Prayer, Praying, and Waiting Upon the Lord
Prayer and knowing God
in one’s daily walk are essential if one is at all to enter
into regeneration (Being Converted). Prayer and
knowing God on a daily basis is relational in nature. As is
salvation and regeneration.
All of these are spiritually derived
and as such only grow or gain strength through
one’s relational connectivity as they pray, wait upon and seek
the Lord -- daily. No amount of listening to Christian radio, no
amount of listening to worship tapes, no amount of listening
to teaching tapes, and no amount of attending meetings devoted
to these topics can replace prayer and waiting upon the Lord.
Even if one goes to them every day of the week – These practices
can in no way replace one’s personal time with the Lord. Nor
will any or all of these activities truly enhance one’s personal
relationship with the Jesus Christ one iota. (These will undoubtedly give you a head knowledge, or a vocabulary
of spiritual sounding words and phrases – [Helping you to appear
spiritual to your peers] but they can not and will not cause
you to gain spiritual substance where it counts; in your soul
and spirit.)
How
long should one pray and wait upon the Lord, some would say
it is not quantity but quality and they will then espouse their
great spirituality by telling us they only pray or wait on God
for 5 minutes or 15 minutes and then brag on about the great
depths and how much they receive in those few moments.
These are not speaking the truth,
they are speaking high sounding words to receive the smile and
praise of men.
In
the Gospels we find references of Christ staying up and praying
all night, we find reference to Peter and John in Prison and
worshipping well into the night – It is safe to say that Christ
himself knew nothing of this quality over quantity teaching.
He supped with the Father Supping
in the Greek was evening meal where the parties would linger
long and fellowship and speak of the things of the day.
To
begin with one should think of their time of prayer as a church
service. How long does
it take to have a good church service 15 minutes 45 minutes,
90 minutes two hours? From most of the believers I have known
they would overwhelmingly stated that a good church service
lasted about two hours, so as to give time for good worship,
good prayer and a good time of teachings.
And these also seek a good time of fellowship afterwards.–
So in our personal prayer time we should also so divide it up
into worship, to bring our heart soul and spirit so in tune
with God, we should then move into waiting upon the Lord, that
is sitting in silence in His presence and or just before him
in silent obedience and availability for him to impart, speak,
bless, reveal, rebuke correct, convict
or do whatsoever He sees fit. (This
waiting upon the Lord is O so important,
it is inesteemable in value to our spiritual growth.) Many
times during this waiting I find that God reveals His will to
me in spiritual matters – and by praying on earth, as Jesus
prays in heaven (Lord’s prayer) astonishing results occur that defy the wisdom and knowledge
of men. Then after this I begin making my prayer requests known,
seeking to sup with the Lord, in Spirit with the Lord Jesus
Christ as I so do. -- Prayer and waiting upon the Lord, is the
greatest part of relationship, our fellowship, our supping He
with US and We with him and not surprisingly among those who
espouse themselves to be evangelicals, fundamentalists, Pentecostals
and Charismatics, prayer and waiting upon the Lord is all but
completely forsaken.
Surprisingly
the Lord brought me personally into this long before I ever
heard of Pinecrest beginning about when I was about 16 I was
praying and waiting upon the Lord and supping with Him before
I ever knew what the meaning of any of these things were. (In other words I
was blindly led to these very things as a young lamb by the
Spirit of God.) On Sundays I used to stay in church all day. And would pray and wait upon the Lord (Unseen by men) in the time between to morning and evening services (This would be for
about a five hour span).
Sometime
after I arrived at Pinecrest I took over the first year classroom
nightly from 7 pm until 1-2- and 3 in the morning. Sadly with
all the students that were in the school at that time from 1976-1981
there was no competition for finding places to pray. (Now this was not
always so because Billy Welker and Bob Lake testified that when
they were students, there were a number of students that nightly
sought to pray, wait, and intercede unto the Lord for hours
at a time, [And of all of those students that did so they were
markedly different, they were met by the Lord, and received
impartation in their souls and spirits.]) After a time I began to have great spiritual manifestations
of the Lord in that classroom, with only my being there and the Lord.
As this anointing and presence built to the place that waves
and billows could be physically felt rotting through this classroom
at night, I went eventually and got two students of like heart
and like spirit to come and share this personal and private
visitation that I had received so graciously of the Lord. A
God then manifested himself to us nightly as they joined my
for several hours a night, we worshipped we prayed we cried
out we rode these waves and billows together until they graduated
and moved on in the Lord.
For
one to assume that they can only meet God in Church. Or in a
prayer meeting, or in a fellowship – is wrong. And against the
Commandments of Jesus Christ in how we are to pray and seek
God.
Matthew 6:5-6 And when
thou prayest, thou shalt not be as
the hypocrites are: for they love to pray (Sing and worship)
standing in the synagogues (In their church meetings) and in the corners of the streets, (And their being
bent over their pews and curled up in the corners and aisles) that they may be seen of men. Verily I say unto you,
They have their reward. (They have all that they will receive of the
Lord for doing so.)
But thou, when thou prayest, enter
into thy closet, (Greek Bedchamber
– either by yourself or with your spouse) and when thou hast shut thy door, pray to thy Father which is in secret;
and thy Father which seeth in secret
shall reward thee openly.
To not pray and worship and waiting upon the Lord in secret
as your primary source of your
personal relationship with Him is to utterly defraud yourself
and rob yourself – of the immeasurable benefits of entering
into the most important, most sacred, most vital, and most personal,
part of your relationship with Jesus Christ that has been afforded
you.
Luke 3:21 Now
when all the people were baptized, it came to pass, that Jesus also being baptized, and praying,
the heaven was opened,
Mark 1:35 And
in the morning, (Jesus) rising up
(Alone) a great while before day, He went out, (From among his disciples)
and departed into a solitary place, and there prayed.
Luke 5:16 And
He (Jesus) withdrew Himself into the wilderness, and prayed.
Matthew 14:23 And
when He (Jesus)
had sent the multitudes away, He went up into a mountain
apart to pray: and when the evening was come, He was there (Praying worshipping,
and waiting upon the Father) alone.
Luke 9:18 And
it came to pass, as He (Jesus) was
alone praying, his disciples were with him: (Acting as spectators and not praying) and He asked them, saying, Whom say the people that
I am?
Matthew 26:36-38 (Here
spiritually most of ourselves can find ourselves in our own
in effective and empty prayer lives if we can open our eyes
to see.) Then cometh Jesus with them unto a place called Gethsemane, and saith unto the disciples, Sit ye here, while I go and pray yonder. And He took with Him Peter
and the two sons of Zebedee, (James and John)
and began to be sorrowful and very heavy. Then saith he
unto them, My soul is exceeding sorrowful,
even unto death: tarry ye here, (Stay here with Me as long as it takes) and watch (Wait and Pray to the Father) with me. (The simple fact in this passage is that the three apostles
that had the most intimate personal relationship with Jesus
– after all they had seen and heard had not on their own developed
anything near the kind of prayer relationship with the Father,
so that in the hour of need they could not even intercede along
with Christ.)
I pray that you would earnestly
take heed to these words. Meditate on these things, and begin
to so make this a part of your life.