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PRAYING IN THE SPIRIT SERIES
CONSISTENCY AND DISCIPLINE IN PRAYER
Prayer is a discipline and a habit we
should develop. It should not be something where we wait for a crisis. Or we
are in a desperate situation and then we start to pray. Perhaps most people are
the desperate type. They may never go to something like an overnight prayer
unless they are in a real crisis. I think this kind of Christianity is not
worthy of our Lord Jesus Christ. We come to Him only when we are desperate. We
have not moved into the discipline of prayer that God wants us to have. Well at
least it is better than those who don't even pray. We must realize that there
are different standards in God that we could achieve. We could either be
satisfied with a "C" minus. Some people are satisfied with that in a
Christian life. Some people aim higher and go for "B" and some people
want to hit "A" with God. They want excellence with God. And that is
where we want to reach. We want excellence with God. We should not just be satisfied
as we are.
I just want to share some of my
experiences with you. From the early start of my Christian life, most of my
prayers have been the desperate type. I was tremendously hungry for God. So
when I seek God, I really seek Him. I would go on long travail; long fasts,
just seek Him day and night. So that was the desperado style. It has its
results. As I grow in God, I began to realize what God wants is that He wants
us to develop a discipline in prayer so that we will mature in Him. There may
be occasions where desperado tactics are necessary. But they are done in
situations where circumstances beyond your control, rather than things that you
fall into yourselves.
Spiritual Deposits
I
believe most of our Christian life should be based on the discipline in prayer,
whether or not you have a crisis or situation. You have a regular time set
aside to travail before God. Whether you have a crisis or
not, you develop a discipline to come before God in prayer. Because what
you do is what we call storing up. Operating in the spiritual realm is like
operating a bank account. Some people would like to make huge withdrawal in
their bank account when they haven't bank anything in. So in the discipline of
prayer when there is no crisis what we are doing is we are making deposits in
the spirit realm. Through a discipline in prayer by coming to God in a regular
manner, we are putting a deposit in God. Then when the time comes when you
really need to draw on the spiritual realm, you find that you don't need a
desperado time with God.
If
you have not been making that deposits, you may need
to go on a seven days desperado with God. If you have not made those deposits
in the spirit realm and you need that withdrawal from the spirit realm, you may
have to go through a regular fast perhaps for seven weeks. And it comes to the
same thing. But the difference is that your character is more stabilized. Some
people's characters are not very stable. They are up and down very quickly. God
cannot use this type of character much. God will use them for a short time. God
in His love would use us as much as possible. But He would prefer that we be
constant with Him so that His Spirit could flow and He could use us constantly
without going through ups and downs. I personally believe that God prefers that
we have a consistent disciplined walk with Him. Then we won't have a up and down walk with Him. One moment you are very close
to God and fasting for forty days. But after the fast you got what you want and
God has sent the result, you backslide and don't attend Christian meetings any
more. You don't fellowship with God regularly. Even your attendance in church
is very sporadic. So once in a blue moon they see you, which is not very often.
And the next time they see you again in church is when you are having the next
crisis. And suddenly you attend church seven days a week. Then God in His mercy
answers you again. You make great promises to God. So some people are like
that. And I thank God for each one of you who has developed a discipline in
prayer.
See sometimes people only do it when they
are desperate. They come to an overnight prayer when there is a crisis. When
the crisis is over they are no more around. They treat an
prayer as a desperado thing. But what is desperado to them is normal for another
Christian. That tells you the different levels that the Christians are walking
in. We should walk at the level where it is normal to pray for long hours. In
fact if we compare ourselves with the way the early church had functioned and
the way Jesus Christ had walked, we are quite far from where they are. To them
it was nothing to attend church seven days a week. The church and Christian
life was a part of their own family, their own very personal life. They don't
have off days from God. Everyday was God's day. It was a part of their life.
Daily
In Acts 20 when he was talking to the elders and he says how daily.
And Acts 19 also he was daily at the
Desperadoes
Lets look in the bible for some situations in
the book of Judges. After the death of Joshua in the book of Judges 2: 7 so the
people serve the Lord all the days of Joshua. And all the days of the elders
who are with Joshua who had seen all the great works of the Lord, which He had
done for
In chapters Judges 4: 1 when Ehud was dead
when there was no one leading them. You see what was the
problem. They need someone who was consistent to lead the desperado. If
every single one of us is a desperado and every one of us happened to be at the
time where there was no crisis. Then somebody else is in a crisis. They look
around. Do you know there is nobody to go to? If the
Judges 6: 1The children of
And in Judges 8 Gideon
died. People sometimes
have short memories for what is good and long memory for what is bad. They
don't forget the bad things or the wrongs things that people do. But they
forget all the good things that people do. In verse 34 then the children of
That is a sad day when the Lord said no more.
I will not tolerate desperados any more. The Lord gave them a suggestion, go
and cry out to the gods you have chosen. Let them deliver you in your time of
distress. Verse fifteen what else can the children of
I have a little secret to share with you how
to continue when your desperado tactics don't work. I mean you have fasted and fasted until you
are blue in the face. Not a consistent fast or persistent fast
to get more into God but you only do it in a crisis. And God has
delivered you out of many crises but you have forgotten about God. There are
many people who make many promises to God. When God helped they forgot. For
some people, it could be in the area of finances. They are very desperate. They
will do anything if God can get them out. They make promises after promises.
When God has helped them, they don't even remember the tithe, much less the
offering. Then they get into trouble because if you keep 100%, the 100% is
cursed. Let me tell you a tithe refers to everything that comes. So here is where
God starts dealing with Israelites. He says I will not answer you any more. You
know what they did. They put away all their idols and they served God. They gave up trying desperado tactics. And
instead they start serving God.
Consistency
Look at it again the book of Judges 10: 16
So they put away their foreign gods and
served the Lord. In other words they gave up their desperado tactics and
they started living a consistent life before God answers. Before that God just
put up with their desperado tactics. But now God wants to train them in
consistency. When they started being consistent the bible says in verse sixteen
He could no longer endure the misery of
Lets say between living a consistent prayer
life for three years and having a 14 day long fast, which one has a greater
pride? Let me tell you. The one who has a consistent prayer
life for three years. The one for three years may have fasted once or
twice a week. If you multiply up is more than that guy for 14 days. And it
takes more out of you to be disciplined throughout than once in a while. Some
people try to teach the word this way where they don't spend much time in
prayer. They don't spend much time in the word. But only when they are
ministering, then they quickly pray before God. The rest of the time they don't
care. It takes a greater price to live consistently in order to get the word
for God's people. Do you know what the price is like? The price is you can't do
the things that people would do. You can't afford it to. You know you have to
choose and make a quality decision. You won't come down and do what people will
do. You won't waste your time to read books like people do. Lets
be honest, some people spend more time reading the newspaper than they spend
reading the bible. When the preacher says pray one hour a day and read the
bible one hour as day, they say I don't have time. The price you pay to live
that way looks very peculiar. People will call you a fanatic.
It
is a greater price to pay to do that consistently day in, day out, week in,
week out than it is to do everything you want and live like the world. Then
when you are desperate you go to some mountain and for a whole month take a
bottle of water and a bible and some fruits and go in. Then for a whole month
you become a holy man of the mountain. And people will look at you and say what
a great price he pays. The price paid in comparison to living a consistent life
is less. It takes more out of you to be consistent with God right there in the
streets, right there in your office. It takes a price to get up early and pray
every day. How many people can consistently do that? And it is a discipline.
Perhaps some of you do it in your office which I encourage people to do. You
have a one hour lunch break. You don't need one hour to eat lunch. Some people
take 15 minutes for their food and then they take half an hour to read the
bible and pray. It is a discipline. It is something that they work into their
system. It is the price you pay. The choices you have to choose. Because there
are hundreds of things that wants to take your time.
But every time you choose to say no to the world and say yes to God. It is as
price.
And these are the consistencies that
really touch the heart of God; touched the very core of God's heart. See there
is a difference between king Saul and king David. King
Saul was a man who was a desperado. When he is desperate, he would really go
for it. But king David was a consistent person. There
was one black spot in his life. But otherwise he was a consistent person. Even
for a shepherd boy he was a worshiper of God.
Daniel was another consistent person. The
bible tells us this is the discipline he kept. The book of Daniel 6: 10 Now when Daniel knew, now there was a decree that
say no body can pray, that the writing was signed. He went home. In his upper
room with his windows opened towards
It is because of that consistency that
some time promotion or financial blessing or prosperity comes into their life.
And they don't realize it. It is related to their consistency. We can't sort of
put it together and show clearly the tithe in the natural but the tithe is in
the spiritual. We cannot connect how you are dragging yourself up every morning
and getting down on your knees and praying perhaps for fifteen minutes or half
an hour before God and perhaps reading the word of God. And you disciplined
that you have done that day in day out, week by week, month by month. But if
you really have been doing that, let me say this, for you probably the
blessings of God are going up like a graph. Although you may not know it and
you cannot place a finger on why God is blessing you and you say I am not that
spiritual like somebody who has fasted three days or said "I have done
this, I have done that" and you could not say that. You could not testify
honestly that you have done that. But yet you see the hand of God on your life.
Why? There is consistency in your life. But 95% of your life is consistency and
only 5% is desperado.
See
it is the devil. The devil attacks in cycles. He cannot attack you
consistently. God does not permit him to attack you consistently. He attacks
you in seasons and in cycles. The only time you want to put a little bit more
effort is not because you want to get something out from God. It is because if
the devil tries harder, you dig in harder spiritually. That is the true way
that we should operate the desperado before God. So when the devil
come against Jesus, Jesus didn't eat for forty days and nights. It is
not recorded that the Holy Spirit drove Jesus into the wilderness to fast. It
was never recorded. It is only recorded
in Matt. 4, Lk.4 and Mk.1 that the Holy Spirit led Jesus into the wilderness to
be tempted. The bible just said and he fasted. The purpose that God leads Him
is to confront the enemy. When the enemy tries his biggest
trick. Jesus dug in His deepest realm possible.
Using the Desperado tactic
That is how you use the desperado tactic.
Not because you want to convince God.
But it is more to give more time. For example, you have been living a
persistent life spiritually. You are spending regularly an hour in the morning,
an hour in the night and half an hour in the mid day. Then you sense in your
spirit a stronger enemy force against your life. You have already spent two and
a half hour, which actually gives the enemy quite a headache. The enemy plans a
day of evil for you. And so at a certain point he launches out against you. You
pick that up with one of the five sensations of the spirit man. You normally
spend two and a half hour with God and during that whole week. You may go on a
stronger fast. And during that week you pray for four hours instead of two and
a half hour because you sensed the enemy pressure. Then the enemy will be
really be taken by surprise. That is
when you use the desperado part. See the under line current should be your
consistency.
But
of course the other time when we use the desperado is when God gives an
instruction. See one is defensive the other is offensive. Once in a while as
you are living in a consistent life, because God knows you are obedient, the
spirit of grace and supplication and prayers burden comes on you. God says I
need somebody to launch this huge warhead missal against the enemy. So He puts
a spirit burden in you. And you sensed a call on the spirit to really reach
into the spirit realm. Normally you spend two and a half hours. Now you get six
hours in during the period that God called you. These are the things that are
taking place in the spirit realm. And we realize that consistency is the foundation
that we should build our spiritual life.
And Paul tells us in First Thessalonians
5, pray without ceasing. That is talking about building a consistency in our
life. In Daniel 6: 10 that Daniel gives thanks before his God as was his custom
since early days. Now since early days means from the
time he was brought to
And now they are going to take him and
throw him into the lion's den because he committed the crime of praying
consistently. So they took Daniel and threw him into the lion's den. And the king
was so worried for Daniel that the king did not sleep the whole night at all.
And the first thing in the morning he cried with a lamenting voice to Daniel
and said Daniel servant of the living God, has your God whom you serve
continually been able to deliver you from the lion. Daniel said O king live
forever. Some people like to be in Daniel's position. But this is where the
desperado will fail. Because if you are taken and you have never prayed
consistently before, never spend time with God before. And you are taken and
thrown into the lion's den, you won't have time to
pray in the lion's den if you didn't pray outside the lion's den. You may pray
the wrong pray like the missionary who met the lion and say Lord make this a
Christian lion. The lion knelt down and said thank you Lord for this food. So
we realize that we have to learn to pray outside of the lion's den.
I
challenge you to set aside a time perhaps everyday, perhaps once a week, where
you pray especially for the family. Every Saturday I seek the Lord for more
grace for ministry. See that is my date with my Lord. God prefers lovers.
Desperados are beggars. But lovers make date. They say God let me make a date
with you to meet you at such and such a day, at such and such a time. Let me
fellowship with you regarding this matter. Let me seek your mind on that
matter. And you will see the difference. If you have been praying desperado
tactics for your family, for your business, for your finance, change your style
and put consistency in. That is where the meeting together in an overnight
prayer is going to help you. If you have a consistency, it is going to burst
forth mightily in your life. We have to build consistency until we are
self-motivating.
We
close with the book of James 5: 16 confess your trespasses for one another
and pray for one another that you may be healed. The effective fervent prayer
of a righteous man avails much. Now fervent means
with all earnestness. But the word effective carries with
it the meaning of persistency and consistency. Heb.11 verse 6 says without
faith it is impossible to please God. For God reward those who diligently seek
Him. Now it is different to seek Him and diligently seek Him. God doesn't just
reward those who seek Him. God reward those who diligently, with great
discipline, with consistency, with persistence, continually come before Him.
If you were to begin to apply consistency, you could literally say, after some time maturing in consistency, that every thing you pray that was in line with God's word is answered. God has never said no to any of His promises. If you believe what He says and consistently, persistently, diligently with great discipline, do it. You will always see all the prayers answered. Whatever you desire for your life, in your ministry, in your business, in your personal life, all that is in line with His perfect will and plan, always get answered.
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