There is no other area of your Christian life that is more important to your spiritual growth than prayer. You can learn everything about God but will never know God until you spend time in prayer with Him. Prayer is the food that nourishes your spirit.
Prayer is the answer. “Because he bends down to listen, I will pray as long as I have breath!” (Psalm 116:2 NLT).
The school of prayer is found in the difficult circumstances of your life. It is a school with no curriculum other than the struggles that you are going through. As your troubles bring you lower, your prayers will take you higher, straight into the loving arms of your Father.
The school of prayer is found in the classroom of adversity. “Bend down, O Lord, and hear my prayer; answer me, for I need your help. Protect me, for I am devoted to you. Save me, for I serve you and trust you. You are my God. Be merciful to me, O Lord, for I am calling on you constantly” (Psalm 86:1-3 NLT).
The school of prayer is found in the sorrows of just how much you have sinned against God. You will learn that it is in the prayers of confession that you will draw near to the Lord, knowing deep in your heart that He will forgive you.
There is no sin so small, it doesn’t matter, nor so big that it can’t be forgiven. “But if we confess our sins, God will forgive us. We can trust God to do this. He always does what is right. He will make us clean from all the wrong things we have done” (1 John 1:9 ERV).
The school of prayer has but one student sitting in the classroom. It is not a school of processes and formulas but a place of surrender. Until you spend time alone with God, there is not much that He can do with you. Privacy introduces intimacy.
Solitude produces what fellowship cannot. Jesus taught,“But when you pray, go away by yourself, all alone, and shut the door behind you and pray to your Father secretly, and your Father, who knows your secrets, will reward you” (Matthew 6:6 TLB).
Prayer is a place that puts you nearest to God. “The Lord is close to everyone who prays to him, to all who truly pray to him” (Psalm 145:18 ICB).
The school of prayer has the teacher living inside you. It was Jesus Christ in the flesh who saved you, and it will be the Spirit of Christ who will teach you. Your ability to learn how to pray higher is not found in the intellect of your mind but in the genuineness of your heart.
There are some things that only the Holy Spirit can teach you. “These things we also speak, not in words which man’s wisdom teaches but which the Holy Spirit teaches…” (1 Corinthians 2:13 NKJV).
The school of prayer is the school of sorrow as you are crushed by all you are going through. A sorrowful heart is a prayerful heart and one that reaches out to heaven. It will be in the darkest of days that His light will shine brightly in your prayers.
There are some things broken in our lives that only God can heal. “He heals the brokenhearted and binds up their wounds [healing their pain and comforting their sorrow]” (Psalm 147:3 AMP).
The school of prayer teaches you that it is not the words you say that matter most but the degree to which you are honest about how you feel. You can share how you feel with God, for He already knows anyway. The more real you are with Him, the more real He will be to you.
The best prayer you can offer to the Lord is the one already written on your heart. The Lord Jesus said, “But the hour is coming, and now is, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth; for the Father is seeking such to worship Him” (John 4:23 NKJV).
The school of prayer shows you how to trust in the Lord with everything that you are giving Him. There is not one worry in your life bigger than God. There is not one thing that you ask for that He cannot do. Trust Him even when He says no.
The Lord never gives a wrong answer. “You will answer me, God; I know you always will. Hear my words like you always do as you listen to my every prayer” (Psalm 17:6 TPT).
The school of prayer is the sanctuary of your soul. You will never stop learning how to pray higher because it is the infinite God in heaven that you are praying to. Praying higher is not higher on man’s terms but on heaven’s idea of what prayer should be like.
When you have nothing but a prayer, you have everything that you need. “Yahweh is near to everyone who prays to him, to every faithful person who prays to him. He fills the needs of those who fear him. He hears their cries for help and saves them” (Psalm 145:18-19 NOG).
The school of prayer reveals that the mechanics of prayer are not the guidelines we must follow. It is not the length of your prayer but the depth of your love for the Lord Jesus. It is not how you act when you pray that matters but how you are when you come before Him.
The length of your prayers doesn’t matter, but the height that they go to. “The priests and the Levites stood to bless the people, and God heard them, for their prayer reached heaven, his holy dwelling place” (2 Chronicles 30:27 NIV).
The school of prayer is the place of solace where you learn to be thankful for the asking. The reason you can be thankful for every request you give to God is because you know that He can help you. Learn to thank Him in advance, for surely He can help you.
When you pray first, you’ll be thankful later. “Don’t worry about anything; instead, pray about everything; tell God your needs, and don’t forget to thank him for his answers” (Philippians 4:6 TLB).
Blessings to you,
Paul Balius
Prayer richly rewarded is our omniscient Advocate, compassionate Intercessor, and perfect priest, Christ Jesus, ever living to make intercession for us and others before the Father of the fatherless, of lights, of spirits, and of glory, at His right hand of power, divinely, sublimely breathing through us no less than the wondrous will of the loving Trinity of living Infinity.
God-honored prayer originates from and is energized and empowered by the One Beautiful Triune God, the actualizing sole source of all that is good, gracious, honorable, and effectual. Praying in the Spirit prays no less than heaven’s holy heart of the Father and the magnificent, munificent mind of His Christ, the Anointed One, our Messiah, in the practical pleasure and prepotent power of the splendorous, supernal Spirit of holiness and intercession.
By praying in the Spirit, I do not appertain exclusively to praying in a supernatural, unlearned, foreign language as per 1 Cor. 14 but also to our Creator creating, with us as His co-creators and prayer partners, His desired progress, ecstatic joy, and incomparable outcomes by praying through us. The exceeding advantage to praying with the Spirit’s indispensable unction of function in the grand gift of 1 Cor. 14 is that the mind, with all of its inevitable ignorance, programmed presupposition, and carnal circumspection, as well intended with deep conviction as same may be, gets entirely out of the fallible way of The Way infallible Christ Jesus.
Much more than for interpretation is the gift of man’s spirit praying by the Spirit in tongues: Silently or vocally praying in tongues in a solitary setting, the holy heart of our Father and the omniscient mind of Christ, as supernatural intercession for others, and also as personal edification, which by extension actually assists others, excellently extols the One Triune God. Praying by the Spirit aloud and /or silently in tongues can go a long way towards praying without ceasing as coached to do in 1 Thess. 5:17.
1 Cor. 14 teaches that only in a public setting, interpretation is required or else refrain.
At 1 Cor. 14, verses that point for me most poignantly, regarding this marvelous manifestation, are as follows (in the AMPC):
1 Eagerly pursue and seek to acquire [this] love [make it your aim, your great quest]; and earnestly desire and cultivate the spiritual endowments (gifts)
2 For one who speaks in an [unknown] tongue speaks not to men but to God, for no one understands or catches his meaning, because in the [Holy] Spirit he utters secret truths and hidden things [not obvious to the understanding].
4 He who speaks in a [strange] tongue edifies and improves himself
5 Now I wish that you might all speak in [unknown] tongues
14 For if I pray in an [unknown] tongue, my spirit [by the]Holy Spirit within me] prays
15 Then what am I to do? I will pray with my spirit [by the Holy Spirit that is within me], but I will also pray [intelligently] with my mind and understanding; I will sing with my spirit [by the Holy Spirit that is within me], but I will sing [intelligently] with my mind and understanding also
17 To be sure, you may give thanks well (nobly)
18 I thank God that I speak in [strange] tongues (languages) more than any of you or all of you put together
What a beautiful and precious thing it is to pray in the Spirit, no matter the language we may use, for when the Holy Spirit is in our prayers, and moving us on what to say, we can be sure such prayers rise up into the throne room in heaven.
Yes! Alleluia! When we pray the heart of our holy, heavenly Father and the mind of Christ, our Savior-King, in the prevailing power of the Spirit of holiness and intercession, our humble prayers are exceedingly effectual, majorly, munificently more so than we are altogether given to know in this transitory lifetime, this temporal sphere, received and responded to in the positively perfect, trustworthy timing and wondrous way of the One Holy Omniscient Trinity of Living Eternal Infinity. Such a grand, gracious, and glorious God is ours!
I so appreciate you, my beautiful beloved brother. Burning blessings of Jesus’ beauty in your being and every intimate blessing of affection from His holy heart as King of heaven.
Thank you so much, your are such a blessing to me, a gift from God, an answer to prayer, an outpouring of His favor, a light shining brightly. May God shower you with his unending favor!
Thank you so much for your wonderful and most appreciated encouragement!
Our giving ourselves to prayer is such a majorly important matter as Paul has so well emphasized and written that I want to post again, this time testifying to the truth and treasure of tears as prayers.
During more than the past few years, I have wept rather often and have in my spirit invariably, ineffably experienced the inimitable witness of Holy Spirit Himself that such is prayer, prayer deeper than words, prayer reaching the throne of all grace and all glory, for the One Beautiful God to be exulted in, and extolled ever the more, for my personal sanctification of more closely conforming to the character of Christ, and for the needs of others to be adequately met in our Creator’s time and way, especially widows and orphans, other desperately poor bereft of basic sustenance, and the violently persecuted bride of Christ.
If ever you get the chance, get the collect of books called “E.M. Bounds on Prayer.” This man of God back in the days of our civil war was teaching so many on the great privilege of praying.
Christ, our Perfect Priest