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How do you pray for the glory of God?
It’s more than just putting “for your glory” in your prayers… what’s the essence of it?
I want to do a survey right now
• Everyone stand. I want you to think of a number – the # of minutes that you spend each day in prayer in an AVERAGE DAY. Let’s say over the last 6-12 months, what do you think would be the average. Don’t be too hard on yourself, but don’t be too easy either… GOT A NUMBER? RAISE YOUR HAND if you have one in mind.
• Ok, if you spend less than 5 minutes per day
• If you spend less than 15 minutes per day
• If you spend less than 30 minutes per day
• If you spend less than 45 minutes per day
• If you spend less than 60 minutes per day,
• If you spend less than 120 minutes (2 hours) per day, sit.
• OK, everyone sit.
If you looked around and thought – O, good, I’m above average, you missed the point.
MY JOURNEY:
I am passionate about reaching lost people. I pastor a Bible Methodist Church in a lower-income area of Oklahoma City. It’s a place where the helicopter circles more than once a week, with its spotlight shining down. . . a place where my neighbor across the street is doing six years in prison because he had way too many drugs and $6,000 in cash in his bureau drawer the night the police raided his house. . . the neighbor next to him is far more well-off financially, but we had to call an ambulance a few months ago when he passed out in his driveway from a marijuana reaction. You get the picture.
Church grew… from 20 to 70. Maybe I got busy, maybe I got careless. Maybe it was when my first or second child was born. Don’t really remember.
Somewhere in there, I stopped focusing on prayer as I should.
Then it “grew” like a bar of soap. For the next 2 years, back down to 40.
I began getting desperate.
God was setting me aside to teach me some lessons. I set aside a lot of time for reading and soul-searching.
God taught me about entire sanctification on deeper level, reading “Holiness and Power” by AM Hills.
Then he started teaching me about prayer.
Our church got desperate. We began to focus more on prayer.
We had a prayer revival, no speakers… just prayer.
We began spending every other Wednesday night in prayer, and still do.
We began seeking God’s face.
And so, I am speaking to you today not as someone who has all the answers – I’m just a young, dumb kid who God is taking on a journey into prayer, and I want to share with you one of the three passages I’ve been living in for the last year.
Luke chapter 11…
Luke 11:5 And he said unto them, Which of you shall have a friend, and shall go unto him at midnight, and say unto him, Friend, lend me three loaves;
6 For a friend of mine in his journey is come to me, and I have nothing to set before him?
Now, let me stop here and say, when I read this over a year ago during my soul-searching time, I was immediately struck by those words “in his journey”… every Sunday, I have people come to me who life has brought on a long journey.
There’s a teenager who helped steal a car at age 12… and wrecked it. The police were not impressed. He’s awaiting trial… he comes on a long journey.
There’s the tall African-American guy who prayed to be saved at our Christmas service and is battling a marijuana addiction. Two weeks ago, his cousin killed his ex-girlfriend and their two kids before taking his own life. Two months ago, another cousin was gunned down in a shooting. He sits in church, and he’s come to me on a long journey!
And the problem is, I can’t give them what they need.
My cupboards are empty.
And so, I do what this man did – I run to a friend who I think will help. And I say, “God, you’ve got to save this person… you’ve got to pour out your grace and change their mind and their heart! You’ve got to save them!! They’ve come to me on a long journey, and I CAN’T give them what they need!”
7 And he from within shall answer and say, Trouble me not: the door is now shut, and my children are with me in bed; I cannot rise and give thee.
And God says “NO.” I don’t like this at all, in the human. If God would let me erase one verse in the bible, this might be the one.
WHY does he say no?
Is it because he doesn’t love us? Doesn’t care?
Is it because it is not his will to save?
NO ---- it is something else.
Sometimes God answers NO to see what will happen IN US!
Let’s look at it next.
8 I say unto you, Though he will not rise and give him, because he is his friend,
Don’t miss that… there are some prayers God will not answer for you because you are a Christian…. There are some prayers God WILL NOT ANSWER because you are a member of the holiness movement, or even the CHM, or because you’re a Bible Methodist or Pilgrim holiness or God’s Missionary!
So what will make God answer?
yet because of his importunity he will rise and give him as many as he needeth.
What is importunity?
Importunity is an attitude of audacious persistence.
What kind of idiot do you have to be to stay and knock again.
What would you think of me if I knocked on your door at 2 am and asked for a loaf of bread, and you said, “Not now.” And I WOULDN’T LEAVE?
IMPORTUNITY is born in a desperate, self-empty desire to see God glorified in answering your prayers. To have importunity, you have to be conscious that your cupboards are bare!
One of the most important things about your prayer life is WHAT YOU DO AFTER GOD SAYS NO.
Sometimes:
God says no because it is not his will. We understand that.
God says no because it would hurt us. I understand that.
BUT SOMETIMES, God says NO because he is watching to see if an attitude of faith-filled importunity will rise up in our hearts. He says no to test us and see if we GROW under the rejection and delay…
What would YOU do if you went an knocked at a friends door and asked them for something at midnight… and they said NO?
“Oh… Ok, sorry to bother!” Probably.
There is a lot of difference between praying for the convenience of me, and praying for the glory of God.
Here is how we pray for the glory of God: If what you are asking is to the glory of God, don’t stop asking until he gives it!
MY DETERMINATION: I will stand here and knock until my knuckles bleed…. I’m NOT LEAVING!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Someone is thinking right now, “What about submission in prayer? What about ‘not my will but thine be done?’”
Charles Finney says, “Let us be careful not to confuse submission to the will of God with indifference to the will of God. No two things were ever more unlike.”
He tells the story of man who came to a revival, and when “he heard the people praying as though they could not be denied, he was shocked, and kept insisting on the importance of praying with submission, when it was plain that he confused submission with indifference.”
Praying as though they could not be denied!
Submission is what happens when God’s will is revealed to be something else. This is what Jesus did in the garden – in the human he wanted to not have to go through the suffering and separation from his Father… but God revealed his will, and Jesus said, “Not my will, but thine be done.”
Submission is what happened to David when he prayed and fasted for days for his child from Bathsheba… and when it died, he submitted, got up and ate.
I’m afraid that too much of our submission has been closer to indifference. I’m afraid that’s why we don’t see God moving powerfully, healing, saving, answering… because we don’t care enough to be importunate in our prayers!
If you will get an attitude of determination with God that says, “I’m not leaving!” I’ll stand here until I die if I must, but I won’t quit praying and asking… then one of these days, let me tell you what will happen:
The bedsprings will creak, and footsteps will cross the floor, the doorknob will turn, and God will fling the door wide open.
And I have an idea that he'll say, "OH....... I was HOPING YOU WOULDN'T LEAVE.... everyone else gives up so easily. Sometimes I say no -- not to reject you, but to separate the men from the boys. To separate those who WANT it from those who don't really care, those who give up from those who don't -- and so FEW STAY AND ASK!!!!"
What about you?
What if we all agreed that we would double our personal prayer time?
What if we repented of giving up too easily in prayer, even on things that we KNOW are the will of God?
What if we NEVER gave up until we received?
Struggling with chemo, not enough energy to do much.
Contacted me on Facebook, asked me if I had anything he could pray about.
a few days ago, he messaged me on facebook.
"Just found out for sure that the doctors have done everything they can for me, and I have been sent home to die unless God completely heals me. I just wanted to let you know I will pray for your requests until God takes me."
I have no words.
I'm humbled.
