Matt 26:40 And he cometh unto the disciples, and findeth them asleep, and saith unto Peter, What, could ye not watch with me one hour?
No, this is not the rule about food on the floor. This rule is about praying.
Now that we are in the ‘time saving’ age of the eMyth, let’s just try to do this. Pray in the Spirit alone for just 5 minutes daily with all your eStuff turned off. Most people, not even Pastors can not honestly say that they do that. Not even 5 minutes, let alone an hour. Praying in the Spirit is above and beyond praying without ceasing. It’s great to pray with your family, brothers at church and while commuting. But seek those 5 minutes daily, alone, just you and the Holy Spirit.
Like the 1/5second rule of resisting negative thoughts, this 5 minute a day rule will revolutionize your life. People that say they need to pray about something for weeks on end are usually being untruthful. They’re just thinking about it with their brain. The fact is, if you truly pray on the Spirit for five minutes you won’t have to ‘ponder it for weeks’ (what they mean when they say they want to ‘pray about it’). Pondering is not praying. You don’t need to ponder spiritual things to get an answer, you need God’s help. Come to think of it, you need God’s help for everything! Pondering is a mental thing. Anyone can do it. It’s needed and good. Most Godly people do ponder, but that is not praying in the Spirit. My beautiful wife Winnie is a classic example of someone who prays in the Spirit for the spiritual realm short term, but ponders decisions in the physical realm for weeks or even months. So did our beautiful sister, Mary, Jesus´ mom.
Luke 2:19 But Mary kept all these things, and pondered them in her heart.
You’ll find if you really do pray in the Spirit 5 minutes a day, you’re life will improve. Even correct normal day to day decisions in your life will be easier to make because the Holy Spirit knows the future. He knows things you don’t. How do you plan around a bunch of unknowns? 5 minutes is an entry point. (Like intermittent fasting). The more you do it the longer you’ll be able to do it, and the more enjoyable it will become because you will quickly see the benefits.
I personally don’t think Jesus had supernatural powers as a kid. Legends and writings said He made His toys fly and silly stuff like that, but that’s not what the Bible says. Jesus, Emmanuel, God with us, shed His divinity – and lived among us for 33 years, without sinning. I think He received His supernatural powers at 30, when He was filled with the Holy Spirit at His baptism. When we accept Jesus, we are filled with His Holy Spirit as well. You can’t pray in the Spirit until you are filled with the Holy Spirit of God. Jesus understood the power of praying in the Spirit.
Luke 6:12 One day soon afterward Jesus went up on a mountain to pray, and he prayed to God all night. At daybreak he called together all of his disciples and chose twelve of them to be apostles.
Jesus spent all night praying in the Spirit. He then made 12 perfect hires. No long interviews. No waiting for a decision. No board. No pondering. No HR. He hired the perfect people for their respective jobs (even Judas). No bad hires. (If you ever hired people you will know that this alone is a miracle). 0 attrition, because the Holy Spirit that guided Him knows the future, as well as the past and present.
Here’s 5 steps to prayer in the Spirit, believing!
(Believing is critical. If you aren’t believing, ask God to help you with that before anything else)
1. Ask – Ask God (in faith, believing) to help you to pray on the Spirit. Ask God what He wants from you. Your new Spirit within you will communicate with God’s Holy Spirit, who will teach you to pray better, more effectively. Ask God to guide you. To speak to you. Pour out your heart to Him. Your position doesn’t matter. Just bow your heart to Him.
Luke 12:12 For the Holy Spirit will teach you in that very hour what you ought to say.
2. Look for an answer. Expect it. Ask God to show it to you. See it. Recently, as I was praying, I saw myself at an enormous dinner table filled with a lot of people, from babies to people that were 100 + years old. Laughing. Happy. Smiling. Like an enormous functional, happy family (I never been there, so I wouldn’t know, but God is showing me it’s possible). To me it was a reminder of what God has planned for PureHeartChildren’sFund (an orphanage and a home for the elderly on the same land). Maybe not in my lifetime, but I know this is what God wants for P.H.C.F. I call it dreaming with my eyes open in front of God. I am sure there’s a better term for it, it’a just my terminology. Family dinners for me as a kid were torture. Anything to do with family was agony. This is pure God because it is nothing I would choose on my own. God lets me see. People that pray (pray-ers) get previews. That is of course for people that pray in the Spirit. Jesus dreamed before God the Father with His eyes open. He saw SAW Nathaniel sitting under the fig tree the night before He hired him as a disciple because God showed it to Him!
John 1:48 Nathanael said to Him, “How do You know me?” Jesus answered and said to him, “Before Philip called you, when you were under the fig tree, I saw you.”
3. Check your heart. Ask Him to remove anything from your heart. Apply the 1/5second. (See previous blog). Anything that is in the past (remorse) or future (worry), remove it from you heart (mind) immediately.. Be in the present. I deal with adolescents. They are planning next week’s fútbol game while I am talking to them about living a Godly life. It’s annoying. The old drunk is reminiscing about the glory days while I am telling them that Jesus loves them. Equally annoying. God doesn’t get annoyed, but I am sure that you not being all there while you are having your 5 minutes with Him isn’t at all pleasing. Checking your heart becomes automatic when you are mindfully practicing being in the present.
Ephesians 1:18- I pray that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened in order that you may know the hope to which he has called you, the riches of his glorious inheritance in his holy people
4. Listen. There’s a time to talk, and a time to listen. Speed Reading a prayer request list saying ‘ bless Tommy, bless my puppy, bless my wife etc isnt even praying, let alone listening. Be still. Listen Him, The Holy Spirit is shy, He will never interrupt you. Nor is He loud. Be quiet. Listen with your heart. Lots of things and thoughts will make you think it’s God, but isn’t. Be careful. Be patient. Be still. You will recognize Him when He makes His presence known.
1 Kings 19:11 And he said, Go forth, and stand upon the mount before the Lord. And, behold, the Lord passed by, and a great and strong wind rent the mountains, and brake in pieces the rocks before the Lord; but the Lord was not in the wind: and after the wind an earthquake; but the Lord was not in the earthquake: And after the earthquake a fire; but the Lord was not in the fire: and after the fire a still small voice. And it was so, when Elijah heard it, that he wrapped his face in his mantle, and went out, and stood in the entering in of the cave. And, behold, there came a voice unto him, and said, What doest thou here, Elijah?
5. Obey. Whatever you KNOW what God tells you to do, do it! Immediately! Swiftly! Don’t ask for advice. If you heard wrong, God knows your heart; If He shows you to do something and you don’t do it? That’s where the problems come. Plus He won’t show you anything else until you do the last thing He showed you to do. That’s my experience anyway. Be a doer of the Word, not a hearer only.
We pray on the Spirit to know God’s will and to do it.
James 1:22 But be ye doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving your own selves. For if any be a hearer of the word, and not a doer, he is like unto a man beholding his natural face in a glass: For he beholdeth himself, and goeth his way, and straightway forgeteth what manner of man he was.
But whoso looketh into the perfect law of liberty, and continueth therein, he being not a forgetful hearer, but a doer of the work, this man shall be blessed in his deed.
Remember…. Pray-ers get previews