Organization of effective prayer life III
Precious children of God, welcome to „Daily Word for Spiritual Edification”! Our God is alive, and He wants His children to be revived through the truth of God’s Word and through the fellowship with Him.
We have been talking about how fellowshipping with God in prayer makes us strong and fills with His life. Yesterday we established that prayer has nothing to do with intellectual abilities. Prayer is spiritual work. It is communication with God’s Spirit. If we want to be spiritually alive, we need to have fellowship with our Creator, – we need to pray.
Let’s continue to look at the laws of effective prayer.
- Prayer is getting close to God.
Let’s look at James (4:8):
«Draw near to God and He will draw near to you…».
Prayer means to consciously draw near to God. Prayer means to approach God on purpose.
Who of you wants to draw near to God? Who of you desires for God to draw near to you? God cannot be closer to you than He is. But you can draw near to Him. God is so close to us; He says: „I am here!” You are asking: «God, where are You?” Remember when Elijah ran away and cried: «God, where are You?” But God was with him. God is everywhere! And we can draw near to Him through prayer.
«Draw near to God and He will draw near to you…».
What does it mean to draw near to God? It means to leave all cares, to leave everything that distracts us and consciously move towards God to spend time with Him. It means to leave worries and all the vanity that requires your attention in order to spend time with Him. So many things put a claim on our time. Do you agree? And if you are not careful, you won’t have any time left to draw near to God. We have to take charge of our time and organize it in such a way that we have time for it.
Prayer means to draw near to God on purpose.
So many people – especially those serving God and having full-time ministry position – do that find time to draw near to God. What does ‘full-time ministry’ mean? It means that ministry is your job. It means that is the only job you have and you do it 24/7. It is a paradox when a full-time minister is so busy serving God that he does not have time for God, because his time is filled with people, projects, and problem-solving. You do this, you do that and the day is over, and you have not spent any time in fellowship with God.
In order for you to organize your life correctly, you will need some self-disciplining. It is not only full-time ministers that do not find time for prayer and fellowship with God; the same problem is plaguing many of those who call themselves believers. People are so busy that they do not have time to draw near to God.
Do you recall the Bible story about Martha? Was it so bad that Martha was working hard to put some refreshments for Jesus? What was so bad about it? Jesus came to visit them and neither Martha, nor Mary knew about it in advance. Martha started to take care of the natural things. She tidied up the house, started to set the table, – it was a regular reaction. At the same time Mary was sitting close to Jesus and listening to Him. The truth is that Jesus did not come to eat. Jesus came to fellowship, but Martha was too busy to find the time for it. As a result, she did not learn what Jesus had on his heart. Mary was listening; she heard and understood the heart of Jesus.
If you look at Mary’s life, you see that she did many things prophetically; Jesus’ disciples did not see and understood these things even though they were right by His side. Do you remember the time when Mary came to Jesus, broke the alabaster vial and anointed Him? The people around them did not understand what was happening. Jesus asked to leave her alone saying that she had prepared Him for His burial. Many times Jesus had said to His disciples that He would be crucified, that He would die and be buried, and that on the third day He would rise again. But His disciples did not believe it; they did not even think of it. Mary knew these things and even made some prophetic steps. Why? She knew how to spend time in the presence of God.
What does it say to us? If you are serving God, it is a good thing. If you have lots of work it is a good thing, because you are not wasting your time, but putting it to good use. Nevertheless, you need to leave some things that require your attention and daily draw near to God.
It is a dangerous thing to minister to God and not find time to fellowship with Him!
It is wrong! It is not true ministry! My nr.1 ministry is fellowshipping with God, it is prayer, it is conscious drawing near to Him.
We will continue tomorrow!
Be blessed!
Pastor Rufus Ajiboye
