Pray till Kingdom come!
Lk 11:2
(NLT) Jesus
said, this is how you should pray.
“Father, may your name be kept holy.
May your Kingdom come soon.”
The Teacher was praying when one of his learners
approached him with a request, “Lord teach us to pray, as John taught his
disciples.” Chances are, this
unnamed disciple must have compared how they prayed, and how the Teacher did
it. There is no doubt that by this time Jesus
had already stamped his authority on the disciples, they prayed, but in
contrast they were constantly found wanting.
They did not pray as effectively as the Master did. On one occasion, Jesus was praying, and they
were sleeping; on another, they sailed their way into violent waters when he
went up a mountain to pray.
Growing up in the Pentecostal church, I remember the
African Evangelist, Rev. Nicholas Bhengu saying to the crowds, “I say you
must pray and you play.” When Billy
Graham was asked what his greatest regret was, he replied, “I didn’t pray
enough.”
The question is, do we really know how to pray? If prayer is engaging the God who created the
universe, why are we so indifferent? Why
do we pray so little, so carelessly, and so ignorantly? Why are we so ineffective?
In biblical scripture, people prayed, and God
responded. Their prayers did not end up
in the air somewhere; but they had something to show for it. Abram prayed and God healed Abimelech. Isaac prayed and barren Rebekah fell
pregnant. Moses prayed and God withdrew
God’s curses on Pharaoh. Samson prayed
and God gave him revenge over the Philistines.
Hannah prayed and God gave her a much-desired baby. Jacob wrestled with God until he received his
blessing. The apostles prayed and Peter
was released from prison. If God answers
prayer, why are we content with fruitless prayer? Even more of an indictment, why are we so
powerless when we can be so powerful?
Too often, we think praying people in the scriptures
were a different species or were much holier than we are. The picture is different, Jas
5:17(TNIV) “Elijah was a human being even as we are. He prayed earnestly that it would not rain,
and it did not rain on the land for three and a half years.” He struggled with the same human issues we
all struggle with, and yet he prayed and shut the heavens. Prayer is not about who we are, it is about
who God is. God answers prayer because
God is able to do much more than we can ask or imagine (Eph 3: 20).
I had prayed many times before but had very little
to show for it. Was I praying or
playing? Like everything else, I
determined to revisit my prayer mental models, like the disciple mentioned
earlier, I was forced to ask, “Lord, teach us to pray.”
The
“4P Prayer Model.”
Jesus gave a simple model that we can follow, praise,
petition, promise, and persistence—what I have come to call the 4P prayer
model. This model is not linear, but
dynamic, the “P’s” are not necessarily meant to follow one after the other, but
dynamic prayer is in the living and meaningful tension of their interaction.
Right from the onset, Jesus taught the disciples
that the unseen God or the God who sees in secret is the object of
prayer, “Father, may your name be
kept holy.” Prayer is powerful if it
is fixed on God. David prayed, Ps
141:8 “But my eyes are fixed on you, O Sovereign LORD; in you I take refuge—don’t give me over to death.”
Prayer in scripture was not made to accomplish the
ordinary and the natural; for the most part, it was in petition to God for the
extraordinary and supernatural. When we
learn to hear the unheard, or see the unseen, we have leaped past our first
hurdle, and have begun travelling the unfolding journey of faith, Heb
11:1 “Now faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we
don’t see.”
From the very beginning, everything is turned upside
down or right side up and we begin to see and to hear deeper than the
average. Prayer reaches out into the Divine,
and introduces the supernatural into the natural. Prayer without an object is babbling into the
air, just as is prayer to an object that is unsustainable, what Jeremiah called
a “broken cistern” (Jer 2:13).
When we pray to God our belief in the existence of God is affirmed, Heb
11:6 “And without faith it is impossible to please God, because anyone
who comes to him must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who
earnestly seek him.” Prayer is
rooted in faith in God.
Jesus prayed as a matter of habit, Lk 5:16
“But Jesus often withdrew to lonely places and prayed,” it was not a once
off thing done on a Sunday morning, or during tough times. He practically lived in prayer, Ps 91:1(TNIV)
“Whoever dwells in the shelter of the Most High will rest in the shadow of the
Almighty.” Through prayer, we rise
above our physical environment and ascend into the spiritual. In prayer, we implore the creator of the
universe to return to the earth through us, and so we pray, “May your Kingdom
come soon.”
Praise is recognising God for who God is.
The challenge to pray to an unseen God is more than
psychological or philosophical; it is a challenge of the human spirit. It stands above the comprehensible to access
the incomprehensible. It transcends the
possible to achieve the impossible.
Prayer is the technology of communication between the human and the
divine.
Jesus said to the woman in Samaria, Jn 4:24
“God is spirit, and his worshipers must worship in spirit and in truth.” When we call out, “Father, may your name
be kept holy,” we know we are not speaking into the air; we release every
fibre of our being and focus on the creator of the universe. As a first step, we are invited to stand above
whatever our sensual situations may be, and to acknowledge through praise that
God is bigger than our situations and tensions of anxiety.
In that first call of praise our relationship with
God is restored, we become more than sons and daughters, we are the gods
created in the image of God, as the psalmist said, Ps 8:6(TNIV)
“You made [human beings] rulers over the works of your hands; you put
everything under their feet.”
Through praise, we take charge of our situation; our
situation does not take charge of us. We
take the initial step to fight the unseen war with unseen arsenals, because the
real struggle is not physical but spiritual, Eph
6:12 “For our struggle is not against
flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the
powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the
heavenly realms.”
Anxiety is born from the pressures of our
environment, what we pick up through the five senses; in praise, we turn the
tables and we put anxiety under pressure.
Paul taught the Philippians, Phil 4:6 “Don’t be anxious
about anything, but in everything, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving,
present your requests to God.”
The word Praise appears two hundred and
ninety two times from Genesis to Revelation (in the NIV), and a little more
than fifty seven percent of those are in the psalms alone. That is more than half of the total
throughout scripture; most psalms were songs of praise and worship, and
recognition of the supreme divinity of God.
Jesus taught that we should praise God before we ask of God. “May your name be kept holy.” In other words, may his name be kept
separate and distinct from other names because there is no other name like
his. The apostles taught, Ac
4:12(TNIV) “Salvation is found in no one else, for there is no other name
given under heaven by which we must be saved.” This is not a weakness; it is precisely where
the power of the gospel of Christ is firmly located. If prayer is to be successful, it must focus
on the supreme powers of The One (Jn 1:14).
Praise as an integral part of prayer is intended to
glorify God, and God alone. As God spoke
through the prophet, Isa 45:5 “I
am the LORD, and there is no other;
apart from me there is no God. I will
strengthen you, though you have not acknowledged me.” In praise, we concede in song and various
other forms that the God of biblical Israel alone is God, and we are, Isa
43:21 “the people I formed for
myself that they may proclaim my praise.”
In praise we acknowledge that we are created for
God’s pleasure, as part of the universe we are part of God’s marvelous
workmanship, like the heavens, we declare the glory of God. Peter reminded all of us, 1Pe 2:9
“But you are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people
belonging to God, that you may declare the praises of him who called you out of
darkness into his wonderful light.”
A psalm of ascent reads, Ps 121:1-2 “I lift up my eyes to the hills— where does
my help come from? My help comes from
the LORD, the Maker of heaven and
earth.” It
is tough to lift up your eyes when you focus on the circumstances around you,
to be sure, the more you ponder, the more you are pulled down into a pit of
hopelessness. Prayer is transcending
your situation in praise and ascending the throne of God. When you are in the all-powerfulness of God,
your circumstances take on their proper perspective and proportion. No problem is bigger than God!
Abraham must have looked down and around his
situation, and perhaps even wondered if he had made the right decision by
allowing his half-brother to choose the best and most fertile grazing
lands. It is not easy being kind in a
distorted world, people take advantage of you, and abuse your goodwill.
With Lot and his greed out of the picture, the Lord
said to Abraham, Ge 13:14-15
“Lift up your eyes from where you are and look north and south, east and
west. All the land you see I will give
to you and your offspring forever.”
If Abraham was anything like most of us, he was under environmental
pressure, he was the older brother, and so he could have chosen the best lands
for himself. Nevertheless, he made the
decision, and it was in the interest of the other. Sometimes we make decisions that seem foolish
on the surface, and even more foolish we run all over the place trying to
collect spilled milk. Abraham was told, “Lift up your eyes from where you are!” Look around Abraham and recognize opportunity
from every direction; and begin where you are.
If you keep your eyes on the problem, it is very difficult, perhaps
impossible to identify opportunity.
The psalmist knew the “matter-of-life-and-death”
secret, Ps 123:1-2 (TNIV) I lift up my eyes to you, to you whose
throne is in heaven. As the eyes of
slaves look to the hand of their master, as the eyes of a female slave look to
the hand of her mistress, so our eyes look to the LORD our God, till he shows us his mercy.”
This and a few other psalms are Psalms of the
ascent, they were sung by Israel’s pilgrims as they ascended to
Jerusalem. The secret of deliverance is
hidden in the recognition that God, the creator of heaven and earth is
sovereign, and that recognition is expressed in worship and songs of
praise. When we praise the Lord, we are
essentially calling on God to show Gods’ self, strong on our behalf. As the psalmist prayed, Ps 109:21
“But you, O Sovereign LORD, deal
well with me for your name’s sake; out of the goodness of your love, deliver
me.”
Prayer is about promise.
Political campaigns are known for empty promises;
politicians know our weak point and exploit it for their own greed and
purposes. We like it when people
promise, regardless of whether the promise will be kept or not. Sometimes we can’t keep promises we make to
ourselves. A promise has a way of
motivating one to stick with the odds; you continue to hope for something
better; and yet promises are often shattered even when made with the best of
intentions.
In biblical scripture, promise is taken literally
and seriously. When Israel (Jacob) was
about to die, he made Joseph his son promise, Ge 47:29 “If I have
found favor in your eyes, put your hand under my thigh and promise that you
will show me kindness and faithfulness.
Don’t bury me in Egypt.”
Jacob the liar and cheater did not want for himself what he accorded
others. He stole his older brother
Esau’s birth right and inherited his blessing, but the promises of the birth
right and blessing stood even when the wrong person received them.
God is not liar—liar!
It is a
natural thing for a human being to lie, the fact that we lie means we can
recognise truth when we see it. Abraham
lied and gave his wife up to Pharaoh and Abimelech for sexual abuse because he
wanted to save his skin. Sarah lied to
the Lord when she did not believe that Isaac could be born in her old age. Isaac lied about Rebekah to the Philistines
just as his father did about his mother; it just ran in the family, and we can
identify ourselves somewhere in between.
Because we lie some or most of the time, we think
God is in with us on it. We give it
different colours, white, and black or blue.
God is not as chameleon as we are, truth is truth and a lie is a lie
regardless of quality or quantity.
Balaam told Balak that God would bless God’s people even if Balak wanted
Balaam to curse them.[1] He told Balak, Nu 23:19(TNIV)
“God is not a human, that he should lie, not a human being, that he should
change his mind. Does he speak and then
not act? Does he promise and not
fulfill?” Paul agreed, Ro
3:4a(TNIV) “Let God be true, and every human being a liar.” God is not a liar; if God were, it would work
against God’s righteousness.
So often, we doubt God because we reduce him to the
level of human beings. We are haunted by
the same voice that troubled Adam and Eve, “Did God say?” We pull him down instead of allowing
ourselves to be pulled up. God will
honour God’s word for God ‘sake not ours, Jeremiah received the assurance, Jer
1:12 “I am watching to see that my word is fulfilled.” If God makes a promise in God’s Word, then
God will keep God’s promise, a cause and effect relationship disrupted only by
our unbelief.
Christ taught us to hope in promise, not just any
promise, but divine promise, “But seek
first his Kingdom and his righteousness, and all these other things will be
given to you as well.” In Luke we
are given a promissory note, Lk 12:32 “Don’t be afraid, little flock, for your Father has been pleased to
give you the Kingdom.”
In his farewell speech Joshua reminded Israel, Josh
23:14b “You know with all your
heart and soul that not one of all the good promises the LORD your God gave you has failed. Every promise has been fulfilled; not one has
failed.”
In promise, we don’t claim as if we demand or
deserve, but we receive a measure of grace, grace to give, and grace to
receive. We don’t seek these things, but
these things are given to us. God deals
well with us because God can’t deny God’s own nature.
The challenge of promise is not provision but
petition.
God is waiting to provide if we ask! The psalmist wrote, Ps 2:8 “Ask
of me, and I will make the nations your inheritance, the ends of the earth your
possession.” That is an incredible
mind stretch for us, not God. That
should not be too much trouble for the creator of the universe. To be sure, the earth is but a tiny little
speck in the context of a massive and ever-stretching cosmos. If we took a journey across the Milky Way
(our galaxy) travelling at 9,46 trillion km per year, the trip would take 100
000 years.
That is just the beginning, considering there are
billions and billions of galaxies out there.
The distances are massive and unimaginable, in the same way, stretching
into eternity, with no beginning or end; we can’t imagine how gigantic God
is. Gigantic presupposes measurement,
but God can’t be measured, God is without beginning and without end.
The point is; however much we ask, we can’t out-ask
God. To be sure, even if all seven
billion people[2]
on earth would ask God bigger than big, we still would not bleed heaven’s
storehouse dry. The prophet wrote, Jer
32:17 “Ah, Sovereign LORD,
you have made the heavens and the earth by your great power and outstretched
arm. Nothing is too hard for you.”
God’s resources are as limitless and unceasing as
God is. Jesus said, Jn 14:14
“You may ask me for anything in my name, and I will do it.” Why ask when we could just be given? Why be given when we did not ask? God wants us to participate in our needs being
met, at least by showing interest. We
receive a lot already that we have not asked for, Mt 5:45 “He
causes his sun to rise on the evil and the good and sends rain on the righteous
and the unrighteous.” A promise is a
response driven by a request, but God knows even before we asked, Mt
6:8 “… for your Father knows what you need before you ask him.” Asking is a grace we are given to participate
in receiving what we don’t deserve.
You don’t have, because you don’t ask.
Jesus said, Jn 16:24 “Until now you have not asked for anything in my name. Ask and you will receive, and your joy will
be complete.” Asking assumes need
and knowledge of the resource where the need can be met. Frustration is a consequence of lack of
resources, or lack of knowledge thereof.
You want but you can’t get because you don’t have the means how. James was right, Jas 4:2 “You want something but don’t get it. You kill and covet, but you can’t have what
you want. You quarrel and fight. You don’t have, because you don’t ask God.”
It should come as a shock that God’s providence is
based on a simple premise, Mt 7:7 “Ask and it will be given to
you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you.” We can’t have it any simpler than that;
our problem is not with the promise, but how we think about the promise, again,
we pull it down into the five senses, instead of it pulling us up into the
God-realm.
If that promise was made by some billionaire, we
would immediately go around announcing that we have received what we’ve been
asking for, even before it was given to us in material form. We would talk about it because we have
confidence in the resource, the person promised because he/she can
provide. We believe the person who makes
the promise not the gift. Thus, Jesus
taught, Mk 11:24 “Therefore I tell you, whatever you ask for in
prayer, believe that you have received it, and it will be yours.”
When we ask and believe we express confidence
in God’s ability to provide.
In God, we have a waiting resource to be explored,
and the only obstacle is that we don’t ask.
There is another problem, Jas 1:6-8(TNIV) “But when you ask, you must believe and not
doubt, because the one who doubts is like a wave of the sea, blown and tossed
by the wind. Those who doubt should not
think they will receive anything from the Lord; they are double-minded and
unstable in all they do.”
James spoke to three problem areas in asking, we
don’t ask, we don’t believe God will fulfil God’s promise when we ask, or we
ask with wrong motives, Jas 4:3 “When you ask, you don’t receive,
because you ask with wrong motives, that you may spend what you get on your
pleasures.” How often do we ask for
ourselves? We receive and then walk away
to spend on ourselves.
That is quiet in order in a “Three Musketeers”
culture, “Everyone for himself, and God for us all.” We hoard and dispense (philanthropy) just
enough to maintain advantage over others.
Prosperity is power and power is lording it over others. Motives are not hidden with God, and where
motives are exposed pride is deposed, Pr 16:2 “People may be pure
in their own eyes, but the Lord examines their motives.”
How then should we ask? Ask with the right motive. One night the Lord appeared to Solomon and
said, “Ask for whatever you want me to give you,” and Jesus made similar
statements in many ways. Solomon
responded, 2Ch 1:10 “Give me wisdom and knowledge, that I may lead this
people, for who is able to govern this great people of yours?” He asked for the
things that money could not buy, where the rest of us would have asked for the Kingdoms
of the world in our pockets. Motive is
an indicator of commitment because your heart lies where your treasure is. Jesus said we could ask for “whatever,” but that is always within the
limitations of a prayer made “according to his will.”
Wrong motives can be cruel and deadly, because you
think life was created for you. You
manipulate everything and everybody to further the aims of your life-plan,
whether known or unknown. People are
dedicated to using others to accomplish personal goals. Haman was going to ask King Xerxes for
Mordecai to hang Seventy-five feet high; little did he know that he would hang
on his own gallows (Est 7: 1-10). Twice,
his ulterior motives were exposed, and twice he suffered the public humiliation
he desired for others.
If we ask with wrong motives, we are ultimately
coiled by the wickedness of our own schemes.
Your motives will kill you or build you.
You are cursed where you curse, and you are blessed where you bless.
Solomon asked with the right motives, and he
received more than he bargained for. God
said to Solomon, 2Ch 1:11-12
“Since this is your heart’s desire and you have not asked for wealth, riches or
honour, nor for the death of your enemies, and since you have not asked for a long
life but for wisdom and knowledge to govern my people over whom I have made you
king, therefore wisdom and knowledge will be given you. And I will also give
you wealth, riches and honour, such as no king who was before you ever had and
none after you will have.”
This is the essence of the Kingdom Imperative,
we are set free to ask for things that money can’t buy, in the process God
gives us more because we find pleasure in God’s will, Ps 37:4
“Delight yourself in the LORD and
he will give you the desires of your heart.”
To be sure, God was saying to Solomon, your motives have been
exposed, and they are in the right place.
Jesus taught it differently, Lk 12:34 “For where your
treasure is, there your heart will be also.” Right there is the only way to surpass
Solomon’s luxury, Lk 12:27 “Consider how the lilies grow. They don’t labor or spin. Yet I tell you, not even Solomon in all his splendour
was dressed like one of these.”
When David prayed, Ps 139:23 “Search
me, O God, and know my heart; test me and know my anxious thoughts,” he
asked the Lord to expose his motives.
There is no moving forward about anything until we ask very probing
questions regarding our actions. Why do
you do what you want to do? What do you
want to accomplish? How does it affect
those around you? Does it add value to
life in all its forms, or does it destroy?
There are a hundred ways to scrutinise motive; in the end, we must lay
bare to the scrutiny of God’s Spirit.
When we are very open, then we are free to receive from God!
Jesus asked a very probing question, Mt 7:11 “If you, then, though you
are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your
Father in heaven give good gifts to those who ask him!” Here again, the Teacher points to the
sinfulness of all humanity, we are evil even at the top of our best and good
performance, and yet we can do well for our own. How much more when we are God’s own, even
more, when God is known to honour every promise made according to God’s
word. When God honours God’s promise
God’s righteousness is revealed.
We ask, not
because we qualify, but precisely because we are unqualified in our own, and
qualify only in Christ. As Paul wrote, 2Co
5:21 “God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we
might become the righteousness of God.”
We are qualified to ask even though we are evil because we stand in the
righteousness of God in Christ the gift of God.
Ro 8:32 “He who did not spare his own Son, but gave him up
for us all—how will he not also, along with him, graciously give us all
things?”
Jesus promised, Mt 21:22 “If you
believe, you will receive whatever you ask for in prayer.” If we doubt God’s ability to honour God’s
word, we are effectively saying God is a liar.
Biblical scripture repeatedly says, “God is able,” and that
ability is confirmed in many and various ways throughout, from the story of
creation to Abraham and Isaac, and Jacob, and Joseph. God performed many miracles through Israel and
the prophets, In the New Testament God confirmed his Word through Christ and
the apostles. God is able to do beyond
anything we might ask or imagine (Eph 3:20), Lk 1:37 “For nothing
is impossible with God.” All we have
to do is ask, Lk 11:9 “So I say to you: Ask and it will be given
to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you.”
‘If you want patience ignore the wait’
Nando’s, in South Africa is known for its famous
maxim, “You remember the taste long after you’ve forgotten the wait.” It takes a while to prepare their chicken,
but after the taste, you won’t mind the wait.
Patience and persistence are a critical integral part of prayer. Often, we miss the good taste because we
could not wait long enough. Our culture
is shaped by the “Coca-Cola machine” mentality; slot in the coin and out comes
the can.
The prophet Daniel was a man of prayer, and every
time he prayed his angel would respond, “I have come…” Prayer is a spiritual force that penetrates
the negative and demonic powers of the universe. When we pray, we are essentially calling upon
God to intervene in some good way in the affairs of human existence. When God answers prayer, there are unseen
forces that oppose goodwill on earth who try to intercept the answer to our
prayers. The angel said to Daniel, Da
10:12 “Don’t be afraid, Daniel.
Since the first day that you set your mind to gain understanding and to
humble yourself before your God, your words were heard, and I have come in
response to them.”
Daniel’s answer to prayer was delayed for twenty-one
days; that is three weeks of waiting with no sign of activity or
intervention. Twenty-one days later the
angel says his prayers were answered the very first day they were made, he just
had to fight his way through to make the delivery. It was three weeks late but right on
time. Suppose Daniel gave up on day
twenty and a half, what would have happened?
He would have missed the answer, and he would have been as empty as he
was on day one. “A miss is as good as
a mile.” Prayer demands that we stay the whole cause.
[1] Numbers 23, Balaam could not curse Israel because God’s blessing
rested on her.
[2] The population of the world as in 2019.
