How to Pray Scripture (Psalm 23) — A Deeper Christian Prayer Experience (July 1988)

Now, have I exaggerated? I have not exaggerated. The only thing is I have underexaggerated because very often he’s really praying this way. “Lord, we thank You, Lord, that You, Lord, are here, Lord. And we thank You that we are all here, Lord. And we thank You for Your help, Lord, and You’re our help, Lord. And thank You. And amen, Lord.” And he’s going at 90 miles an hour, afraid God’s going to catch up with him. I know this is true. I’ve been listening to prayer. By the way, Ros Rinker’s little book, Prayer Conversing with God, is really the only book I know in the English language other than that little book right up there to recommend to you. And it’ll teach you how to speak in Anglo-Saxon English to God, and He understands that almost as well as he does the King James version. All right, we’re going to leave. We’re going to leave the brother who’s saying, “Lord, Lord, Lord, Lord,” and we’re going to leave, when you put yourself in here and say, “Lord, You’re my Shepherd. I sure do need you. What do you mean, I don’t ever want?” And yes, and this morning, “Father, You are the Lord’s Shepherd, Lord Jesus, when you were on the earth, He you never wanted.” What an exalted way to deal with God, to sit there and praise Him and thank Him and tell Him what a wonderful Son He has and to tell the Son what a wonderful Father He has. Isn’t that glorious? Now let us step inside of Christ and let us move to an eternal place where we are not, or if we are, we are lost in Him. And let us listen to the reality of this prayer.

Do you remember that all things that are real are in the other realm? And that He gives His spirit without measure, and that you and I have been given every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places that are in Christ, and they’ve been given to us by our Father. You will not find me in this prayer, for I have stepped in; I have taken my rightful place in Christ.

Father, You are my Shepherd. I have no needs. I am at rest in You. Father, I drink of You there. I drink of You here. Father, You keep my soul. You are my path of righteousness. I face this day to glorify Your name and all this day wherever I walk. You’ll be my path, my righteousness, my God. You have glorified my name. My Father, I glorify Your name. Death’s shadow will fall upon me today in this place, this dreadful place. But I am not afraid, for You are in me. You have surrounded me, and I am in You. I will lean on You as my staff, and You will protect me with Your rod. This day is Yours, and I am going to feast on You today, Father. And I’m going to live by You this day. And my enemy will rage because You are my banquet. I am Your anointed one, and my spirit overflows with You. As long as I am on this earth, Your love and Your goodness is following me. And Father, I’m dwelling in You. And I look forward to the day when I return to You from whence I come, and I will dwell there forever and ever. Amen.

Now, that’s my Lord’s witness to His Father. Now, the blackboard’s been moved, but now, where did that take place? Where did that take place? It may have taken place on earth in Galilee somewhere. It may have taken place before the creation of the world, in anticipation of His coming here. I want to help you here if I may. A few months ago, Discover magazine put it on the front of their cover…I don’t know if any of you saw this magazine, or this particular cover, but it was the most interesting cover. It had these words on it. “One Way”, and under it, this symbol. Can you see that? “One Way” and under it was this statement: We can all remember our past, but according to Einstein’s theory of relativity, we should be able to remember the future, and there is no scientific explanation as to why we cannot remember the future. And there was a seven-page article thereafter in which scientists from all over the world, the most brilliant scientists in astrophysics, tried to explain and come up with a theory why we cannot remember the future, and they don’t know why we cannot remember the future. That sounds dumb to us that we couldn’t, but according to Einstein, we should be free to remember the future. Maybe we can’t, but if Einstein’s theory says we should be able to, does it not follow that God could remember the future? And in a way, that’s kind of what I’ve been talking to you a lot about this whole weekend.

My Lord not only remembers it; He’s been there. I like to move around inside Christ. I like to get inside of Him and move around. And this may not have a lot of meaning to you here until you do this; do it with another Christian – both of you get inside of Christ and go to the end of the ages. Stand at the last moment that will ever be. The only thing beyond it is eternity. Stand in the presence of that throng if you wish and listen to Jesus Christ give this crescendo of glory and praise to His Father.

Father, You were my shepherd. In all eternity and in all my time on earth, I never once had a need. Father, You are the greenness of my life; you never withered. You were my drink. You were my food. Father, You restored and protected my soul. You guided me in your own path to Your glory. Father, you did it. Death has passed. The valley is gone. There is no evil. There is only You. You may put away Your rod. Father, put away the staff. You have become comfort to me and to my redeemed. The enemy is gone; there’s nothing left but the banquet table, and I and all of mine are anointed with You. Our cup has become our Father. You are goodness. You are loving kindness. The days have ended. Now, the loving kindness and goodness that is You, Father, is now our life. We have come to the end. I am going back into You. I am bringing in all the redeemed. Father, I am coming back into My house. You are my house, and now You shall be All in All. Father, I am coming back from whence I came, bringing the great parade of the redeemed within me. We shall dwell in You forever and forever and forever. Amen. Hallelujah.

That’ll beat any prayer you’ll ever pray. You do that sometimes with a brother, with a sister. Just stand in Christ. Go to the end of time and allow Your Lord to praise Your Father. Do not think you will not hear such an anthem of glory. One day, you will be there when He exalts His Father as the Father has exalted Him. Now then, here are some assignments. One thing I want to say to you is, please don’t get hung up on verses in the New Testament or the Old that you cannot handle. If you can’t handle it, go over it. Just skip it. I’m going to take Psalm three for just a moment. Let’s see what I can do with this. And I haven’t looked at it, and I hadn’t planned to do this. Brother Art has raised a challenge here for me. Yes. Oh, absolutely, Art. Absolutely. Art, this teaches me, this teaches me.

Father, my adversaries have increased. They rose against me. They said You would not deliver me, but Father, You were my shield. You lifted my head with Your glory. You heard me out of Your throne, and I rested in You, and Lord, I rose from the grave, and You were that which sustained me. I have not been afraid, and I will never be afraid. No matter what it is that has set itself against me or the people that You have given me. Father, You have arisen, and I have arisen in You. You have smitten my enemies. You have scattered them. Salvation belongs to me, and I shall bless Your people.

Glory. You’ve got to know where to put it, brother. Don’t get caught in time and space. If that won’t work in the past, move it to the future. If it won’t work in the future, move it to the present. It won’t work in the present; move it to the resurrection. You’ll find it, somewhere you’ll find your Lord in there exalting His Father. Have you noticed how little space we give to our Father in the Christian faith? And it’s not because we don’t want to; it’s because we don’t know how to, and we’re just not that close to Him. We feel much more comfortable with the Lord Jesus Christ. Now, is that not true? I believe for most of us, that’s true, but when we dare to step into Him, then we find how incredibly close He is to His Father.

Now, I want to just tell you one thing before I give you these little assignments, and that is, this has been the experience of so many, and this is not something that I started telling people; this is something people started telling me, and that is, you’ll meet someone else there besides the Father and the Son. Some of these days, you’re going to meet somebody else out there. There’s not supposed to be anyone else out there but Him, but you’ll meet someone out there. She’ll show up one of these days. You’ll just discover the Lord Jesus sometimes talking to His bride. Now then, I made a statement to you, and that statement was that you will never have an experience, but what Jesus Christ had first. I’m going to talk a little bit about that closely.

Here’s one of the things I want you to do. If we’re looking for assignments, I would like you to purchase the book, ‘The Autobiography of Jesus Christ’. It’s Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John put together, blended as one, and written in the first person. That’ll take care of four books in the New Testament. The Autobiography of Jesus Christ. You take that book and you find John 7, 8, 9, and 10, and you just start moving that around. You’ll hear the Lord talking to the Father in Galilee or in Judea, but you just take that and move it to eternity somewhere. Read it. Try to stay out of the reading of the Gospels. You read the Gospels, and you start reading about…and if they take your coat, give them the cloak also. And if he says go one mile, go two. And you say how am I going to do this? They slap my face; I’m supposed to turn my cheek. Forget you, saint. If I could give you any word of advice, it would be part of the slaying of our young people today: forget you, and remember that His Father once told Him, or He learned in eternity past in the face of God, that when they took His coat, He would give Him His cloak. When they slapped Him on one side of His face, He’d turn the other one. If you will forget yourself, if you will give up the obligation of your living the Christian life, forget the obligatory, forget you and start seeking to find His relationship with His Father. I am telling you that what you and I need is a touch of His Spirit, but it does not necessarily entail your presence, for that touch.

Can you follow that simple, simple thought? Get out of the picture as much as you humanly possibly can. I have been reading The Life of Christ in Stereo for, I guess, 10, 12 years now. Frankly, it’s about all the Bible study I do, and when I get to Atlanta, I will be preaching, and I think I’m all the way up to chapter nine of John in it, and I will be speaking on the Father and the Son’s relationship to one another. I’m going all the way through the life of Christ. Someday I’m going to publish a book; I don’t know whether it’s going to be this big or that big. It will be nothing but the story of the Lord’s relationship to His Father while He was on earth. As far as I’m concerned, that’s what I need to discover in order to understand the Christian life. Forget me and my praying and going to church and all that. Let me go back to the tap root. Let me go back to the genesis. Let me go back to the origins of things, and let me find how He lived by an indwelling Father, and I will learn a little bit about living by an indwelling Lord.