No Substitution for Disciplined Prayer

9/15/1996

(In response to a question)

When it really increased…decreased…some of it’s still going on. A fraction of it, I suppose overall, is satan still trying to get his hook in and try to wreck lives. I think probably the most profound change was, and I’m being totally 100% honest about this, and I can prove it to you by checking the time log, and demonstrating to you that this actually was the case, but many of you, maybe all of you, fasted on a particular day. We talked on Sunday afternoon, your time, Sunday night, our time, and there was a period of fasting. When we talked to you on the phone, life was about as bad as it could possibly be on planet Earth. And by 24 hours later, there was a major transition, a major change. So, I’d actually forgotten about that till just now. I don’t know what prompted you to ask that question, but you need to understand that a response in prayer and fasting, some kinds only come out by prayer and fasting. The person who would know such things, Jesus, said. And there was definitely a major shift—”it would be really helpful if y’all would pray and perhaps fast with us”—there was a major change. Like I said, I can document that I am not making that up. There was a major change. Some things did break and move in Jesus’ direction in a fast and glorious way about 24 hours after we had that conversation. So it was pretty obvious that some of you took serious our plea that you would pray and fast if possible with us, and we’re grateful for that.

I’m glad you asked that because, just a reminder of something that ought to be really obvious, that God really does care a lot about whether or not we pray about things. It’s so easy to think, “Well, God knows everything we’re thinking anyway, so why bother? Why exercise the discipline of mind, the discipline of tongue, the discipline of fellowship, the discipline of the knees, the discipline of the stomach and the mouth with fasting—why exercise all that discipline when God already knows what we’re thinking anyway? What’s the big deal?” The fact is God does want us to exercise those disciplines because He wants to know that we care about it. In any relationship, if I’m just thinking something about you, well, good. Maybe you can figure it out if I hint at it or whatever. Maybe how I act will give you the idea. But there’s something about “confessing with your mouth” unto even something as large as salvation. “Confessing with your mouth.” There is something about the process of speaking words that God is very into. Jesus was the WORD that became flesh and dwelt for a while among us. God is very interested in our words. Not only with one another, but our actual words out of our mouth to Him are of great, great, great importance to Him. That was also very impressive to me. Not only the fact that you guys prayed that night and some things broke, not everything, but some things broke in a large way. But also I found with myself that it almost wasn’t until I was so deep, it was so far over my head where my heart, everything in me was crying, “It is finished. It is finished.” It was just that far out of reach before I really became more able to pray than I was before that. I was sloppy somehow.

And I think that was another thing that God was teaching me, and since you asked, we’ll pass on to you that there is absolutely no substitute for very clear-minded, very carefully spoken and disciplined mind, heart, and body prayer about specific things. There is no substitute for that. You can’t be a good person and slide your way on through it all. You must get on your knees and talk to Him with a disciplined tongue and mind about specific things, and do it and keep on doing it, is what Jesus said. If you won’t do that, don’t think you will receive anything from Him because “You have not because you ask not.” Not, “you have not because you want not.” “You have not because you ask not.” God knows what you want, but He wants you to say so. And to ask and keep on asking, knock and keep on knocking. And that was a very impressive lesson as well, that your strong desires to see something are not good enough. He wants you to pray. He wants me to pray. He wants instructed tongues to speak to Him about specific situations on behalf of others, on behalf of His kingdom, and His church. He wants us to be involved in the process.

In Daniel 10, Daniel tried to pray and fast and it took, what was it, ten days [twenty-one days] before his prayer actually got through. There was some work involved in the whole thing because there was demonic opposition. That hasn’t changed at all. Do you think all the demons died of old age? Or you think they don’t care about prayer any more? They still oppose prayer supernaturally, and sometimes it takes a while. If it took Daniel, who was a pretty strong man of prayer, risked his life, got thrown in a lion’s den for praying publicly when he was told not to. The guy knew how to pray, and if it took him ten days [twenty-one days] to get through while he was fasting, I do suppose that God would want us to pray with that same sort of vigor and clarity and forcefulness and perseverance. If we won’t do that, then we’re going to be just sort of like nothing in terms of our ability to accomplish anything meaningful in life. Either to overcome things in our own lives, to help others overcome things in their lives, or to kick satan in the teeth in the nation of Malawi or anywhere else.

Prayer is not a joke. It isn’t just a religious cliché. It actually is God’s full intent for our lives is to learn how to pray like He prayed and connect with the Father with clear, spoken words like He did. Don’t think you can just lay your little head down on a pillow and say, “Nighty-night, God,” and think that your life is going to be anything other than just ordinary and tossed to and fro by every wind that comes along. He’s calling us to be a people of prayer. My Father’s house is not a den of robbers, but a house of prayer. How should His house be characterized except by people that desperately recognize His sovereignty and their powerlessness and their need to talk to Him with a clear-minded, clearly-spoken specific prayer? My Father’s house shall be a house of teaching? My Father’s house shall be a house of singing? There’s a lot of things you’d rather fill the blank in with, huh? But He really wants us to be a house of prayer. Not just a few pray-ers, not just a few prayers, but a House characterized by the building blocks of prayer, by all of His people.

We all realize our own limitations. Some of us have more gifts than others. Most of us feel, probably all of us, feel inadequate. Probably we all ought to feel inadequate, in that sense. What I mean is, there isn’t anybody in the world, all of satan’s demons, your spouse, your children, your grandparents, your boss—nobody in the universe can keep you from being a man or woman of prayer. Nobody can keep you from being that. That’s your own decision. I don’t care what your gifts are. I don’t care how well you can speak. I don’t care much of anything, your personality, or whatever. Who cares? None of those things can keep you from being the most important thing in the universe. Which is a person that is very hard about the work of God’s kingdom in prayer. Nobody can keep you from that except yourself. Your gifts can’t keep you, or lack of gifts, your personality or lack of personality, your great riches or lack of riches—none of those things can keep you from being very, very devoted to something that the Father cherishes, that moves mountains and throws them into the sea.

So please consider that in a very serious way and do something about it. There’s a stopwatch available that could actually measure, if we were inclined to do so (we’re not) but there’s a stopwatch that could measure whether or not you are a man or woman of prayer. Otherwise you’re liable to deceive yourself into thinking that you are because, “Well, as I walk along the way, I think about Him some.” Well, I just want to encourage you this is a tangible thing, a measurable thing, and it’s probably better measured by calluses on your knees than it is by wishful thinking. I really am begging each of us, myself included, to dramatically increase our commitment to being men and women of prayer because there’s a whole lot of work that can only be done that way. And again, this trip convinced me of that more than I’ve ever in my life been convinced of that. That there are just some things that I can’t do. Surprise! Surprise! There are just some things that I can’t accomplish with anything that I’ve got to accomplish it with. I can’t do it. That did come as a shock to me, as much as I thought I knew better than that. That came as a great, appalling shock to me that I had nobody to rely on but God and that was the only hope that there was. And I want y’all to realize that too. There’s nothing can stop God. There’s no door that He’s opened that can be shut. There’s no door that He’s shut that can be opened except by prayer. And we’ve got to be serious about that. Not, “Now I lay me down to sleep, Bless us oh Lord in these thy gifts.” But I’m saying a serious heart of passionate, zealous, fervent, God-directed, God-instructed, self-sacrificing prayer that is far more important to you than your own skills, your own meals, your own families, your own anything!! There’s a whole lot of things in this universe that only God can touch.

Relationships are that way. You think you can make a relationship? You’ve been through enough Dale Carnegie courses and your Type A personality is going to carry you far enough to have a real relationship? No way! God brings peace. God brings joy. God brings communication. God brings the warmth of heart. God brings a clarity of vision and understanding. God is the only one that can make even simple things like that work. You better be praying because nothing can work apart from God’s interaction, God’s intervention. The evil spirits come upon and only playing the harp can resolve it, and the next thing you know he’s chucking a spear and it’s all broken down again. All of these things have to do with God’s sovereign interaction with our hearts and minds and our relationships and the work that we are doing for Him. It’s all so tied up in Him it’s beyond belief.

And if we’re so foolish as to think we’re going to waltz our way through by doing things the right way, knowing the right things, acting the right way, saying the right things—if you’re so foolish to think that’s going to accomplish anything, you’re going to end up very miserable and fruitless for the most part in your life. Because these things are of God or they’re chaff to be blown away by the next little breeze that comes along. And it won’t even take a big wind. A little breeze, and everything you ever built for yourself or thought you were building for God will be gone. These things have to do with God and God alone. Read the book of Job, last few chapters, if you doubt that. God and God alone. Humble yourselves in the sight of the Lord. Humble yourselves, I’m begging you and be men and women that pray desperately. Not because prayer is this cool thing that everybody oughta do to accomplish things for God. One more little thing that you do like your little trinkets that you line up—lucky rabbit’s foot of holiness, lucky rabbit’s foot of prayer, lucky rabbit’s foot of the right way to have church, lucky rabbit’s foot of being a good husband or wife or child-rearing principles. “Aren’t you good at that?” I’m not talking about a lucky rabbit’s foot of prayer added onto all of our other things. I’m simply saying that everything you’d ever think of in your wildest dreams, including the next time your heart beats, is totally wrapped up in God. What you’re feeling right now, your emotions. God Himself brings judgment to your heart, or brings peace to your heart. God Himself brings joy to your heart, or He brings misery and anguish to your heart. He determines how many hours you sleep at night. He determines whether or not you can digest your food. He determines whether or not your arms and legs and eyes work from one minute to the next. He determines whether or not a person likes you or they hate you. He determines whether or not you have a child, or it’s stillborn, or you can never have a child. All of these things are totally wrapped up in God’s sovereign knowledge and power and love and mercy and instruction and discipline. All of these things are from God. How can the pot say to the potter, “Well, what about this? Why did you make me this way? Well, what about this? Could you explain yourself on that one?” And, “Well, I think I’ll do it my way and you’ll just have to bless me because that’s the way it is.” Man, what fools we would be to approach life that way. God is God. God, I discovered in the past three weeks, is a much bigger word than I had ever imagined. And our hope is that we can share some of that with you, or are sharing some of that with you now. That that word God, that person God is much, much bigger than what we ever imagined and we found that out.

Hope that you can catch as we talked about a little bit earlier—it was just a pie-in-the-sky hope and a whole bunch of prayer that you would even get the slightest thing out of what we’re talking about right now because it just fits into that same category of everything else we’ve been talking about, how in the world do you communicate things like this? How could there be the slightest hope that anybody would understand a single word that’s being said or capture the slightest lesson that we hope we’ve learned? You know again it goes back to the grace of God and His ability to open the eyes of the heart because the words aren’t going to cut it. The words fall far short. I mean even just the ability to capture these things on paper or in speech right now, we’re fully aware of how ridiculous it is to think that you could even feel just a fraction of what we felt just by simply talking about it. So, it’s just God’s grace even in this short communication that you’d be able to fall on your face and worship God in reverence and fear as we begin a little bit to learn how to do.

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