwell in us.

            “The human spirit is the lamp of the Lord, searching every inner post part,” (Proverbs 20: 27). The human spirit within us is the lamp that the Lord has placed with us to communicate with us.

We need to always remember, that we are a spirit being. The potentiality of the human spirit within us is great. The human spirit can commune with God.

When God created man, he put the spirit into man. “He endowed them with strength like his own, and made them in his own image,” (Sirach 17:3).

When God created man he did not put the Holy Spirit into man, but the human spirit into man.

           

            The word used in Hebrew for the word ‘breath’ is  n^eshâmâh (nesh-aw-maw')  which means a puff, vital breath, soul , spirit. 

           

            The Bible tells us that God...“….breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living being….,”(Genesis2:7). The Hebrew word used here is neshamah not ruach.

The word ruach (roo'-akh) is not used here, the word ruach is used for the word “Spirit” of God.  The Bible tells us “the earth was formless and void and darkness covered the face of the deep. While the Spirit (ruach) of God swept over the face of the waters,” (Genesis 1:2).

That means that God had not deposited the Holy Spirit in man when he created man. God put the spirit, which God calls the “the human spirit” in man.

            “...Thus says the Lord, who stretched out the heavens and founded the earth and formed the human spirit within.”(Zechariah 12:1).

            Our Spirit can pray.   (1Corinthians 14:14)

            Our Spirit can rejoice. (Luke 1: 46-47)

            Our Spirit can serve.    (Romans 1:9)

            Our Spirit witnesses in us. (Romans 8:16)

            As I have said in the beginning of this chapter that prayer is simply communing with God, our spirit speaking to God. Prayer is our spirit talking to God who is Spirit. Prayer is utterances from deep of our human spirit to the deepest heart of God.

            That is what Bible tells “deep calls to deep” and that is what the Bible says that you must worship God in the spirit and truth.

             And we need to learn from the doyens of prayer, what prayer actually is.

            “While I was speaking, and was praying and confessing my sin and the sin of my people Israel, and presenting  my supplication before the Lord my God on behalf of the holy mountain of my God, while I was speaking in prayer, the man Gabriel....,”(Daniel 9:20-21). Here we see that praying is communing with God or in other words speaking to God.

           

            We need to understand that prayer in its basics is imploring the Lord. The synonyms for the word imploring is pleading, begging, entreating, and petitioning.

            “But Moses implored the Lord his God, and said.....,” (Genesis 32:11).

            We need to go to the Father, and tell everything that is in our mind, our pains, our needs, things that trouble us, confuse us and hurt us.

            “Trust in the Lord at all times, O people; pour out your heart before him; God is a refuge for us,” (Psalms 62:8).

            We must learn to pour out our heart to him, who loves us, we must see in faith as David saw “I saw the Lord always before me...,”(Acts 25) and pour out everything, placing everything before the Lord in prayer, is what the heavenly Father desires.

            Our prayers can be priestly, where we humbly petition for our lives and others.

            “O Lord, I pray, let the Lord go with us...” (Exodus 34:9).

            Our prayers can be kingly, where we can command things to take place in ourselves   and others.

            “On that day when the Lord gave the Amorities over to the Israelities, Joshua spoke to the Lord; and he said in the sight of Israel. “Sun, stand still...And the sun stood still..,.” “Joshua 10:12-14).

            Prayer time includes praise and worship, ongoing repentance, thanking God, reading and meditating on the word, praying for yourself and praying for others.

            Praying time includes, praying vocally, loudly, singing, dancing, praying in tongues, praying the word, praying the rosary, praying in silence, meditating and contemplating.

            It is not necessary, to have all this type of praying at all the prayer times. If you are a person who is beginning to have a prayer schedule, you need to have a time table to discipline yourself; you need to get grounded in the basics of prayer.         

            It is always good to have a diary of your own, where you can write down the things that you have prayed for, so that when the answers come, you can thank God.

                                                                                                                

Antony Thomas, Author, Holy Spirit:The Reality of His Presence,
                                           Holy Spirit, I love You.
                                           When We Pray: Be renewed by the Power of Prayer,

antonythomas.in

antony3000@gmail.com.

www.facebook.com/antonythomas.750

The battle for prayer

(From my forthcoming book on prayer).

  
The battle for prayer

            It is so easy to talk about prayer, very easy to read about prayer, it is extremely easy to advice people to pray, but when it comes to praying personally, it is a difficult task.

            For many, prayer will always be a struggle, for we have to overcome the fleshly desires within us in order to pray. And we have to overcome the tempter who, tries to keep us from praying.

“....Like a roaring lion your adversary the devil prowls around, looking for someone to devour, (1Peter 5:8).           

            The fleshly desires that we have, are a real hindrance to prayer, we rather sleep than pray, we rather do something than pray, we rather talk to man than talk to God, we rather spend time watching television than pray, we rather spend time on the internet than pray, we rather spend time reading books than pray, we rather go out visiting, than praying, we rather go for preaching than praying.

            The remedy is in dying daily. That is what Paul said, that “I die daily” we need to die daily to our fleshly desires. As we sit with God daily, we will be slowly loosened  from our fleshly desires. The “violent take it by force,” says the word of Lord, you need to be violent with yourself, literally forcing yourself to pray.

            We need to choose what we need to add to into our life, things that are everlasting or perishing, things that build your spiritual life or things that diminishes it.

            Then we have also the “tempter” who does not want us to pray. He is afraid of our prayer. He trembles when we pray. The tempter knows that if we continue to pray it will cause damage to his kingdom.

           

The tempter also knows that man has a tendency to drift away from a deeper fellowship of God. So he keeps us away from prayer. Literally he takes advantage of it.

            For many the temptation comes in this way:  a unworthiness to pray, a feeling of lethargy, the things to be done, distracting thoughts,  anonymous phone calls, friends inviting to go out, and much more.

For people growing up in prayer, not  feeling the freedom to pray, no exuberant experience while praying and after prayer, feeling of dryness while praying or after praying, wild sexual thoughts hitting  the mind, problems increasing.

            All these problems can be overcome, the secret is to continue praying, as you continue to pray, you will find changes taking place.

“Discipline yourselves; keep alert...” (1Peter 5:8), you need to discipline yourself, in order to pray, you need to plan, set goals, in order to discipline yourself, without discipline, you will fail.

You need to stick to the plan, to come out victorious, and once you get into the flow of prayer nothing can stop you. You will be unstoppable.

You need to fellowship with people who pray, and that will strengthen you, you are going to become like the people you walk with. So you need to scrutinise your close friends. It is worth walking with people who walk in the supernatural naturally.

When I started growing in the life of prayer, I used to avoid people who  talk about prayer, but never pray, another  kind of people I avoided was people who disliked praying, there was the third kind “holding to the outward form of godliness but denying its power,” I avoided them, because they had nothing to impart to me. Not that I closed the door to them, I just did not spent my free time with them.

When I started growing up in prayer, and getting stronger and stronger in the spirit of prayer, I went back to these people, I went back to this first kind, “who talked about prayer, but never prayed” and inspired them to pray.

           

I went back to the second kind “who disliked praying” and taught them the need to pray.

The third kind “holding to the outward form of godliness but denying its power”, I never went back to them, because they are un-teachable, they presume they know everything.

What  I am trying to highlight  is that you need to be careful of selecting who should be within the inner ring of friends and relatives.

They should be people, who leads you closer to the Lord.

They should be people, who leads  you to purity.

They should be people, who leads you to faith.

They should be people, who leads you to the truth.

They should be people, who leads you to His Presence.

They should be people, who leads you into the spirit of prayer.

You should avoid people who lead you to worldliness.

You should avoid people who lead you to alcohol.

You should avoid people who lead you to drugs.

You should avoid people who lead you to sexual sins.

Now don’t misunderstand, you need to talk to them, you need to talk good about them, you need to help them and pray for them, but when it comes for their lifestyle or their worldly words influencing you, you need to keep away.

After you grow strong in the Lord, you can spend time with them and influence them to come to the fullness of the Lord.

This is the price you need pay in order to walk daily, with the living God.

Jesus said  “For the gate is narrow and the road is hard that leads to life, and there are few who find it,“ (Matthew 7:14).

The road is narrow that leads to life, you are called to walk in it, you would not find many friends there, you will find few of them, and they shall be genuine. Many times you have walk alone, but the Holy Spirit will be in your walk, many times you will have to sit alone, but the Holy Spirit will  there sitting with you, and you will  have the Cloud of Witness around you. Many times you will have no one to talk to, but you will have the Holy Spirit to talk to. No matter how hard you find it, battle on and pray.

       

The battle for prayer will continue till the end of the age, when “The Son of Man will send his angels, and they will collect out of his kingdom all causes of sin and all evildoers, and they will throw them into the furnace of fire, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth. Then the righteous will shine like the sun in the kingdom of their Father. Let anyone with ears listen!” (Matthew 13: 41-43)

                                                                                                     Antony Thomas, Author, Holy Spirit:The Reality of His Presence,

                                           Holy Spirit, I love You.
                                           When We Pray: Be renewed by the Power of Prayer,

antonythomas.in

antony3000@gmail.com.

www.facebook.com/antonythomas.750

                      

   

Holy Spirit: I love you

From my book "Holy Spirit: I Love You".

      " Oh when He comes, he turns a common place to a holy ground. (Joshua 5:13-15)

     Oh when He comes, he converts a shabby house to a cathedral of glory. (Acts 4:23-31)

       Oh when He comes, he turns the tattered sons of men into sons of God   (Acts 9:10-20)

       In the beginning when....”the earth was a formless void and darkness covered the face of the deep”. The earth was without form, it was desolation, a desert, a worthless thing. An indistinguishable ruin. Wickedness, misery, destruction and death covered the face of the deep.

Can you see this picture, the earth was formless, and the evilness was over the deep. And then He came, the Spirit of God, and hovered and swept   over the waters.

As He was fluttering over the waters, as a bird flutters over the land and the seas. God said “let there be light.” And then there was light, the Holy Spirit turned the chaos to a beauty, a desert to a garden, something indistinguishable to something distinguishable. And Glory to God.

And then He came again, on the day of the festival of the first fruits, the Pentecost. His coming on the day of Pentecost was not accidental. Prophet Joel had prophesied, “In the last days I will pour out my Spirit on all flesh.”  It was prophecy fulfilled. 

And then we are told that the Israelites used to pray this word from the book of Isaiah past many generations.”Look down from heaven and see, from your holy and glorious habitation. Where are your zeal and your might? The yearning of your heart and your compassion... “That you would tear open the heavens and come down, so that the mountains would quake at your presence...”

Nine ⁰’clock in the morning, the Holy Spirit came, as prophesied by Jesus “...you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit not many days from now.”

He appeared among men and woman, who where afflicted, storm tossed, and not comforted.

“.....there came a sound like the rush of a violent wind, and it filled the entire house where they were sitting. Divided tongues, as of fire, appeared among them, and a tongue rested on each of them. All of them were filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other languages, as the Spirit gave them ability....”

These men and woman, battered and tattered, praying together with Mary in one place, all of a sudden where transformed into oaks of righteousness to display the glory of God. The Mighty Holy Spirit came to turn the sons of men into sons of God.

On the day of Pentecost, people living in all the nations where in Jerusalem that day. The Bible says they were bewildered, amazed, perplexed and astonished as they heard in their own languages words about “God’s deeds of power.” They heard in Italian, Arabic, Greek and many other languages.  This was a indication to all the nations gathered there, of the things to come. The gospel of the kingdom will be preached in all the nations and then end will come....And there was a great multitude that no one could count, from every nation, from all times and peoples and languages, standing before the throne and before the Lamb....”

And then He will come again in full force to renew the face of the earth.  He will take the chaos and set it in order. As in the beginning he will move over the earth. And there shall be a new heavens and a new earth. “When you send forth your spirit, they are created; and you renew the face of the ground.”

Everything old will pass away and everything will become new.

“Then the angel showed me the river of the water of life, bright as crystal, flowing from the throne of God and of the lamb through the middle of the city. On either side of the river is the tree of life with its twelve kinds of fruit, producing its fruit each month; and the leaves of the tree are for the healing of the nations,...and there will no more lamp or sun, for the Lord God will be their light, and they will reign forever and ever.”"

Antony Thomas, Author, Holy Spirit:The Reality of His Presence,
                                           Holy Spirit, I love You.
                                           When We Pray: Be renewed by the Power of Prayer,

antonythomas.in

antony3000@gmail.com.

www.facebook.com/antonythomas.750