Power of Prayer

“If you seek His face, what you get is His favor.” The Church has enjoyed the omnipresence of God, but now you can experience moments of visitation by His manifest presence. It makes your hair stand up on end.   It runs off demonic forces. But it entices God chasers to run toward…Him!

(Tommy Tenney)

The favour of God is all too good. Psalm 5:12 says God encompasses me with favour as a shield. Imagine this: a shield is a weapon of warfare. Paul said, take the shield of faith whereby you shall be able to quench all the fiery darts of the devil (Eph. 6:16). From these two scriptures, we see that the faith is a shield and favour is a shield. Another similar Scripture is Heb. 11:6 that say without faith it is impossible to please God for he who comes to God must believe that He is, and that He is a rewarder of those who diligently seek Him.

So what pours out God’s favour on you is your faith. Do you have faith and trust in the Almighty God? How strong is your faith? That is the 64,000 dollar question! Are you at the periphery of giving up on what you are going through right now? I think it is time to crank up your faith. That is what will please God and He will pour His favour on you.

Set your focus on the ability of God not how gigantic your problem is. The instrument you need to defeat the enemy is God’s shield of faith and favour. When you place your trust in God your faith is generating His favour which makes Him step into your situation. That is why Paul said above all, take the shield of faith (Eph. 6:16). The extent you trust and use the power of God that is the extent of your ability in spiritual warfare. If you do not trust the ability of God to step and take control of your situation, the enemy will be all over you and you will have no support from the Almighty.

I love the way the Psalmist put it when he had the peculiar problem of ill-health and his enemies thought they could overrun him, the sort of problem Job had and satan thought it was his chance to obliterate the man from the earth.

Psalm 30:1-12 (KJV)

I will extol thee, O Lord; for thou hast lifted me up, and hast not made my foes to rejoice over me. ² O Lord my God, I cried unto thee, and thou hast healed me. ³ O Lord, thou hast brought up my soul from the grave: thou hast kept me alive, that I should not go down to the pit. ⁴ Sing unto the Lord, O ye saints of his, and give thanks at the remembrance of his holiness. ⁵ For his anger endureth but a moment; in his favour is life: weeping may endure for a night, but joy cometh in the morning. ⁶ And in my prosperity I said, I shall never be moved. ⁷ Lord, by thy favour thou hast made my mountain to stand strong: thou didst hide thy face, and I was troubled. ⁸ I cried to thee, O Lord; and unto the Lord I made supplication. ⁹ What profit is there in my blood, when I go down to the pit? Shall the dust praise thee? shall it declare thy truth? ¹⁰ Hear, O Lord, and have mercy upon me: Lord, be thou my helper. ¹¹ Thou hast turned for me my mourning into dancing: thou hast put off my sackcloth, and girded me with gladness;¹² To the end that my glory may sing praise to thee, and not be silent. O Lord my God, I will give thanks unto thee forever.

Every verse in this psalm counts in spiritual warfare. V7 says, Lord, by thy favour thou hast made my mountain to stand strong: thou didst hide thy face, and I was troubled.

Whenever I seek His face, He turns His favour on me and it becomes an unending cycle as I do this continuously. He turns my gloom into joy and His glory shines on me, making me to sings praises to His Holy name (v12). Thank you Jesus! Amen!

Retire from the world each day to some private spot, even if it be only the bedroom (for a while I retreated to the furnace room for want of a better place). Stay in the secret place till the surrounding noises begin to fade out of your heart and a sense of God’s presence envelops you. Deliberately tune out the unpleasant sounds and come out of your closet determined not to hear them. Listen for the inward Voice till you learn to recognize it.

(A.W. Tozer, Worship and Entertainment, 45)

His presence is all that matters to me. No matter where I am I get tuned to Him. In the washroom and kitchen I get connected and sing. While driving, I pray, sing, or listen to a melodious song that carries me into His presence. I am aware of the honking of traffic but not bothered by them.

When I watch TV, I tune out and my heart gets attracted to God. I feel I should spend my time more wisely. I appreciate the presence of my family and wish we had more time with the Lord at our family altar and quiet time. However, the pressures of life and work often draw me out from His presence. I know I must run back to Him, leave all that I am doing and spend more quality time with the Lover of my soul.

Dear Jesus, I want to have more time with you. Thank you for your voice that gently guides me. I am your sheep. I will follow you. Dull my ears to the voice of the hireling wherever I am. Thank you Jesus (John 10:1-18, 27-28)!

27 My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me: 28 And I give unto them eternal life; and they shall never perish, neither shall any man pluck them out of my hand.

If we can get hungry, then He can make us holy. Then He can put the pieces of our broken lives back together. But our hunger is the key. So when you find yourself digging for crumbs in the carpet at the House of Bread, you should be praying, “Lord, stir up firestorm of hunger in me.”

(The God Chasers, page 32)

Jesus said in the Sermon on the Mount in Matthew 5:6, “Blessed are they which do hunger and thirst after righteousness: for they shall be filled”.

The level of hunger and thirst I have for God will determine the degree to which I am filled and satisfied. If my appetite is low with no hunger pangs nor thirst, I will never enjoy the best of what the kingdom can offer. It’s like going to a restaurant. I never go to a restaurant unless I am hungry. I skip a meal or two before going there. When I am there, I not only eat my meal, but I find myself eating the leftovers from my wife and those of my children. When I am at the point of payment, I sense whether the meal has been worth my payment, and I am usually satisfied because there were no leftovers. I grubbed them all.

Likewise, God offers us bread to eat and be full. In His house there are storage shelves of bread and wine to make our hearts glad and be strengthened. There is also oil that makes our face to shine (Psalm 104:14-15). Instead we find ourselves eating crumbs like the prodigal son in our Father’s house because our hearts are focused on a foreign land where we think there is abundance, not knowing that when we move there we would be disgusted with what we would find there, and after spending all we have on riotous living, we would finally end up eating the food meant for swine.

In this parable of Christ, when the Prodigal son finally came to his senses that his father’s house had always been a better place, he ran back. Of course the father accepted him back because of love, but the son lost that precious time of his life eating not only crumbs but licking dirt. So we are when we do not eat the hot baked loaves of bread baked for us from the stoves of heaven, the devil shoves his dirt down our throats which makes us sick spiritually. The import of this story is that we should stay in our Father’s house always where we have a portion and an inheritance (Luke 15:11-32).

When we stay in God’s presence continually, only good can come. God showers us with His blessings. Psalm 92:10, 12-14 reads: 10 But my horn shalt thou exalt like the horn of an unicorn: I shall be anointed with fresh oil….. 12 The righteous shall flourish like the palm tree: he shall grow like a cedar in Lebanon. 13 Those that be planted in the house of the LORD shall flourish in the courts of our God. 14 They shall still bring forth fruit in old age; they shall be fat and flourishing.

So in the house of God, when I have a firestorm of hunger, He exalts my head like the head of a unicorn, He anoints my head with fresh oil; I flourish like the palm tree and get planted in the courts of our God. I continue to be fruitful and fat and flourishing even in old age. God’s blessings do not stop. If His sanctuary is amiable to me, then I know I am in the right place like the sparrows who enjoy living in its crevices and attic spaces raising their young there knowing that I have access to the altar where there is always bread left by the priest to feed on. That is my prayer.

Even though I pass through the valley of “Baca” (or weeping walking towards His glorious hill of Zion), it’s a well of blessings, because I know that living in His sanctuary gives me rest in His presence (Psalm 84:1-12).

May the Lord grant every one of us a firestorm of hunger for His righteousness so we all can be filled and stand as trees of righteousness in His church in Jesus name!

We all should be willing to work for the Lord, but it is a matter of grace on God’s part. I am of the opinion that we should not be concerned about working for God until we have learned the meaning and the delight of worshiping Him. A worshiper can work with eternal quality in his work. But a worker who does not worship is only piling up wood, hay and stubble for the time when God sets the world on fire.
(A.W. Tozer, Worship and Entertainment, 16)

God desires my worship first before my service. My service will be written in God’s memorial book and He would remember it from time to time as He did Cornelius (Acts 10), but my worship feeds His heart and soul immediately through His in-dwelling Spirit in me. God really enjoys our praises and a person who can truly find this secret wins the heart of God. That is what David did and God called him a person after His own heart.

Even in moments when I do not feel like praising God or the weight of sin bugs me down, the Lord wants me to seek His face and genuinely repent. Even in his moment of utter worthlessness David said in Psalm 51:8-12 (KJV)

8 Make me to hear joy and gladness; that the bones which thou hast broken may rejoice. 9 Hide thy face from my sins, and blot out all mine iniquities. 10 Create in me a clean heart, O God; and renew a right spirit within me. 11 Cast me not away from thy presence; and take not thy holy spirit from me. 12 Restore unto me the joy of thy salvation; and uphold me with thy free spirit.

Having been at this far end from God and enjoyed God’s mercy that restored him back to salvation, David recorded in v17, “The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit: a broken and a contrite heart, O God, thou wilt not despise.” At the time this statement was made, David was transiting from the state the sinner he was to the righteous man he wanted to be in God’s sight. This shows that it is a heart that is in rhythm with God that God accepts. Therefore when I come to God it should be done with a broken and contrite heart, full of gratitude, praise and worship for His mercy.

Regarding the service I render to Him, I receive grace to work selflessly for Christ not because of the reward which goes with the gospel. Paul said in 1 Cor. 4:1-5 that he views himself as a steward of God and it is required in stewards that one be found faithful. Only a faithful steward is rewarded. Even then he has to wait on the master who would do it at an appropriate time. Paul says in v5, “Therefore judge nothing before the time, until the Lord come, who both will bring to light the hidden things of darkness, and will make manifest the counsels of the hearts: and then shall every man have praise of God.”

The time of reward is still ahead, therefore I will do His service as a vessel of gold, broken and contrite in heart, knowing that my labour will not be in vain.

Help me Lord. Amen!

“There is much more of God available than we have ever known or imagined, but we have become so satisfied with where we are and what we have that we don’t press in for God’s best. Yes, God is moving among us and working in our lives, but we have been content to comb the carpet for crumbs as opposed to having the abundant loaves of hot bread God has prepared for us in the ovens of Heaven! He has prepared a great table of His presence in this day, and He is calling to the Church, “Come and dine.”

(The God Chasers, page 22)

I would like to go for God’s heart like David did. God called David a man after His own heart. When God presently see me, does He see me as a half-hearted believer or a full-hearted believer? There is a spectrum in which God sees every one of us. On a scale of one to ten where do I think God sees my heart? Perhaps four or more likely two! He told a Babylonian king, “you have been weighed in the balances and found wanting! The barrier of five could very hard to break. He wants me to be like David who had ten in His sight. David was not the best of examples in scriptures of men who did not carry the weight of heavy sins committed in their resume in God’s sight. That award could have gone perhaps to Daniel or Joseph or King Jehoshaphat or Josiah or any other seeming more righteous bible character than David.

David committed adultery, told a lie to cover up the act, killed Uriah the man and husband to the adulteress Bathsheba; but what singled him out was he knew how to touch God’s heart with his love. He was in love with God and was great in the act of love. When two people are truly in love, they tend to outdo each other. That is how love thrives and becomes long lasting. David and God played the love game and each really enjoyed it. That is why perhaps when David sinned, it grieved God’s heart. In return, David aggressively repented when he knew his sins before God had found him out (Psalm 51). He had a lively heart for God. That is one of my prayers! Oh Lord, make my heart lively like David’s.

In the aspect of nurturing my faith, I don’t want to be satisfied with the crumbs that fall from the master’s table. Have mercy and help me Lord to have aggressive faith like the Syrophoenician woman whose child was demon-possessed and she cried not only to eat the crumbs that fell on the ground but also to dine with you on your Table as her Master and you were impressed with her faith. You commended her that her faith had saved her daughter (Matt. 15:21-28). Oh Lord, let my faith be strong like Caleb’s so I can say with all trust in you, “Oh Lord, give me this mountain and I shall have it.” (Zech. 4:4-9; Joshua 14:12-15; Mark 11:23)