Prayer

A Life Changing Experience

It's a joy to know there's a wonderful power in prayer. In our last lesson, we dealt with the power of prayer, and I want to share right now with you that personal prayer is the way to go forward.

Prade Hyde was going as a missionary to India. And somebody wrote him a letter, "Are you surrendered to God?" He said, "of course I am, I'm going out as a missionary." And God began to deal with him, "are you really dependent? Do you really look to Me for everything? Or are you just going out as a missionary to instruct the heathen?"

And he got so convicted about this, he got down, he said "Lord, I want to make a personal surrender. I'm giving you my life like a bank book, just fill in what you want, and I will sign." And from that day, he found, as he surrendered to God, God gave him tremendous power. And that year, God promised him he would have a soul saved everyday, and that is actually happening.

And I thank God now he's doing the same through praying people.

I've just come back from Singapore, this last year. Seven souls have been saved every single day in the churches there as they have prayed. God has been doing fantastic things as people personally pray.

Obviously, Jesus had this life of prayer. The disciples asked Him in Luke 11, when he was praying in a certain place, "Lord, teach us to pray, just as John taught his disciples." In response, Jesus gave the teaching that we know as the Lord's prayer.

Prayer is essentially a conversation. And in this, I believe, we should let the Lord Jesus guide us. Our Lord's model prayer does not begin with "Give us this day our daily bread, help us meet our needs." Instead, it starts with "Our Father which art in heaven, thy will be done".

In personal prayer, divine direction is given, and this is vital when we begin to pray. We need to ask God to teach us how to pray.

Now as I have looked in the word of God, the Lord has shown us certain principles. First, I believe the place of guidance has to be with God. Our power and our peace depend on our praying the right prayer at the right time. I have personally got great help from Isaiah 48:17 "Thus saith the Lord thy God, thy redeemer, the Holy One of Israel, I am the Lord thy God which teacheth thee to profit, and leadeth thee by the way that thou shouldest go, thou must hearken to My commandments, thy peace would have been as a river, thy righteousness as the waves of the sea".

We were in Scotland, where they make Baxter's soup. We'd been to the town, and I tried to hire a hall. I asked, "how much is the hall?"

"Ah, Mr. Gerner, sure, it's only 28 pounds" came the reply.

I only had 28 pence. So I turned to my friend and said, "I think we made a mistake somewhere."

He said, "we did, we made our plans, and asked God to bless them. I think it's time we found out God's plan, and prayed according to His will." And as we prayed, God gave us the impression to go back to the town and to see the bridge there. And as we looked at the bridge, a man approached us and said, "I have a problem, I have two halls booked but no preachers." Well, we had an answer to his problem in answer to prayer. And it was our joy to see two people accept the Lord Jesus that same night.

So, we must let God do the praying, not make the plans and pray ourselves. We find very often God will lead us in our praying. Our planning is fruitless unless we first ask God what He wants, and where He wants us to be. Proverbs 3:6 is a key to understanding this priciple. It says, "In all thy ways acknowledge Him and He shall direct they paths". Also see Ecclesiastes 11:9 .

Don't just pray, 'God bless my plans." Let's find His plans! Let's not find judgment, but blessing. Our praying must be directed by the Holy Spirit. In Romans 8:26, God says "the Spirit helps our infirmities, we do not know what we should pray for as we ought, but the Spirit himself makes intercession for us, with groanings which cannot be uttered."

And so, coming into the wonderful experience of being baptized and filled with the Spirit, I have found a new prayer language, and this has enabled me to pray beyond my understanding with my spirit.

I've noticed here in Leek, as in Malaysia, there are two kind of drivers: the quick and the dead. If I'm going to pray when I'm driving, I can't close my eyes. If I'm praying in English, it involves my mind. But instead I pray in this wonderful language that God has given me by the Spirit. And as I do, I watch the traffic and I pray at the same time. So I'm praying as I'm driving, praying as I am doing other things. And therefore, my understanding is unfruitful, but my spirit is praying, I'm praying supernaturally into the will of God.

Actually God promises this to His people and as He says in Psalm 32:8, :I will instruct thee, and teach thee in the way you should go, I will guide you with My eyes." Wonderful! Let's watch the eyes of God.

Don't let's be mule-ish, but let's be wise, and surrender. Also, and this is Proverbs 3:6, "if we acknowledge Him in all our ways, He will direct our paths." So as we acknowledge Him, God will lead us in what we are to do.

Sometimes, when I'm looking at a person, I get critical and instead of looking at God, I'm looking at man. A Baptist pastor had a very expensive car. I said, "Brother, you shouldn't have that car." And the Lord said very clearly to me, "you shouldn't judge this man." The Baptist pastor very graciously said to me, "I had a poor car, a poor church. But we had a lady, glad to say of it, who was a very great praying woman. And when my car wouldn't start, she laid her hands upon it, and said, 'Lord give him a new car, and make it a good one.'" He said "I used to be in BMC as a director, and I gave it up for the ministry. A couple of weeks later, my neighbor leaned across, and said, 'I've sold a couple of houses, I've got a several of thousand, go and get yourself a decent car, I'm sick of hearing you in the morning.' And I went back to my old firm in BMC and got myself a decent car." I felt really bad, because I judged the man when he gave up a fantastic job to go into the ministry.

We need to sanctify our heart's desire, and get rid of criticism. In fact, I find in Psalm 32:8, when he says I'll instruct you, there is another prophecy, and this is in Isaiah 58:9, "The Lord says if you take away from you, the midst of the yoke, the putting forth of the finger, the speaking of vanity, the criticism, then I will guide you, verse 11, continually, and satisfy your soul in drought. And so, when I got to the pastor and confessed that I had the wrong attitude, we had a lot of people come to Christ that night. If I serve others rather than point the finger at them in my prayer life, personal prayer can be radically blessed. In fact, too, in John 8:12, Jesus said, "I am the light of the world, he that follows me shall not walk in darkness, but have the light of life".

And I've found, as I follow Jesus, it's challenging. But my prayer, my personal prayer begins to change. There was a man named Woody Mullen, an old tramp in Ireland, a criminal. He was taken to a meeting and heard of the judgment of God, gave his life to the Lord behind a hedge. He got our his knife, and said, "Lord, I'll tell my gang I'm saved, and the first person to open his mouth, I'll slit his throat." And he looked up, and right above him was a trainer plane. And he saw the plane begin to crash. But the instructor had a double control, and took the plane out of the crash. And God said, "that's how it is in your life, trust Me." And he threw away the knife. And a big communist came at him, and he said, "I don't know what it is, but Jesus has come in." And two big tears came down the face of his mate, this communist. And he said, "I don't know what it is, but you have got something I haven't." He threw out the gang, and God answered Woody's prayer. And he had the biggest bible teaching center in Northern Ireland for many long years. Why? Because he followed Jesus! Not man, not his own ideas, he followed Jesus.

And frankly, I believe God asks for blind obedience.

In Isaiah 42:19, He says, "who is blind but my servant? Deaf as my servant? Who is blind as he who is perfect?" The Lord wants us in prayer, to move as He leads us, in obedience to His prompting. When for instance, Elijah faced a problem, he got the people together. In 1 Kings 18:30, he says, "Come near to me." He repaired the altar of the Lord. Our prayer life needs to be repaired.

People say I don't have time for prayer. It's the importance that you attach to prayer which is the key that makes the time possible. In 1 Kings 18:33, "He put the wood in order, cut the bullock in pieces, laid it on the wood, filled four barrels with water, poured it on the burnt sacrifice, did it the second time, and the third time, and then, at the time of the evening offering, God's fire came down from heaven." But this is what he says, "I, thy servant, have done all things at thy word." God had told him what to pray, he had been in the secret place, before he went into the public place. And as he obeyed what God told him in the secret place, God honored him with the moving of the nation.

So it was, we prayed for Ireland. And God said "I want you to get people together." And Catholics and protestants came together in 1973. And 40 dear catholic priests and nuns had visions of Christ, and were wonderfully changed. And before that year was out, five million bibles had penetrated the whole south of Ireland. God answers prayer, if we let Him guide us in prayer.

What are the prerequisites, then, of a prayerful guidance? I believe there are certain conditions as individuals, we need to fulfill.

First, Luke 11:34, "the light of the body is the eye, when your eye is single, your whole body is full of light." Our aim in prayer is single, for the glory of God.

If you've seen the film, Chariots of Fire, you know a wonderful Christian runner refused to run on Sunday. Even though the nation was pressing him. But when he ran on Monday, he got a glorious thing, a wonderful race, completely first, because God had given him a word, "those who honor Me, I will honor."

So in prayer, it's not personal advantage, or men's praise, or self glory that is our motivation. Our aim is the glory of God.

And that brings us to the second thing, I believe we must surrender to the Father's will. In John 5:30, Jesus says, "I can of mine own self do nothing". And as I watched Jesus in the garden, I don't see that His free will was extinguished, He chose to do the Father's will. He was willing to be made willing.

In Luke 22:42, he says, "Father, if Thou be willing, remove this cup from Me, nevertheless, not My will, but Thine be done".

We still have our own will, but in prayer, we adjust our will to the will of God. After that, when they all came to arrest him, they all fell to the ground, because the glory of God was made manifest in the garden.

And that brings me to the third thing, in Psalm 119:105, "Thy word is a lamp unto my feet, and a light unto my path". God's will is revealed in His word, and that's provided for us, so that we can pray in scripture. But we must ask in faith, without wavering like the sea that goes up and down in James 1:6, "if you waver, like the waves of the sea, you can't expect to receive." You've got to be sure, definitely, that God is going to do something. And in fact, in Psalm 37:23, the word says "the steps of a good man are ordered by the Lord, and He delights in his way."

So sometimes, God may test you by delays, He may not show you the whole future, but as you keep on obeying and patiently praying and waiting, everything begins gradually to open up.

You may say, "Keith, this is wonderful, but how do I get this personal means of guidance?" I have found four main ways that God has blessed me over the last 35 years. God guides, first of all, through the gifts of the Holy Spirit. In John 13:16, "when the Spirit of Truth has come, He will guide you into all truth."

When we went to Australia last year, God said, "you must pray, because you are going to be in a life-and-death situation." And while my wife was in a house, all her rings were stolen. If she had seen the burglar, she would have been murdered. But, we're alive, because we prayed, and friends prayed. And God warned us through spiritual gifts. And this year, thank God, He has restored all that the devil had stolen.

But secondly, in Isaiah 30:21, "thy ears shall hear a word behind thee, this is the way to walk in, walk ye in it." So we're going forward, and suddenly we go wrong, and hear the voice of God. When my wife was going to marry me, she was reading the scripture, and an audible voice came to her. The voice said, "this is for you." And she read, very clearly, in Micah 4 "you go into the field, and there I will deliver you." And she knew not only she was called to me in marriage, but called to the work of God. And so, when we're going back now in our marriage, we go back to the scripture. We know our marriage was placed upon a solid foundation, the written word of God.

Third, in Acts 15:24, we were assembled in one accord, and God sent chosen men. Not only spiritual gifts, and the special voice of God or the scriptures, but God will give us spiritual friends. When I find a unanimous decision, where we pray together, makes a tremendous difference, one can chase a thousand says the bible, two can chase ten thousand.

Sometimes, too, I find in prayer, that God will arrange a certain set of circumstances, so for instance, Saul was looking for his father's donkeys, and they went through the land, and his servant said, there is a man of God in this town, let's go seek him, and perhaps he shall tell us. God will lead us by "Divine Coincidence," or by arranging our circumstances for us.

Finally, God has put in the church prophetic people. He has put in the church people that pray and hear regularly from the Lord. And I thank God for this. Thank God, that in personal prayer, when I am making a personal decision, we have such people. I have a prophet friend that I consult when I am seeking specific direction from the Lord. For instance, I asked this man, "we want to buy a house, what do we do?" He said, "Well, I've seen a green light, and I've seen a certain figure, and I believe that's what the house is going to cost you, and you should go ahead." After personally praying into this word, I said "please Lord, I want to look at this house, and I want my friend to help me." And so, I went to that personal means of guidance and friendship. And a local leading pastor came and took me to a house and said "this is beautiful, this is the right house for you. In fact," he said, "you don't have the money, God has shown me this, I'll loan you a thousand pounds on the spot. You go down to the bank and get the rest." I said, "I'm living by faith, I don't have any regular income." "Look," he said, "give them my name." I didn't understand this. And I prayed. I tell you, when I went to the bank. I said, "Bank manager, I got a little bit of money. I've been loaned a thousand, and this man told me to give you his name. He's just said I could use his name to come to you." "Well," he said, "Keith, I tell you this, I wouldn't give you the money. But this man is the brother of the Lord Mayor of Belfast! He's a professional house buyer! Last time the bank had a problem, the directors got down on their knees and begged the man to keep his account!" He said, "I daren't offend him, you better have that house."

And so, last two or three years ago, we sold it for ten times what we paid for it, when God provided it, because where God guides, He provides.

And if God is telling you to pray, and God is telling you to move, then you'll find the personal means of guidance, the personal prayer that God is bringing to you will be vital. If God shows you what to, He will provide you with the means to do it. It is much better to get His direction and empowerment than to pray our own agenda and ask Him to bless our own plans. If we ask God, He will be happy to show us how we ought to pray. So, let's make it our lifestyle to ask Him.