October 9
Father, we thank You for the gift of life. We appreciate You that we woke up this morning and got off bed without a help, let Your Name be praise forever more. Internal Father, who is like unto thee, from everlasting to everlasting You remaineth same. Glory be to Your Name both now and forever more.
Thank You father for another opportunity to whisper into Your ear and get answers to our request. Receive our thanks for no one come to Your presence and go away the same way. Glory be to Your Holy Name forever and ever.
Last week we considered “Adoration” as a mode of worship that must deliver anytime any day. Is a worship that eulogizes our Maker, like praise it can’t never come back empty handed.
Let us look at the Holiness of God in adoration, we shall adore and magnify Him. Moses had to learn the same lesson. God told him to take his shoes from off his feet, for the place whereon he stood was holy ground. When we hear men trying to make out that they are holy, and speaking about their holiness, they make light of the holiness of God. It is His holiness that we need to think and speak about; when we do that, we shall be prostrate in the dust. You remember, also, how it was with Peter. When Christ made Himself known to him, he said, “Depart from me, for I am a sinful man, O Lord!” A sight of God is enough to show us how holy He is, and how unholy we are.
We find that Job too, had to be taught the same lesson. “Then Job answered the Lord, and said: Behold I am vile; what shall I answer Thee? I will lay my hand upon my mouth.”
As you hear Job discussing with his friends you would think he was one of the holiest men who ever lived. He was eyes to the blind, and feet to the lame; he fed the hungry, and clothed the naked. What a wonderfully good man he was! It was all I, I, I. At last God said to him, “Gird up your loins like a man, and I will put a few questions to you.” The moment that God revealed Himself, Job changed his language. He saw his own vileness, and God’s purity. He said, “I have heard of Thee by the hearing of the ear, but now mine eye seeth Thee; wherefore I abhor myself, and repent in dust and ashes.”
What the centurion, of whom we read in the eighth of Matthew, said: “Lord, I am not worthy that Thou shouldest come under my roof;” Jairus “worshipped Him,” as he presented his request; the leper, in the Gospel of Mark, came “kneeling down to Him;” the Syrophenician woman “came and fell at His feet;” the man full of leprosy “seeing Jesus, fell on his face.” So, too the beloved disciple, speaking of the feeling they had concerning Him when they were abiding with Him as their Lord, said: “We beheld His glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth.” However intimate their companionship, and tender their love, they reverenced as much as they communed, and adored as much as they loved.
The wise man says: “Keep thy foot when thou goest to the house of God, and be more ready to hear than to give the sacrifice of fools; for they consider not that they do evil. Be not rash with thy mouth, and let not thine heart be hasty to utter anything before God; for God is in heaven, and thou upon earth—therefore let thy words be few.”
If we are struggling to live a higher life, and to know something of God’s holiness and purity, what we need is to be brought into contact with Him, that He may reveal Himself. Then we shall take our place before Him as those men of old were constrained to do. We shall hallow His Name—as the Master taught His disciples, when He said, “Hallowed be Thy Name.” When I think of the irreverence of the present time, it seems to me that we have fallen on evil days.
Let us, as Christians, when we draw near to God in prayer, give Him His right place. “Let us have grace whereby we may serve God acceptably, with reverence and Godly fear, for our God is a consuming fire.” Remember, prayer changes you not God
“Now if You would only forgive their sin. But if not, please erase me from the book You have written.”—Exodus 32:32
Prayer is not designed to change God, it is designed to change us. Prayer is not calling God in to bless our activities. Rather, prayer takes us into God’s presence, shows us His will, and prepares us to obey Him.
Moses climbed Mount Sinai and spent forty days communing with God. God showed him the wickedness of the Israelites (Exod. 32:7). Moses had not known their desperate condition, nor had he realized the imminence of God’s judgment upon them until God revealed it to him. As God made Moses aware of all that was at stake, Moses felt the same compassion for the people that God felt. Moses became willing to sacrifice his own life for his obstinate people. In a compelling and selfless prayer of intercession, Moses offered to have his own name blotted out of the book of life if God would spare the people. In Moses’ time with Him, God had formed a mighty intercessor for His people.
God will use your prayer times to soften your heart and change your focus. As you pray for others, the Holy Spirit will work in your heart so that you have the same compassion for them that God does (Rom. 8:26–27). If you do not love people as you should, pray for them. If you are not as active in God’s service as you know He wants you to be, begin praying. You cannot be intimately exposed to God’s heart and remain complacent. The time spent with God will change you and make you more like Christ.
True talk am sure someone is saying, of our own we cannot do it, we cannot love as we ought love. The flesh seek revenge when hurt, find it difficult to forgive and be liberal with our substance, the flesh seeks self and not the good of others but as a child of God, we ought not to live that way. Someone is saying I am a victim to today’s topic, what should I do? Come along with me to see who can help you do the impossible.
“Praying in the Holy Ghost.” Jude 1:20
Mark the grand characteristic of true prayer—”In the Holy Ghost.” The seed of acceptable devotion must come from heaven’s storehouse. Only the prayer which comes from God can go to God. We must shoot the Lord’s arrows back to Him. That desire which He writes upon our heart will move His heart and bring down a blessing, but the desires of the flesh have no power with Him.
Praying in the Holy Ghost is praying in fervency. Cold prayers ask the Lord not to hear them. Those who do not plead with fervency, plead not at all. As well speak of lukewarm fire as of lukewarm prayer—it is essential that it be red hot.
It is praying perseveringly. The true suppliant gathers force as he proceeds, and grows more fervent when God delays to answer. The longer the gate is closed, the more vehemently does he use the knocker, and the longer the angel lingers the more resolved is he that he will never let him go without the blessing. Beautiful in God’s sight is tearful, agonizing, unconquerable importunity.
It means praying humbly, for the Holy Spirit never puffs us up with pride. It is His office to convince of sin, and so to bow us down in contrition and brokenness of spirit. We shall never sing Gloria in excelsis except we pray to God De profundis: out of the depths must we cry, or we shall never behold glory in the highest.
It is loving prayer. Prayer should be perfumed with love, saturated with love—love to our fellow saints, and love to Christ.
Moreover, it must be a prayer full of faith. A man prevails only as he believes. The Holy Spirit is the author of faith, and strengthens it, so that we pray believing God’s promise.
O that this blessed combination of excellent graces, priceless and sweet as the spices of the merchant, might be fragrant within us because the Holy Ghost is in our hearts!
Most blessed Comforter, exert Thy mighty power within us, helping our infirmities in prayer.But Spirit intercedes for us with groans that words cannot express, He searches our heart (Rom 8:26-27). He is our comforter; our helper. He will guide us into all truth. Praise the Lord.
May our supplication unto Him today be accepted to Him alone in Jesus name, Amen! We will be concluding this way with the prayer of George Herbert says of public worship:
“When once thy foot enters the church, be bare;
God is more than thou; for thou art there
Only by His permission. Then beware,
And make thyself all reverence and fear.
Kneeling ne’er spoiled silk stocking; quit thy state,
All equal are within the church’s gate.”
Remain blessed in the Lord.
Evang. Ifeoma Ohondu
