Joyce Meyer - The Mystery of Prayer - Part 4
- Watch
- Donate
- How to know Jesus
Every time you thank God for something, you’re praying. That’s prayer. That’s what I mean when I say that sometimes you may be praying more than you think you are. Then there are prayers of petition, and probably that is the prayer that is prayed most often. Although I don’t think it should be. Petition is a person just asking God to do something for them. We are speaking of petitioning God. When we ask for ourselves or when we ask for others, it’s intercession. When personal petition outweighs praise and thanksgiving, it usually indicates a greedy, ungrateful person.
Let me say it again, and don’t throw rocks at me. I’m just delivering the message. When personal petition outweighs praise and thanksgiving, it usually indicates a greedy, ungrateful person. Well, I remember years ago when I was praying one morning, and God challenged me to study the prayers of Paul. And so they’re in Ephesians, Philippians, and Colossians. I looked them up and studied each one. The thing that the Holy Spirit brought to my attention was that in those prayers, Paul did not ask for any material thing, neither for himself nor for anybody else. He asked that people would know and recognize the love that God had for them, that they would be filled to overflowing with the power of the Holy Spirit, and that they would recognize what was excellent -not just do something good, but realize what is excellent. He prayed that they would put on Christ and behave the way they should behave.
Then God reminded me that all I prayed for was stuff -things I wanted, things I needed, things I wanted God to do for me, and people I wanted Him to change. On and on and on. Oh yeah, we pray a lot for people to change, without realizing that maybe we’re the ones who need to change. If you read Paul’s prayers and start praying for yourself or for others, those prayers, you will begin to have a deeper relationship with God. He prayed for revelation for people, and oh how we need revelation. We have a lot of information, but we need revelation. I pray before I preach that God will give me revelation when I preach. Asking God to meet our needs is definitely not wrong.
Please don’t misunderstand me. It is not wrong to ask God to meet your needs, but I don’t think that should be the number one type of prayer we pray. I think praise, worship, and thanksgiving should probably come first, followed by making sure that we pray for things concerning our spiritual life, not just our material life. We need to be strong in the spirit. The strong spirit of a man sustains him in bodily pain and trouble, the Bible says. I like that because I’ve had many times in my life of having pain in my body, and I’ve continued to preach and work. I believe that’s because I’m strong in spirit.
If you’re strong in spirit, it will sustain you during bodily pain and trouble. Let me repeat again that asking God to meet your needs is not wrong. James 4:2 says, «You have not because you ask not.» Asking God to meet our needs is perfectly fine. But ask Him to bring heaven down to earth: «God, I want your will, not mine,» and mean it when you say it.
In Matthew 7:7-11, it says, «Keep on asking, and it will be given to you. Keep on seeking, and you will find. Keep on knocking reverently, and the door will be opened unto you. For everyone who keeps on asking receives, and he who keeps on seeking finds, and to him who keeps on knocking, the door will be opened. Or what man is there of you, if his son asks for a loaf of bread, will give him a stone? God gives good things. Or if he asks for a fish, will hand him a serpent? If you, then, evil as you are, know how to give good and advantageous gifts to your children, how much more will your Father who is in heaven give good and advantageous things to those who keep on asking Him?» God wants you to have good things.
Then there’s the prayer of commitment, casting your care on God. Psalm 37:5 says, «Commit your way to the Lord. Roll and repose each care of your load on Him. Trust, lean on, rely on, and be confident also in Him, and He will bring it to pass.» Commitment is the answer to worry and anxiety. To commit means to give over to, to believe or to trust, to commit to the keeping of. When we commit an issue to God, we give it to Him: «God, I give you my problem and I trust you to take care of it — I can’t take care of it. I trust you to do it.» Commit your works unto the Lord, and your thoughts shall be established.
Proverbs 16:3 says, «Roll your works on the Lord.» He’s talking about works of the flesh, things that we do in our own energy, trying to make something happen when only God can make it happen. Roll your works on the Lord. Commit and trust wholly to Him. He will cause your thoughts to become agreeable to His will, and so shall your plans be established and succeed. I love that. If you maintain a close relationship with God, He will cause your thoughts to be agreeable to His will.
When we’re worrying, we’re thinking our own thoughts, revolving the issue round and round in our minds. When our minds are full of our own thoughts, God cannot insert His thoughts into them. When we commit our works unto Him, our minds are at rest, and His thoughts can enter. Keeping our minds free for God’s thoughts and creative ideas is something we need to grow into. Most of us are trying to take care of ourselves, even though we do a terrible job of it, and we keep trying and failing. We’re rather independent. God wants us to be dependent. He wants us to depend on each other, and He wants us, first and foremost, to depend on Him. That’s why He gives different gifts to different people in the body; we don’t all have everything, so we need to rely on each other.
Mark 4:19 states that the cares of the world choke the word and it becomes unfruitful. If you’re worrying while you’re listening to the word, then it’s not going to bear fruit. Then the cares and anxieties of the world and the distractions of the age, the pleasure and delight, the false glamour, and the deceitfulness of riches and the craving and passionate desire for other things creep in. You know who the creep is? They choke and suffocate the word, and it becomes fruitless. Do you ever find that you’re trying to pray and your mind drifts off, and you start to worry about something? For the word we hear to be fruitful, we need to meditate on it. Meditating on our problems prevents us from meditating on the word of God.
You say, «Meditate? I don’t know if I know how to meditate.» If you know how to worry, you know how to meditate because it’s just rolling something over and over in your mind. You’re much better off to take a scripture like Philippians 4:6 when you’re worried. One of the best ways to eliminate the bad thought is to meditate on the word: «Be anxious for nothing, but in all things by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known unto God. And the peace that passes understanding shall keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus.»
No, I’m not a genius who has memorized the Bible, but I do have scriptures that have meant a lot to me, and I have meditated on them enough that I know them quite well. As soon as I start to worry, I know four or five scriptures that I can speak out loud. If you’re thinking a wrong thing but you’re saying a right thing, then the thought has to change. In order for the word we hear to be fruitful, we need to meditate on it. «Casting all your care on Him, for He cares for you.» That’s how we humble ourselves, you know that. 1 Peter 5:6 says, «Humble yourself under the mighty hand of God, that in due time He might exalt you, casting the whole of your care, all your anxieties, all your worries, all your concerns once and for all on Him, for He cares for you affectionately and cares about you watchfully.» Don’t worry your prayers; pray your prayers.
Anxiety is us using today trying to figure out tomorrow. We have a pride problem. As long as we think we can solve our own problems, we’ll keep trying to do so. But humility is usually developed in us over the years as a result of many failures. You finally just get tired. «I’m just tired. God, I can’t do it anymore.» Well, God never asked you to do it in the first place. «Oh God, what do you want me to do? What do you want me to do? What do you want me to do?» He wants you to believe. Learn everything that you can about worry and get it out of your life.
The prayer of consecration. We should regularly consecrate ourselves to God. Give ourselves to God. You know, there’s a scripture that says we should come as a living sacrifice, holy, devoted, and well-pleasing to God, which is your reasonable service in spiritual worship. The Amplified says, «Give all your faculties to God.» That means I give Him my hands, I give Him my feet, I give Him my mouth, I give Him my mind. «God, think through me today. Speak through me today. Use my hands to help and be a blessing to people. Use me for prayer. I’m available to you today, God. Use me.» Wow! Would you start praying that every day? «I’m available to you today, God. Use me.» You know, God’s not looking for people with ability; He’s looking for people who are available -people that have availability.
Romans 12:1 says, «I appeal to you therefore, brethren, and beg of you, in view of all the mercies of God, to make a decisive dedication of your bodies, presenting all your members and faculties as a living sacrifice.» Under the old covenant, they had dead sacrifices; God wants living sacrifices, devoted, consecrated, and well-pleasing to God, which is your reasonable, rational, professional, intelligent service and spiritual worship. God wants you, not just your one hour a week. I said, «God wants you, not just your one hour a week.»
Listen, there are too many bad things and too much pressure in the world today for us to make it on one hour a week. We need God constantly. When we say, «Lord, I give myself to you,» we’re making a vow, and God expects us to keep our vows. We should offer this prayer frequently, if for no other reason than to remind ourselves who we belong to. You know, the Bible says you are bought with a price. We are redeemed with the blood of Jesus, bought with a price. You are not your own; you belong to God. Wow! Well, we act like we belong to ourselves, don’t we? Consecrate and dedicate yourself first, and then your family and all that you own. Offer God your time, your money, your talents, your gifts. You were created for His pleasure, not just your own.
Then there’s the prayer of importunity. Importunity is continued prayer, prayer that goes on for a while. There’s a widow in Luke 18:1-8 who prayed the prayer of importunity. She persisted in prayer until she saw a change. You know, I prayed for my father, who abused me, for at least 30 years for his salvation. When he was 83 years old, he apologized to me for what he had done to me when I was a child, and we prayed the prayer of salvation with him. A few days later, we baptized him. Yes, the devil lost. For 30 years I prayed for him on and off. There were other things that God asked us to do that we did. We took care of my parents when they were older, and it wasn’t free to take care of them. They didn’t have any money, so it cost us time and effort. Sure, the thought would come to me, «Well, they never did anything for you.» Well, that’s even a better reason to do a lot of stuff for them. We don’t give to get; we give because it’s a beautiful act of serving God.
In Luke 18:1-8, Jesus told them a parable to the effect that they ought always to pray and not to turn coward, faint, lose heart, and give up. Hm. He said, «In a certain city, there was a judge who neither revered nor feared God nor respected or considered man. There was a widow in that city who kept coming to him and saying, 'Protect and defend me against my adversary and give me justice.' For a time, he would not, but later he said to himself, ' Though I neither revere God nor respect man, yet because this widow continues to bother me, I will defend, protect, and avenge her, lest she give me intolerable annoyance and wear me out by her continual coming, or at the last she come and rail on me, or assault me, or strangle me.'»
Then the Lord said, «Listen to what the unjust judge says. Will not our God, our just God, defend, protect, and avenge His elect, His chosen ones who cry to Him day and night? Will He defer them and delay help on their behalf? He’s saying if an unjust judge who cares nothing for God or man can be worn down by somebody who just keeps coming to him, what can we expect from our just God?» This judge was unjust; God is just. He’s just waiting for us to ask Him and thank Him. «Will not our just God defend, protect, and avenge His elect who cry to Him day and night? Will He defer them and delay help on their behalf? I tell you, He will defend, protect, and avenge them speedily. However, when the Son of Man comes, now listen, will He find persistence in faith on the earth?»
Are you persistent in your faith, or do you give up if you don’t get what you want? Not what you want, but what the Bible says you can have. You know, if the Bible says if I obey God, I can prosper and succeed, then I need to study everything I can about obeying God, and I need to pray about that on a regular basis. If I’m doing the best I can to obey God, and I don’t know of any areas in my life where I am in purposeful disobedience, then I can expect God to answer my prayer. Amen.
An importune prayer is one that is urgent, persistent, and almost troublesome. Would we say to God, «I’m going to bother you until you answer me?» To be honest, I think sometimes He likes that kind of persistence. Some things need persistent prayer, and others do not. How can we tell the difference? Well, I believe we get a release when we’ve finished praying about an issue or for a person. Somebody asked me this morning, «How do you know when you need to keep praying or when you’ve prayed enough?» Well, we’ll get a release when we’re finished; it won’t come to our hearts anymore.
Now, the last type of prayer that I have time to talk about today, and praise God I got through all of them, is the prayer of agreement. Matthew 18:19 says, «Again I tell you, if two of you on earth agree, harmonize together, make a symphony together about whatever they may ask, it will come to pass and be done for them by my Father in heaven.» Wow! When two agree, they get what they ask for if they live in agreement. Not if they fight and argue all week and then have a need and decide they’re going to agree about that. One can put a thousand to flight, and two can put 10,000 to flight. Psalm 32:30 asks, «How could one have chased a thousand and two put 10,000 to flight except their rock had sold them and the Lord had delivered them up?»
In the book of Acts, we see unusual power manifested as the believers lived and prayed in one accord. A burden is heavier than a simple desire. If I have a burden for something or someone, I simply cannot rest or enjoy anything until I pray it through. Well, this takes longer than a few moments, and it’s going to require me to separate myself from ordinary activity and offer intense and fervent prayer. There are times when I can’t get through just by myself, and I need to go to somebody else and say, «Will you pray with me about this?» Paul prayed three times for God to deliver him from what the Bible calls a thorn in the flesh. God told him, «No.» God doesn’t say yes to all our prayers, but one thing’s for sure: He can’t say yes or no to something we don’t pray.
One of the ways to learn more about prayer is just to start doing it more, and God will teach you. And then I said that was last, but this is last: the prayer of intercession. That’s praying for somebody else. It’s very simple. The world is full of people who don’t know how to pray for themselves. There’s a world full of people who have never had one powerful prayer prayed over them. That’s one of the reasons we invite people to call our office if they have a prayer need or to send it in online. We have intercessors in our office praying all throughout the day. Your prayer request stays in our prayer room for 30 days and is prayed over by people who know how to pray.
With all our other kinds of praying, we need to make sure that we pray for other people. Pray for people who are sick. Pray for people who have lost their jobs. Pray for people who have lost a loved one. I try to pray every day for the lost. You say, «Well, how do you pray for the lost?» Well, this is the way I pray: «God, I pray that you would put the perfect laborer in the path of so-and-so today — someone who can speak a word in due season to them, that will warm their heart, soften their heart, and lead them to give their life to You.»
See, sometimes it takes a certain person at a certain time to speak a certain word, and it gets done. God said He looked for an intercessor: «I sought a man among them who should build up the wall and stand in the gap before me for the land, but I found none.» That’s probably one of the saddest scriptures in the Bible. He said there were needs here — torn-down walls, things that needed to be repaired. I needed somebody to come and stand in the gap, I needed somebody to come and pray, and I couldn’t find anybody.
Well, let’s not let that be the case today. Let’s make sure that we’re always available to God to pray whenever He wants us to pray. There are other things to do besides just praying all the time, but that is one of the main things that we need to make sure we attend to on a regular basis. We love you and we pray for you right now, that as you embark on a new walk of prayer with God, He will lead you and guide you and show you what you need to do, in Jesus' name. Amen. Thank you for being with us today.