Drawing God Near Series

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I. Preparation Through Humility and Repentance

Let’s look at how Daniel prepared to enter this time of intense prayer

Daniel 9:3

So I turned my attention to the Lord God to seek him by prayer and petitions, with fasting, sackcloth, and ashes.

Daniel doesn’t casually stroll into God’s presence; he approaches with reverence and humility.

In essence, Daniel is modeling what the bible says the Hebrew high priest went through so that he could minister before God for the nation of Israel.

In Leviticus Chapter 16, it gives the long process that the High Priest had to follow to prepare himself to go into the Holy of Holies. Here is a brief synopsis of that preparation-

Ritual bathing of his entire body

Don sacred clothing in a very precise order

Offering a bull as a sin offering for himself

Prepare two goats- one for sacrifice, and one to carry the sins of the people away from the camp (scapegoat).

Take a censer of burning coals from the altar with two handfuls of incense and cloud up both the Holy Place and The Holy of Holies so he wouldn’t be exposed to the Glory of God.

Then and only then could he bring the blood sacrifice forward and atone for the sins of his people.

That’s a lot, but it shows how serious God takes it when we are going to come close to him. A person taking on the role of an intercessor should do something similar in preparing their hearts for a close encounter with God.

Daniel does this by-

Fasting, sackcloth, and ashes—these are symbols of mourning and repentance.

Before you think- this is way to intense for me- I’m tapping out, this isn’t for me-

Jesus has done much of the ritual cleansing for us. However, we can pull from this some things that are useful for our prayer life.

One of the things is fasting.

Fasting helps bring our fleshly existence under the control of our spirit. It expresses our seriousness in bringing every part of our lives under the control of the HOLY SPIRIT.

Throughout biblical history, people would fast before and during times of intense prayer.

Moses fasted before receiving the 10 Commandments,

Esther fasted before she went into see the king to appeal for the safety of the Jews.

Jesus HIMself fasted for 40 days before beginning his ministry.

Many times, people in the bible would go so far as to don sackcloth- like a burlap sack that would be uncomfortable and throw ashes on themselves as a sign of deep remorse and repentance of known sin.

Illustration-

To illustrate the reason why a person would prepare themselves for this time of intense prayer and fellowship with God can be seen this way-

Imagine a farmer planting seeds without tilling the soil and then returning a few months later and finding an empty field. Does he have a right to be disappointed that his work didn’t produce anything?

No, the soil needed to be prepared before the seed was sown.

So it is with intercession. This is why this preparation time is so important- it removes the distractions of life so we can hear God’s voice and share in HIS presence. Preparation positions us to hear from God and to share his deep secrets. Preparation time is meant to humble us, and create a desperation for HIM and HIS presence- showing that we want HIM more than anything on this earth.