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PRAYING IN THE SPIRIT SERIES
REGULAR LONG HOURS OF PRAYER
We are going to touch on praying in long
stretches or keys to marathon prayer. We are not talking about marathon prayer
like 24 hours praise and worship or 48 hours of prayer. That is corporate
prayer. We are talking about individual prayer where you are praying for long
stretch let's say between eight to ten hours. And I am not talking about once
in a blue moon. I am talking about everyday for one year or two years. There is
need to have some principles. We have to have some teaching in that area in
case some of you are interested in that. Maybe you could apply those principles
to a week of that kind of prayer. Perhaps you can take off for two days and
concentrate on marathon prayer in your life. We need to apply some of those
principles so that we could continue and pursue in that which God placed on our
lives with the spirit of prayer.
Discipline
First of all as we go into marathon prayer
although God can supply the grace and God can supply the spirit of prayer, there
still need to be the physical part of discipline. You
never run away from that in all that we do. There is a part of us that needs to
make a decision and say we are willing and we want to form the habit of making
that kind of prayer
a part and parcel of our lives. And it
takes discipline.
For that point let's look at the life of
Daniel and see some of the rewards of his discipline in prayer. In the book of
Daniel chapter six it tells that when the king decree was given in the time of
the Medo Persian Empire that when the decree said
that no one was to pray or make request of anyone but the king himself, the
king was deceived himself. And he didn't realize that the law was going to
apply to Daniel in such a manner. But the book of Daniel tells us that in spite
of that decree in Daniel chapter six Daniel continue praying in verse ten. Now when Daniel knew that the writing was signed he went home.
And in his upper room with his windows opened towards
Notice in Daniel 7: 1 In
the first year of Belshazzar; now that is after Nebuchadnezzar death then
he saw that vision. Then in Daniel 8: 1 In
the third year of the reign of Belshazzar; again notice the timing. He is
an old man now. Then Daniel 9: 1 In the
first year of Darius the son of Xerxes. That is also when he was an old
man. Daniel 10: 1 In the third year of Cyrus
king of
Now when we began to pray long hours with God. And you give
your heart and mind to pray long hours with God. Definitely when you begin to
pray, you may not feel like praying. You still have the flesh to overcome
everyday. You still have to make the choice everyday. But because you are
adapted into a habit, it has entered into a realm of habit. It tells us it has
entered into the realm of custom in Daniel's life. Now the word custom in the
Hebrew refers to a habit and a ritual that is constantly practiced until now it
is like a subs-conscious thing. It's a thing that if you don't do you don't
feel comfortable. It has become a part and parcel of you. That's how much the
discipline of prayer has become a part of Daniel's life. So that not to pray
become more uncomfortable than to just keeps on with the habit. For most of us
we are probably talking about one or two hours or prayer a day. Even that needs
to become a habit with our lives. If you develop a solid habit you can't go
without it any more. It has become a custom.
The question is has it become a custom for
you. There are bad customs and there are good customs. John Wesley tells us
that he used to get up at four in the morning and sometimes three in the
morning to pray and seek God. He says in his journal if at all he missed it, he
is uncomfortable. Think about a custom that he has developed in his life and ministry.
Whether you develop your prayer vigil in the night time like Kenneth Hagin who is a night bird or in the morning like John
Wesley who is an early bird you need to develop it until it become a custom.
Usually in the morning you need to spend some time with God at least. That's
the start of your day. Even if your main prayer vigil is at night, you would
still need to accustom your mind to concentrate on God the first thing in the
morning. Some people are like clock work. By a certain time they must be in
prayer. For some other people who are not so fluent in prayer, they are like
clock work in other things. By a certain time in the morning coffee break must
come. They tell the coffee time by their stomach not by the clock. Sometimes
the time has come and they even know when the clock is wrong. They could adjust
the clock by their stomach. In the natural they have trained their bodies. Just
like some of us we may have started fasting once a week or twice a week. Then
it is a custom with you. And your body gets accustomed to it. For example if your fast day is on a Friday or Saturday. When that Saturday
comes your body knows it. That day you doesn't feel
hungry. So there are good customs and good habits we can develop.
In Paul's
writing to Timothy he talks about a certain good custom that he has passed
down. He was talking about things like prayer habits. We need to develop a
habit of prayer such that we would be precisely praying how many hours per day.
Don't ever leave it to chance. If you leave it to chance, you will never get
the time. Something will grab your time away. If you don't plan the day, the
day will plan itself. So it is important for us to make sure we have a custom
like Daniel. If you want to win the heart of God and touch the heart of our
Father have an appointment with Him. Have a time that you set aside for Him.
Make it your custom. Most city folks find it hard to do it in the morning.
Whatever your allocation of time is you need an appointment with God that you
set aside and make it your custom. You could make it your custom that you
always have an hour or two of prayer before you sleep. Make it your custom that
when you wake up you need to spend a certain amount of time with God. Make it a
custom and after some time in your life you get adapted to it.
I
would sort of guarantee from God's word no one who consistently move in a custom or habit and diligent prayer consistently
misses or failed to heed the spiritual realm somewhere along the line. Even if
you are someone highly intellectual who seldom ever see vision or feel any
spiritual stirrings, you are just a committed Christian to God, if you give a
great amount of time to prayer, somewhere along the line the power hits. And
you become someone very visionary. You could be a very opposite. Look at Daniel
he is a man who leans on the intellectual. How do we know? They were among the
top students. They were the cream of the Hebrew kids. They scored A1 in all
their studies. So they studied very heavily. You can see some of the subjects
they study. But because of his custom in prayer, he finally arrived to the
place of seeing visions.
I
asked God why is it that some people are more visual in their spiritual aspect
and some are less. Now there are two causes for that. One is what I call a
hereditary influence that can be there. The second factor is the length of time
a person spends in prayer. Two factors affect that. One is the hereditary
factor. The other is the length of time the individual spends in prayer.
Cornelius was a man who didn't know the salvation of God yet. But as a Roman
Centurion who deals in discipline, he was very
disciplined in his prayer life and in his alms giving. One day after many years
of fasting and alms giving and prayers to the unknown god he saw this white
figure standing next to him. An angel dressed in dazzling white. It was the
first vision he ever saw. So no matter intellectual or how unaccustomed to
vision you are, if you spend a proper length of time, if you didn't have the hereditary
factor, there is something you can work on. You work on the length of time you
spend with God. And you keep hitting at it diligently.
I am not saying you do it once in a blue moon.
I am talking about something you do it consistently and diligently day in day
out for months maybe even years. Somewhere along the line that realm of the
spirit hit you. And you become tuned to that spirit realm. And you become
accustomed to that realm of the spirit. So that is the price a person has to
pay to move into that.
World vision
The second key to help us to stretch that
length of time is what I call having a world vision. Some people don't
understand how we can pray very long. Because all they ever prayed for is for
their family. Of course you don't have much to pray if your vision is only one
family. If you only see yourself and your family and that is all. So of course
they don't understand how can those fellows pray for
three to four hours. What do they have to pray? There are hundreds of countries
on this earth. There are five billion people on this earth. See the difference
is vision. God does not just have a city vision. Some people have a family vision, some have a city vision where all they see is the
city around them. Some people have a national vision. They see the needs in
their nation. But God has a world vision. It did not say for God so loved
Paul says in Romans 8 that world groan
because it is imperfect. And if you catch the world vision eight to ten hours a
day is not enough. And if you examine every Christian books and writings where
those man and woman of God have prayed long hours, you will find that one key
sticking out. They have caught a world vision. They see the needs in the world.
They see the masses in the world. And they go into deep pray for eight to ten
hours. It's the world vision that will catch the heartbeat that will motivate
us and help us to last long. Sometimes when you get into these, you don't stop.
You feel like you only want to stop when you see everything perfected. That is
the kind of feeling you have when you pray long hours. You really get into prayer and you really
pray into being. The things that you know should be happening and manifesting
on the planet earth as God wants it and declares it. You get into a stage where
you realize that your prayers are directly involved in the perfecting of
things. And when you get into the heat of it, you do not want to stop because
you know you are right now involved in the very perfection of the earth. You
are caught in the current and the tide of the spirit of prayer that flows right
from the throne of God.
In fact the right hand is the man Jesus
who is interceding for all of us. You catch the flow and the current that flow
from His heart of the waves upon waves of intercession that is flowing from His
very heart now. And Jesus is not resting day or night since He is interceding
for us. Jesus sees a world vision. Verse twenty was a prayer even for you and
me, for those who come to know them through their word. That is you and me. The words of the apostles'
pass on from generation to generation have come right down to our generation.
So the second key in order to motivate us to pray long hours is to catch a
world vision. If God just show you one world vision or place it in the depth of
your heart, you do not know how to stop praying.
Sometimes as you begin in prayer the first
hour of prayer is nothing. The first hour is just idling
the car. And most Christians are only there idling. They are not even on first
gear on prayer. When you start up your car in the morning.
The older car models need to warm up a long time. Anyway that is an
illustration to show that in the field of prayer the first hour is just warming
up. Because that one hour in only getting into position. Can you imagine every
day those who pray one hour. They just get into position and then they get off.
Your prayer one hour every day is just ready, get set and before the gun has
fired you say praise God I have reached it. And you go off.
We are in a negative stream. All you have
to do in the world to fail is to do nothing. The world is on a negative stream.
To be a failure is easy. Just do nothing. To succeed in life and to be a
success you need to go against the tide.
You need to strife, you need to be diligent, you
need to work hard. And practice the right principles, the righteous law and
then you begin to succeed in life. If the stream coming down is thirty miles
per hour and your boat going up is twenty miles per hour, you will still go
backwards ten mile per hour. And you wonder why my boat is alright and still
going backwards. It is because you only got twenty mile per hour going on. If
you are going up thirty miles per hour, for one hour you still get the same
spot because the current going down and your speed going up cancelled each
other.
Remember Jesus asked His disciples could
you not watch with one hour. That first hour is only reaching zero point. It is from that point that you really make an
impact. That one hour is just
maintenance. Just to maintain you position. But if you really want to make
progress, you got to press beyond the one hour. Even if you just manage
thirty-one miles per hour up while it is flowing thirty miles per hour down, at
least you progress one mile per hour. So in that same area the long marathon
prayer, the first hour is just warming up. When I said warming up I don't mean
wasted time. You need that time to reach the other area. When you have done your hour or so that's
when you really get into something. That's when you really move into the heart
of God that He wants you to move in. That's when the world vision really starts
coming. You begin to really flow into
that which God wants you to do. One hour is nothing; go for the extra half an
hour, two hours. Then you could push forward into the greater realm of the
spirit. That's when you began to feel the heavenly current flowing to you. It begin to bring you into the depths of God. That's when you
don't feel like stopping. Some of you say no. I got to go to work now. You
cannot. Then the next time you know. Either get up
earlier or do a little bit here maintain your one hour or one and half here and
at night do your big prayer unhindered. What I am telling you is not to miss
out on the depths that is possible. For marathon prayer you need number two a
global vision.
Faith in God
Number three is faith in God. Hebrews 11:6
But without faith it is impossible to please Him. For he who comes to God
must believe that he is and that he is a rewarder of
those who diligently seek him. One of the most important things that will
keep you going on is you believe. We talked about the faith of God now talk
about faith in God. You know that you have the answer. It's a matter of time.
And you reached a point where everyday you put spiritual effort into that area,
spiritual time to gain spiritual benefits and spiritual laws. In the natural
world it takes people a lot of skill, talent, wisdom and hard work to earn and
save perhaps one hundred thousand dollars in their lifetime. And even any one
who is a millionaire. I am not talking about millionaire by inheritance. But
millionaire through hard work will tell you the first hundred thousand is hard.
But the next hundred thousand is easy. And the next hundred thousand becomes
easier. But the first hundred thousand is hard.
Many people think that when you believe
God for finances or something is a short cut. It is a get rich quick
scheme. Those who work to accumulate
their first hundred thousand before they began to learn how to invest properly
and multiply it will tell you they work their scheme to the bones. But there
are many people who think that the spiritual laws are ways for the slugged. The
same amount of natural energy and work you require to accumulate one hundred
thousand is required to accumulate one hundred thousand dollars of blessings
except you wok it in the spiritual. Except that the person
over here work in the natural. Work their skin to the bone. But here you
work your knees to the bone. And remember over here natural blessings are only
the side effect of spiritual blessings. But let's not forget the point that it
takes as much work. I am talking about blood, sweat and tears that you pour in.
No short cut. None of the Cain syndrome. You say O it
just happened. No nothing just happened; there are laws that have to be
operated. So in the same manner if we want some of the things of God, we must
have diligence and hard work.
Just to use another illustration. For
example brain surgery takes a long process. The treatment is quite long. Sacrifices
are required. For example let's say it is brain surgery. One of the first
things that you loose is your hair. And after that they had to prepare you. The
doctor will tell you to fast before surgery. Doctor tells them to fast they
will fast. When Jesus tells you to fast, you say you cannot fast. The bible
tells us it is good to fast. Besides that there are a lot of other tedious
things. Not only that you empty your pocket too. But Jesus' grace is free. Through all these
processes you need diligence. Now those same people who are willing to go
through those tedious processes may take six months or a year. When they come
over here for spiritual treatment and you tell them to meditate on the word,
they say cannot spiritual things be "presto". That's all they want.
Can you see the unfairness people view the things of God? Over there it is
going to take them a year and it cost them plenty. But when it comes to
spiritual things the discipline is not there anymore. They are thinking I just
come once and if God doesn't do it that's it. Without preparation or anything
the preacher will come and wave a magic wand over your head. You will realize
that the gifts of the Spirit seems to work instantly
on many people that had background work done also. Two points the preacher does
his back ground work. He spends his time with God. So he makes it easier for
others to receive. Those who come have to do their own background work. They
spend a lot of time seeking God themselves and praying. Or others have been
doing it for them.
For each one of those healed instantly in
Katherine Khulman's meeting there was a lot of
prayers involved. And people just see the isolated incident. Some of those
people came for the third time or fourth time before they got instantly healed.
One thing I realize is that there is no such thing as spiritual short cut. Even
if somebody seems to have it in a short cut, it is because somebody else had
carried that person over there. The same diligence, the same cause, sacrifice
and steadfastness and most of all faith is required. What makes a patient who
is having cancer willing to go through the torture and the pain and
inconvenience is the faith that they can get well. They hope that this may
work. They want to give it a chance. That is human natural faith. How much more
when we come to the things of God? Whatever we are praying for we need to be
able to apply that diligence. Don't give up after one week. You don't give up
after one month. In fact you don't give up at all. We must have faith. The accumulation
of prayers will bring a result.
Hebrews 11:6 is actually saying that the
emphasis is on faith but it is the accumulation of something that you do in
faith. Look very carefully again Heb.11: 6 Without
faith it is impossible to please Him. For he who comes to God must believe the
He is and that He is the rewarder of those who
diligently seek Him. In other words those who diligently, consistently,
persistently, accumulate their acts of faith and prayer will finally hit the
result. He is not talking about once. He is talking about consistent and
persistent accumulation.
If you study it very carefully and if you
are a theological student, you will probably say it’s a doctrine of works and
merits. Let's deal with the theological issue. Salvation is by grace but the
outworking of that salvation is by works. It's in the bible. You come in and
then you got to work hard. In the book of Ephesians 2:8 For
by grace you have been saved through faith and that not of yourself. It is the
gift of God, not of works least anyone should boast. The sentence and the
argument have not ended because the next verse says for we are his workmanship
created in Christ Jesus for the purpose of good works. That tells us that
salvation is a gift of God it tells us very clearly not of works. But once you
enter into that salvation you were created in Christ for good works. Your
ticket to heaven is assured. But your complete experience of all that God
desires for you to experience takes the outworking of what God has worked into you.
And if you examine that prayer very
carefully in Hebrews eleven verse six. It says faith is the substance of things
hope for the evidence of things not seen. It's because of faith that you work.
James tells us faith without works is dead. If you say you have faith you must
show it by your works. And the one way you show God is by persistently coming
diligently with the faith before God. Though you don't see it yet, you are
praying over it and in it. Praying consistently with faith.
If you don't have faith that you are going to have it, you will not be
motivated. Because you have that faith and you move into that arena of God, you
are able to propel yourself into that realm. The more you put into prayers, the
faster it accelerate the process. Something that may
with one hour of prayer a day takes two years to finish. You may finish it with
two hours of prayers a day in one year. But if you takes
four hours of prayers, you may do it in six months. But if you take eight hours
of prayer a day, it may take you three months to finish what takes two
years. You see the point.
There is something we need to accumulate
enough prayer points before you can hit it. If you don't want to look at it in
points then we will illustrate it with energy level. There need to be a certain
prayer level that your soul energize before it can be
experienced by you. That's the law of God. And that law is consistent all the
time. Sometimes somebody helping can expedite that process. Let's say she has
something, which God determines to pour into her life. If she prays for four
hours a day it is going to take her six months. She gets another person to pray
for her in that same area and that person pray four hours a day. It is going to
take three months. We are talking about prayer with faith. Some people's
prayers have no faith. That kind of prayer can cancel the other hour. So we are
talking about prayers that have faith.
Believing consistent prayer when you
accumulate hits at a certain point and the result starts coming. So we understand
why some things are long in coming. There is no short cut to the accumulation
of prayers that is needed. In Lillian Yeoman's book she opened a healing house
where she takes the worst cases, given up by everybody. She welcomes them into
her home and she apply the spiritual principles for
the healing. She is very strict. She is also a medical doctor. And she tells
them you must do must confess this scripture one thousand times. She gives
spiritual medicine. And in one of those special healing cases that took place,
a person had a vision. In the vision this person saw a scale. On one side was
praise on the other side was prayer. Then she saw on one side prayers were
quite enough already. Then on the other side, the praises were still lacking.
And the Lord said when these are full; your answers are forth coming. So the
patient understood the vision. God is telling us to put more praise and worship
in God. And when they were accumulated to a certain point the healing took
place.
Now these things that we say are true in
the bible. In the book Colossians says that you are perfect in Christ. Later on
they were prayed for to be make complete in Christ. So there is something
objective that still needs to be subjectively brought through by a lot of
prayers into our life. What about John 14: 12, "Most assuredly, I say to
you, he who believes in Me, the works that I do he
will do also; and greater works than these he will do, because I go to My
Father? You know why it is not happening. People are not praying enough. So God
cannot answer although His word is still true. But the people are not flowing
with that Spirit of truth that God wants His people to move into.
Let me tell you for thirty years Jesus was
not just a carpenter. He was an intercessor. Jesus was not just a carpenter for
thirty years that means He is just waiting sitting around making tables making
chairs. When the Father spoke to Him as He came out of the water of baptism
saying This is my beloved Son in whom I am well
pleased. Does that mean God was happy with all the tables and chairs He made? Of course not. No for the thirty years the most important in
His life was the word and prayer. And for Jesus He has to pray for thirty
years. Sometimes we think we can do more work by ministering in one thousand
meetings per year, no. The most important thing is to do God's will. Even if
you have to do four meetings a year but you move in the perfect will of God and
in between you spend in prayer, your four meetings the impact will be
equivalent to a thousand meetings. It's not the case of the more the merrier.
But it's the prayer impact that is important. Jesus spent thirty years in
prayer. Even when He started his ministry He still has to give the last shot in
His forty days of fast. He was tempted left, right, center by the enemy. And
even in the middle of His ministry he still has to retreat for prayer. Can you
imagine how much prayers He needed to do in order to accomplish everything He
ever needed to do in the three years?
I
find that the greatest lack in the
When you pray eight ten hours and you
fellowship with people, you could literally smell whether they are people of
prayer or not. Sometimes you can see things in their lives. That is a bit
dangerous too. I was sharing about two weeks back on the glory of God. When
people don't have enough prayer and they do something. For example if you pray
a little bit and you do a lot your impact maybe one percent. That means you
will have to do one hundred times as much to impact one hundred percent. And another
person could pray more and do one percent of what you did. But the one percent
has a hundred percent impact like you have. That is divine. That is God's
mathematics. And that is where we need to accumulate what I call prayer points
or if you want to say prayer hours or prayer life with God.
Jesus never neglected it. In His most busy time he
went back and he prayed. And in all the things that God wants to do, He wants
us to birth it with prayer. See prayer is a process of taking what is in the
spirit and bringing it into the natural. It is not consistent that everything
is birthed within a period of spiritual labor. There are some things that take
a spiritual labor of two years. There are some things that take a spiritual
labor of just six months. And the greater thing of God may takes
a labor ward period of six years maybe. Now the
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