Prayer: What It Is—and What It Isn’t | Discover How Christ Prays Within You

Have you ever been strong and touched the Lord? Now you know what you were at. When you are strong and touch the Lord, the blending comes. Have you ever put an avocado and an egg in a blender and turned it on? You have an egg-avocado. You’ve got something that’s been completely homogenized. Now that you’ve got something homogenized. The cream and the milk are no longer separate. They are one. They shall be as God.

We have talked about this before, but I feel burdened to say it again. You sometimes pray, but at this very moment, it is the nature of Christ to pray. The Lord Jesus Christ is never ceasing in praying in you. “I will pour out the spirit of grace and supplication.” Who is speaking? God! And how does God get himself into you? Transported by the Spirit. And what comes into you? The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ. God the Father, as the very essence of love, turns Himself into Spirit so that he can be transported. He transports Himself into you as the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ. And that grace of Christ, who is Christ, naturally prays. It is the nature of Christ to supplicate. You can say He is at the right hand of God, praying for you, but Romans 8 and Galatians 4 say He is in your heart, too. He, by his nature, is praying in you.

You have your own spirit. You have your own spirit, the human spirit. The human spirit cries out, “Father.” Who else cries out, “Father?” There is one other person who can cry out, “Father.” There are only two people who can cry out, “Father.” The Lord Jesus Christ can cry out Father. Before you were saved, you could not call God “Father.” The only way God can be your Father is to have His Life. Now, Jeff, you could never have your own human father’s name without having his life. The only way he can be your father is for him to give you his life. Now you can say, “Father” because you have God’s Life. Your spirit cries out, “Father.” The Lord Jesus Christ is in you, praying all the time.

Now, what is human prayer? We’ve moved completely…what is religious prayer? What does it sound like? You say, “Lord, help me.” And you say, “Lord, give me…” Those are terms that just… they’ve got to go. Amen. They’ve got to go. Lord, help me, and Lord, give me. I can give you a guarantee…a money-back guarantee, that God will never help you. In the Old Testament, you say, “God is my help.” Praise the Lord, brothers and sisters. God is your help. But for the New Testament Christian, He is your Life. Why should you say, “God help me?” Is that, “God is my help?” No, that is, “God is my helper.” “God is my servant, and He is my rescuer.” “Lord, I’m in a mess now, help me.” Now, I’d better be careful. There are a few times when you will really pray in the Spirit, “Lord help me,” but you won’t pray it often.

If you really pray much in the other Life, you will not often say, “God help me.” And you will almost never say, “God give me.” You will make very few requests, and they will be so serious, and they will be something that you will really feel the church needs to join you in because it’s a serious matter. I don’t know.  Because I’m not here much, I don’t know if there are times when someone says, “Will you all pray for my mother?” Or “will you all play for my sister?” I just got news so and so. Please leave that to the little group and for yourself alone. If you have to do it, do it then. Don’t do it in the meeting. I don’t know if you do. Probably you don’t. I don’t know. I’ve never been around to see. Now, if it’s this really urgent matter, you know what an urgent matter is. I brought up a matter in the meeting the last time I was here. They were going to have an operation in Guam for Jim Jr. to save his leg, and it was going to take place the next day. By the way, I’m sure you all got the report we sent down that Jim’s leg was saved. I felt that was a serious matter, and I had no place to turn to. You were my church at that time because I was here with you. Well, you understand what I’m saying. God is not ever going to help you. Sandy, the Lord never helped you. “Lord, help me not to lose my temper.” I give you a money-back guarantee: in the next 30 minutes, you’re going to blow. That is not the Lord’s way.

Alright, the other one is, “Lord, give me,” or “Lord, I want.” Do you not realize that God is in you? Do you not realize that Christ is IN you? I don’t mean…I’m not speaking spiritually. In a practical way, who knows better what you need? You or the Lord? I’m not saying He knows what you need and you don’t. I mean, if you’re sitting there with a need that’s basic and has to be met, well, He knows it better than you do. Do you not know that God is in you?

The Lord Jesus settled this in Matthew once and for all. “Behold the lilies. They don’t toil, they don’t spin, but did Solomon ever look that pretty? Behold the birds, they don’t worry, and they don’t stress, but My Father feeds them.”

I’ve been so tempted to ask the Lord for things, and praise the Lord, sometimes I just have to do it, so I do. But I know better. When I was without a job, when I first moved to California, remember, this is a part of my life that most of you are not familiar with. I used to go out for interviews. Sometimes there would be a hundred people who applied, and maybe there was only one position, and they would get it down to 25, then to five. Each time, they would call fewer back for the next visit. Lots of times, I got down to the five-group, and sometimes I was down to one or two out of maybe a hundred people who had filled out applications. And I was going to go for that last interview when they would make their choice. Or maybe I had left the interview, and the choice was about to be made, and I’d come back to the house.

To show you the pressure of the thing…we had gone years without an income because I’d been in bed so long. Years. When I was an evangelist, I never dressed flashily, with one or two suits, not like most evangelists do, but I dressed well. I felt I had to. And through the years, I watched that beautiful wardrobe turn to thread. I had one suit left, the only suit I could wear for an interview. I wore that suit day and night for weeks and months…for a solid year while I looked for a job. Until, literally, in one interview I was sitting talking, I got up and the trousers ripped from one side to the other. I had to back out of the interview. I didn’t realize this was so funny. I’m not telling it to be funny at all. It was a little funny, sure. Well, my wife took the trousers, and she sewed them from one end to the other. Now, I have… I have pride, just as any other human does, and I knew I had fallen a long, long, long way down from where I had once been. It didn’t bother me because I had no desire to go back, but the situation was urgent, nonetheless. And no matter how much she sewed those trousers up, they would not stay sewn because of the material. The material was frayed and would tear again.

I want you to know, brothers and sisters, that I have been where some of you are now. I have come home and wanted to pray, “Oh Lord, please let me have that job.” I never did pray that prayer…not once. I’d come in and take my coat off, and I would sit down. I know exactly who the chair I would go to and I would sit down. I’d open my Bible, and maybe I’d read something, and I would groan with the one who groans within. And that’s all I could do. The Lord wouldn’t give me a single one of those jobs. Do you think I should have stopped looking? No. I had to look. The Bible says that “He who does not provide for his family is worse than an unbeliever.” I had to look, and if I hadn’t, the Lord could never worked out what he wanted because He kept eliminating. Finally, He got me right where He wanted me. Then there I had a marvelous revelation of what the Lord wanted me to do. I couldn’t believe it. I was supposed to teach school. That’s how I got into the school-teaching business. It never occurred to me to teach school.

Anyway, the Lord worked it out His way. I could not say to the Lord, “Lord, give me.” I had to pray with Him. We have to leave the lesser things. It is not that we come to the Lord and tell Him what we need. If there is anything in that area, it is to come to the Lord and find out what He wants. If there is any need…find out what the Lord’s need is.

The Spirit within us prays. What is the best prayer? What is real prayer? Brothers and sisters, if you could get anything about the nature of the Holy Spirit, what do you figure he is praying? Most of the time…the Lord is not legal either. What is he saying? Well, in a way, that might be true, but there is something even more than this. The Holy Spirit is praying something of Christ. Most of our prayer will be Christ. What do I mean? Do I mean, “O Lord Jesus, praise you, Lord Jesus. You are so sweet.” Well, yes, to a large degree. Amen. I don’t know, but some of you brothers said it tonight. When you come to share with one another, it’s not so much what you share, it’s the life you share it with. That ministers Christ Jesus.