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

Now then, another thing. Brothers and sisters, I can declare to you tonight that you have not come into the fullness, and you are going to come into the fullness of this matter of lifting the Scripture to the Lord in prayer. I know that you’re doing this in the mornings, but there is so much more of this. If there were not, I would leave it, but I say to you, there is so much more.

In the mornings when you’re together with a couple of brothers, David starts off, “As the hart pants after the water brooks”, and he is saying something to the Lord about that, and I’m thinking I’ve got the next line, and Paul’s got for that line…” My tears have been my meat day and night.” What does that mean? I don’t even know what this brother is talking about. I’m trying to figure out where I’ll read.

Or maybe I’m really standing with this brother, this brother, and this brother, but now it’s my turn, and I know I’m here, and I look, and it’s something about Maschil…you remember him? I’m probably never going to talk about him. Okay. So I skipped that verse. I’m going just to drop it out, and I’ll come to the next verse. I come here and say, “Why are you cast down, oh my soul?” You’ve got verse 4, and I’ve got verse 5. So I’ll just skip that. Verse 6, “My soul is cast down within me. Deep calls unto deep…what does that mean? Yet the Lord will command his lovingkindness.” I’ll take that.

Sisters and brothers, do you think the word or eat the word? Tell me when the light was turned on, before the priest ate the word, or after he ate it. You don’t remember what this means, “Why art thou cast down? This brother just got verse 4: With a multitude that kept the holy day. Along comes Mike, and I’m jealous of Mike, and he says, “Oh, Lord, I join in joy and praise. Lord, I joy in you right now. Praise the Lord, I’m with the multitude. I’m keeping the holy day. Hallelujah.” And I’m just glaring at you. Mike is always lucky. I got “Why art thou cast down, oh my soul.” Brothers, forget about what you were going to have to come here with. You just stand with Mike, and when you say, “Why art thou cast down, oh my soul,” eat it. Just eat it. If you do not sense something, if there is no enlightenment, eat it anyway. It will be bitter in your mouth and sweet in your stomach. That’s a scripture, in case you didn’t know.

Say it! “Why art thou cast down, oh my soul?” And about that time, the light is going to turn on. “Hallelujah! It’s not cast down! Praise the Lord! The Lord died for my soul. My soul is saved. I’ve been lifted up with the Lord, and I’m with him.” Do you think you have to go along with that verse? You can say, “Poor David was cast down. I’m not cast down. I don’t live in the days of David. David lived in the day of the soul. I live in the day of the Spirit. Brothers and sisters, don’t you stand with any scripture in the Bible that is down.

After the resurrection of Jesus Christ (this is something the Lord showed me when I was very young as a Christian, and it has stayed with me many times), can you find anywhere in the New Testament where anyone is pessimistic about anything? Now, stop and think about this. How would you like to be thrown in jail, and every church that you have raised up has got problems, and some of them have turned against you? They have utterly forsaken you and denied you as an apostle.  Caesar hath proclaimed that you’re going to be killed, and this decree is spreading throughout the whole earth. Would it not be time to seriously think that maybe this whole thing is going to crash and fall? You’re going to be dead in a few hours. You should go back and read Philippians, when Paul wrote Philippians from jail. What a passage of Scripture. “If there be anything of good report, any worthwhile for it, any joy, any love, think on these things.”

When he came down to his last days on earth, read 2 Timothy. “Well, Timothy, after all these years, and now look. Caesar is out against me. I have a church. Nobody stood with me. Only Luke was here, and the only reason he was here was that he figured he had to stay with his patient until he died. Everybody has turned against me, Timothy. Things are looking pretty bad.” Go back and read 2 Timothy. Try to find pessimism after the resurrection. Down, but not out. Despair of life, but God, who raises the dead, is sufficient. In troubles often, but the Lord preserves you.

Strike off a negative cord, and then make it sing with a positive cord. Read 2nd Corinthians and watch Paul talk about some desolate thing. Hungry, never starved to death. Sick, but never dead. Can you find negatives? Is there a place in the church for negatives? For the defeated? There’s no place in the Christian life for it.

What are you going to do next Sunday when a brother or sister comes in all defeated? “Oh, man, it’s been such a hard week.” Are you going to write him a letter without signing your name? Let him be where he is. I’m not at this moment declaring that there should be nothing negative in the church here in Goleta, but I am saying to you that there should be nothing negative in the church. But we all have our days. If someone does, don’t throw a rotten apple at him. On the other hand, realize it’s not your heritage.

When you come to pray tomorrow morning, really bright and early, and you come to a passage of Scripture, here is how to pray together with the Scripture. Whatever passage you choose, jump in. One of you read something. If you don’t have anything else to say, read it to the Lord…not to the brothers and the sisters. Read it to the Lord. If no light comes on, fine. Maybe another sister gets some light that you didn’t get. Someone eats the bread, and the Lord turns the light on someone else. If no light turns on, are you going to sit there and wait? Silence is your deadly enemy in praying. Don’t you dare wait. Pray whatever is next in the scripture. Pray it to the Lord. No light comes on. Alright, the third sister has to pray. Pray the third thing. Just in a moment, the light is going to turn on for someone, and you’re going to pray the light to the Lord. And then another sister will see the light that the other sister saw.

Don’t stop just because you’re struck with a poor scripture. Offer it up to the Lord, and if something comes, OK; if not, great. But your prayer meeting should move so quickly. You should be in there, just offering up to the Lord, right and left. Then you get the brother who quietly mumbles. Brother, you can’t pray like that. We don’t know what you’re praying. Corinthians forbids anybody from praying in an unknown tongue, for the edification of others. Your mumbling won’t help us a bit. If you can’t do any better than that, say, “surely every man walketh in a vain show.” Amen. Then, someone else has got to say, “Surely they are displayed in vain.” Okay, nothing there. “And now Lord my hope is in Thee.” Hallelujah, Lord. I’m not going to wait for vain things. Lord, my hope is not going to be in…Lord, today I was thinking about a new suit, and I don’t know where to get a new suit. I don’t have to look pretty for people. Hallelujah! My hope is in you, Lord. Maybe that’s what the case is that day. You get a light.

Okay, some other sister didn’t need to get a new suit, so she has to go to the next verse. “Deliver me from my transgressions. Oh, Lord, I’ve sinned.” Now, what are you going to say? Hallelujah, Lord, are you going to deliver me? Hallelujah, Lord, deliver me?  Hallelujah, I am delivered! Can you not see the difference? Do you not know that you’re delivered? It’s not in the future, it’s not a request, it’s not asking. It’s the reality of what is in Christ.