Finding Quiet Places To Pray

Posted on November 26, 2016 by Stephen Nielsen

Whenever you pray it is important to first have a place picked out—a place where you will experience His presence and get a glimpse of heaven. A place such as this would be a quiet, lonely place, away from worldly distractions. It can be inside or outside. I usually pray in my study at my desk. But once in a while I will go outside for a walk. I especially enjoy praying by a quiet stream. The movement of the water always invigorates my spirit. When I see and hear the flowing water I sense His Spirit moving through me. I am often reminded of what Jesus said: “He who believes in Me…out of his heart will flow rivers of living water” (Jn. 7:38).

Every Christian needs to have a special place to pray where he believes God will visit him and manifest Himself to him. In New Testament times most Jewish believers had a special room (like a porch) built on the top of their flat roof house, which they used for prayer. They no doubt were convinced of the importance of private prayer. Perhaps this “Upper Room” is what Jesus was referring to when He taught about prayer in Matthew 6:6: “When you pray, go into your room, and when you have shut your door, pray to your Father, who is in the secret place….”

Nonetheless, the idea of finding a private place to pray is important if we want to have a quality prayer time. Even Jesus needed time alone with His Father. Scripture indicates that He was often found praying alone in a certain place (Lu. 11:1).

I can imagine that He had all kinds of special places where He prayed. The Bible tells us that He prayed at night on mountain tops (Lu. 6:12); He prayed in the wilderness (Matt. 4:1-2); He prayed in lonely places (Matt. 14:13); and one of His favorite places, while He was in Jerusalem, was in the Garden of Gethsemane on the Mount of Olives (Lu. 22:39; Matt. 26:36).

Now I can just hear someone saying, “God is always with me. Why do I need to have a special place to pray? I pray to God all the time wherever I go.”

This, I know, is the attitude of some people. But I want to correct that thinking. Yes, we can and we should pray wherever we go. But there is great value in finding a certain place to pray in.

Posted in Part 5, Practice of Prayer, Prayer A to Z Excerpts, Zenith of Prayer | Tagged a quiet stream, a secret place, daily prayer time, Garden of Gethsemane, lonely places, Mount of Olives, mountain tops, prayer, the wilderness, upper room | 3 Comments

Looking Forward To Perfect Unity

Posted on November 19, 2016 by Stephen Nielsen

From the way it is now to the way it will be in heaven, we can definitely say that our prayers will be much more unified. Now our loyalty is divided. Whether we will admit it or not, we have many idols. There are times when we are full of the Holy Spirit and pray in the Spirit; in those times our prayers are united. But a lot of the time we are not full of the Spirit, and so we unite ourselves with all kinds of sin and with idols.

What a change there will be in heaven. All sin, all disloyalty, all impurity, all our disunity will be a thing of the past. From the time we see Him and are instantly glorified, we will take on a perfect, godly attitude toward each other—for we will be full of His Spirit and full of love for God and for each other. In that wonderful moment when our eyes meet His eyes, the Spirit will unite us together with Him and with the Father. In that moment each of us will miraculously become like Christ. Our attributes and our behavior will become just like His. All of us will have God’s love and joy and peace—to the fullest extent. We will all be longsuffering toward each other; and we will have the qualities of kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control to the maximum (Gal. 5:22-23). A Christian has those things now, but not to the maximum and not all the time.

I think our unity with each other and with God will be such that we will keep in constant touch with Him and with each other—so that we will be in perfect fellowship, always knowing what is going on with each other and always communicating with each other. Never will there be any point of contention and any break in fellowship. And our prayer-communication with God will always be sweet and full of love.

We will have many personal differences in heaven, as we do now, but we won’t let those differences divide us. We of course will have different personalities (different looks, character traits, habits, and drives), different skills and abilities, even different levels of knowledge—which suggests that we will disagree on some things. But in spite of all our differences, we won’t sin against each other or fight with each other. Love will reign in all our relationships.

Our differences I think will be one of the things that give us pleasure and amusement, and will cause us to praise God. If we were all the same it would be rather boring. Our differences allow us to see and marvel at the creative genius of God and to know that He cares about us and wants us to be happy. Therefore, our differences, rather than bring a source of division, as is often the case now, will enhance our love for each other and for God. When we see and experience the differences in each other, instead of feeling tension and fear and uneasiness toward each other, we will feel the wonder and grace of God and will be lifted up with joy.

And our differences will enhance our prayers; when we behold different voices and different offerings we will sense the joy it brings God; what a sweet harmony of voices (with different personalities) God will hear. God will be so pleased with us, and we with Him and with each other. Yes, we forever will have perfect unity in prayer; a unity of love and peace in the Spirit.

Posted in Part 4, Peak of Prayer, Prayer A to Z Excerpts, Zenith of Prayer | Tagged heaven, idols, prayer, spirit filled, unity, unity in prayer | Leave a comment

A More Perfect Love – Matthew 5:43-48

Posted on November 8, 2016 by Stephen Nielsen

“You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’ 44 But I say to you, love your enemies, bless those who curse you, do good to those who hate you, and pray for those who spitefully use you and persecute you, 45 that you may be sons of your Father in heaven; for He makes His sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the just and on the unjust. 46 For if you love those who love you, what reward have you? Do not even the tax collectors do the same? 47 And if you greet your brethren only, what do you do more than others? Do not even the tax collectors do so? 48 Therefore you shall be perfect, just as your Father in heaven is perfect. (Matthew 5:43-48, bold for emphasis)

Though I have read this passage many times, and though I have thought it was easy to understand, I have failed to get its full meaning, especially in the light of verse 45.

Yes I know verse 45 is talking about “common grace”—that God is gracious to all. But I have failed to relate it to me, to us, to how we should love. This verse is telling us that we as children of God must be gracious to all just as He is. He wants us to love everyone the same, just as He makes the sun to rise on all, and just as He sends rain on all—whether good or evil.

I normally think of this passage as loving maybe one or two or three of my enemies that treat me badly and to also pray for them. But now I see Jesus saying to me that I should stretch out my hands to the whole world in love. This is a much broader and more inclusive love—a love that loves all, always. It is a perfect (or complete) love, the kind of love the Father has and that we are to have. It is a love that shows no favoritism (as in James 2:1-7), and also that does not regard one’s own interests or welfare. This love is absolutely other centered and without self-motives.

This is the kind of love good missionaries have, and that faithful pray warriors have—those that pray for all the people of the world, whether good or evil. This is the kind of love that opposing political parties should have for one another, even when they strongly disagree with each other.

Posted in Bible Studies, Quiet Time Highlights | Tagged complete love, Love, loving our enemies, perfect love, prayer | Leave a comment

Drain the Swamp in Washington D. C.

Posted on November 5, 2016 by Stephen Nielsen

Studying Bible Prophecy

Drain the Swamp of Washington Corruption

Drain the Swamp of the Clinton Machine

Drain the Swamp of a Dishonest Media

Drain the Swamp of the Global Elites

Drain the Swamp of Obama Care

VOTE ON NOVEMBER 8

FOR

DONALD TRUMP

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Three Things about United Prayer That Will Never Change

Posted on October 30, 2016 by Stephen Nielsen

Since I define prayer as communication with God, I think we should regard prayer as something we will do forever. And since believers will always be together, communicating with God together, I think we will always be involved in united prayer.

Here are three basic things about united prayer that will never change:

1. Jesus Christ, the one who makes united prayer possible, will always be our Savior and our High Priest. He is now and forever our High Priest, and He forever opens the door of friendship to God (Heb. 7:24-25). He will constantly, forever testify to the Father that He died for our sins and saved us. Therefore, His blood works continually to keep us saved and to keep us reconciled to God.

Since all believers are forever saved, we are forever united to Christ and to each other. We are His body and He is the head. We will never be separated from Him.

One of the duties of a priest is to intercede for his people. Christ is our High Priest and He continues to intercede for us. And we are also priests. From the moment God saved us and brought us into His family He made us priests like His Son (1 Pt. 2:9; Rev. 5:10). We who are in His family and who are part of Christ’s body are a kingdom of priests. He is the High Priest over us and we are His little priests; we all take on the ministry of intersession and we all pray together as prayer partners in God’s kingdom.

As believers in Christ and as His partners in prayer we share all things with Him. We are now sharing His sufferings, and to some extent we are also sharing His new resurrected life. Soon, in heaven, we will leave all our suffering behind. We will then experience the new life with Him in a much fuller way, which will also include the exalted life where we will reign with Him forever (Rev. 5:10).

2. The Holy Spirit will always be with us as our comforter and intercessor. He now and forever exists as our intercessor, guiding us in our life and in our prayers. He will always be with us to show us how to live and how to pray. He is the one who will forever keep us united to the Father and the Son and to each other. Likewise, He keeps our prayers united so that we are all praying the will of God (Rom. 8:27) and according to what Jesus Himself is praying.

3. Believers that are united in prayer abide in Christ. United prayer exists because believers are united. And believers are united because they abide in Christ as a branch abides in a vine (Jn. 15). This is true now and it will always be true. There will never be an occurrence when we decide not to abide in Him and yet still be able to pray in unity. United prayer will always require our full obedience and dependence on God—an obedience that is of a right heart, out of love. Be assured that this in fact is how it will be. Never will there be a moment in heaven when we do not obey God from a loving heart, and therefore that we will not be united with Him. The absence of sin and the promises of God guarantee it.

God has promised us through His servant Paul (in 1 Corinthians 15:51-54) that when Jesus comes to get us “we shall all be changed” and “death is swallowed up in victory.” Likewise, in Revelation 21:4, God promised us through His servant John, “God will wipe away every tear from their eyes; there shall be no more death, nor sorrow, nor crying. There shall be no more pain, for the former things have passed away.” Likewise, since there will be no more pain, there will be no more sin; for pain and death comes as the result of sin (Rom. 6:23).

We also read in 1 John 3:2 that when Christ is revealed to us (when we see Him) we shall be like Him. If this doesn’t indicate our unity with God I don’t know what does. The prayer of Jesus for us, in John 17:21, will finely be fully and completely answered—“that they may be one, as You, Father, are in Me, and I in You; that they also may be one in Us…”

What a great testimony this will be to the angels and also to those on the earth during the millennium: to see us in such grand unity; to see all of us, thousands of us looking like Christ. Yes, we will be like Him. What a marvelous thing that will be!

Posted in Part 4, Peak of Prayer, Prayer A to Z Excerpts, Zenith of Prayer | Tagged Abide in Christ, Christ our High Priest, Christ our Savior, eternal nature of prayer, prayer, prayer is eternal, the Holy Spirit our comforter, united prayer | 1 Comment

Four Purposes of Prayer That Are Eternal

Posted on October 22, 2016 by Stephen Nielsen

By purpose I mean the direction that prayer should take; that is, what things God has designed for us to pray about. The purposes of prayer has been set forth for us in the Lord’s Prayer (Matt. 6:9-13). Some of the purposes will endure forever, but some will be discontinued after we are glorified—because they have to do with our present condition; namely prayer for forgiveness of sin, and for protection and deliverance from evil.

For Needs and Desires

As for the purposes of prayer that will remain the same in heaven, the obvious purpose of prayer is for our daily needs. We will always be dependent on God for everything, and so we will need to pray about everything—with rejoicing and thanksgiving (1 Thess. 5:16). We will not have the same needs in heaven as we do now, but we will still have desires. We will not have trouble and pain and sorrow to pray about as we do now. And we will not have to pray for our protection and deliverance from evil, and to be forgiven of sins as we do now (Matt. 6:12-13). All these things will be over and done with. But there still will be much to pray about. Everything we do we will talk to God about. Every decision will be prayed about—where to go, what to do, who to talk to. Every desire I have for something I will ask Him about and He will immediately give those things to me (Jn. 16:24; Is. 65:24)—things I want to see, things I want to taste and eat, things I want to experience and explore, places I want to travel to. Of course God always wants us to be involved in His work and His kingdom. He will talk to me about that, and I will talk to Him and ask Him many things about what He wants me to do and what His will is. (Read how Moses and Elijah, who were in heaven at the time, discussed with Jesus His departure, Luke 9:30-31.)

The purpose of prayer is not just for daily needs and desires. It is also for the praise and worship of God; it is for His glory and kingdom and will. This higher purpose is designed to take precedence over and to influence all our daily needs and desires so that all we pray about (every desire, every decision) is for His glory and according to His will. There are three different points of prayer that Jesus has already outlined for us (in Matthew 6:9-10) that falls under this higher purpose of prayer: (1) “Hallowed be Your name;” (2) “Your kingdom come;” and (3) “Your will be done on earth as it is in heaven.”

For His Glory

In the first point of prayer, “Hallowed be Your name,” we are asking God to show Himself to us so that we may lift Him up and glorify Him. For example, we may pray, “Lord, let me see who You are and what You have done so that I can tell You how great You are and how awesome You are. Lord, You are so very holy. I desire that all people treat You as You are—holy. I desire that all people would praise You. Help me treat You holy. Show me how to see You and treat You as holy and perfect. Lord I worship You.”

For His Kingdom

Corresponding to the second point, “Your kingdom come,” we should and will pray something like this: “Lord, because You are so holy and so great, we desire to be part of Your kingdom and to experience all the great plans You have for us. Lord, we commit ourselves to You. We want You to reign and rule over us as King. Guide us and rule over us so that we may see Your holiness and be holy as You are. We are Your willing servants.”

That is the spiritual part of prayer. As for the physical meaning, we now pray that Jesus will come soon bodily to rule and reign on this earth, to make all things right. Of course in heaven our prayers will be a bit different. We will pray, “Thank You for coming to us and for making all things new and better.”

For His Will

Corresponding to the third point, “Your will be done on earth as it is in heaven,” now we pray for our salvation and sanctification and for everything to be done on earth according to His will, as it is being done in heaven. When we get to heaven, of course, all things will be done and will be going according to His will; and so we won’t need to pray about it, but I can imagine we will be thanking Him for eternity—for saving us and for making us holy, without sin. But I suppose there is one thing we will pray about—that we will come to know Him better and better, that we will learn more and more of His will every day for eternity. This will be our growing desire, and of course it is exactly what will happen.

Posted in Part 4, Peak of Prayer, Photography, Prayer A to Z Excerpts, Zenith of Prayer | Tagged daily bread, eternal nature of prayer, God's glory, God's Kingdom, God's will, prayer, prayer in heaven, The Lord's Prayer | 3 Comments

How to Decide Who to Vote For In the 2016 Presidential Election: 3 Points

Posted on October 17, 2016 by Stephen Nielsen

This is a very important election coming up. Each of us needs to pray for his or her candidate choice. And pray also for people to get out and vote–and for God to lead us in who to vote for.

Studying Bible Prophecy

These are the only viable choices.

Billy Graham in his Decision magazine (Sept. 2016 issue) stated,

I do not believe there has ever been a time—even in the days prior to the Civil War—that we as Americans have gone to the polls with greater issues than those at stake in the coming presidential election… I am convinced that the direction we take from this point on will determine not only the ultimate fate of our nation, but also the fate of the entire democratic world as we know it today… I think it is the duty of every individual Christian at election time to study the issues and candidates and then go to the polls and vote.

Since your vote in this election is so critical, I thought it would be good to give you my thoughts (according to my research and observation) on how to decide on who to…

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The Holy Spirit Is Now and Will Forever Be Our Means of Prayer

Posted on October 11, 2016 by Stephen Nielsen

By means I mean the instrument, or the way, by which prayer comes to us. The means of prayer is the Holy Spirit; and that will never change. The Holy Spirit will always be the means (the instrument) of our prayers. He will forever give us access to God’s throne; He will forever give us confidence to approach Him; and He will forever make our prayers acceptable to Him.

At this present time, because of our sinful condition, we are weak in prayer, and so we especially need the Holy Spirit to help us pray. He gives us access to God by reason of Christ’s shed blood for us. That is, if we have received Him and His blood has been applied to our heart, the Spirit will lead us to God’s throne (Rom. 5:2; Heb. 4:16).

If for some reason we think that God may not accept us, that we are not worthy and don’t feel confident to approach Him, the Spirit is always with us to intercede for us and give us confidence. Romans 8:16-17 tells us that “The Spirit Himself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God, and if children, then heirs—heirs of God and joint heirs with Christ…”

As we begin to pray, if we think that we may not have all the right words, He helps us with that too. Romans 8:26 says, “…The Spirit also helps in our weaknesses. For we do not know what we should pray for as we ought, but the Spirit Himself makes intercession for us with groanings which cannot be uttered.”

In heaven, the Holy Spirit will still be our means of prayer. We will always be fully dependent on Him for our strength in prayer. He will forever give us access to God based on Christ’s shed blood for us; He will forever give us confidence to approach Him as He perpetually bears witness to us that we are His children; and He will forever make our prayers acceptable to God—not only because He will have taken away our sins, but also because He will remain our help in pray. That is, He will forever be praying in us and through us.

But how does all this work? How does the Holy Spirit now help us, and how will He continue in heaven to help us pray so that our prayers are answered? Here are two related ideas:

1. He helps us pray in Jesus name (according to God’s will) by uniting us to the Spirit of the Father and the Son. Here the idea is that the Holy Spirit unites our spirit with the Spirit of the Father and the Son so that we become one with Them and get to know Them just as They (the Father and the Son) are one with each other and know each other. Hence, when we receive the Spirit of the Father we will get to know the Father’s heart and all the plans He has for us. And when we become one with the Son we will experience His great love for us and for the Father. And we will learn how to pray as He prayed—to have that humble, perfect attitude in prayer that He has toward His Father. Moreover, when we become one in spirit with the Father and Son we will take on God’s identity; we will therefore pray in His name, and receive from Him whatever we desire. That is because our desires will be the same as His desires (Jn. 14:10-14 and 17:20-23).

2. He brings us to God’s Word and He helps us abide in Him through His Word. Our abiding in Him is how the Spirit gets us involved in the process of prayer, and the way He helps us to pray in unity with the Father and the Son. It is the way we get to know God and the way we are able to pray according to His will and in Jesus name.

Here is the process: first the Spirit gets our attention by creating a desire in our heart for God and His Word. He will then point out to us something in the Word that He wants us to ponder and think about. As we meditate on that passage He will open it up to us and help us to understand it. Through it all, He will help us to know God and what His will is for us.

The more we meditate on His Word and come to understand it and obey it, the more the Holy Spirit renews our mind so that our whole person and behavior is transformed into a new person—like Christ (Rom. 12:1-2). When we are being transformed (or made to be more like Christ) this is when the Holy Spirit unifies us with the Father and the Son and when we come to know God’s will (Rom. 12:2).

The apostle John has described (in John 15) the result of our transformation as bearing fruit. And the fruit that we bear is the answers to our prayers (Jn. 15:16). In John 15:7-8 it says, “If you abide in Me, and My words abide in you, you will ask what you desire and it shall be done for you. 8 By this My Father is glorified, that you bear much fruit…” Here, in John 15, John understands that when we abide in God’s Word we are also in a sense praying. And the result of this abiding prayer is that prayers are answered—which is the fruit.

Posted in Part 4, Peak of Prayer, Prayer A to Z Excerpts, Zenith of Prayer | Tagged heaven, Holy Spirit, prayer, prayer in heaven | 4 Comments

3 Aspects of Prayer that Will Be Different in Heaven

Posted on September 30, 2016 by Stephen Nielsen

We Will Not Need To Confess Sins Or Ask For Forgiveness

I suppose the greatest difference in our prayers will be the absence of confession of sins, and the absence of praying for deliverance and forgiveness. None of those prayers will any longer be necessary. Revelation 21:4 says, “‘And God will wipe away every tear from their eyes; there shall be no more death, nor sorrow, nor crying. There shall be no more pain, for the former things have passed away.’”

Randy Alcorn explains: “Since ‘the wages of sin is death’ (Romans 6:23), the promise of no more death is a promise of no more sin. Those who will never die can never sin, since sinners always die. Sin causes mourning, crying, and pain. If those will never occur again, then sin can never occur again.”

In 1 Corinthians 15, Paul explains that because of Christ’s death for us on the cross, when our sinful body dies and we are resurrected to a new life, “death is swallowed up in victory.” In verses 56 and 57 he says, “The sting of death is sin, and the strength of sin is the law. But thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.”

Yes, Jesus died for our sins, and when we received Him He made us righteous in Him. Now when I say that we are righteous in Him, I don’t mean that there is any part of us now that is righteous—without sin. What I mean is that we are now, as Christians, able to carry within us Christ’s righteousness—and so we say that we are righteous in Christ. Also, being in Christ, our inner self (our soul) is being renewed day by day; we are becoming more like Him. And when we see Him, when we look into His face, He will wipe all our sins away from us, and we will be righteous through and through (2 Cor. 4:16-5:8). And because of our righteousness in Christ we will be just like God, not able to sin.

Alcorn states, “We’ll have the very righteousness of God (2 Cor. 5:21). We won’t sin in Heaven for the same reason God doesn’t. He cannot sin. Our eternal inability to sin has been purchased by Christ’s blood.”

Likewise, 1 Corinthians 15:52 tells us that we will be incorruptible—immune to corruption. There won’t be the slightest possibility of being corrupted by sin or even tempted by sin. In fact, God has prepared a place for all sinners, a place outside the gates of heaven, a place called the lake of fire. All sinners and all sin and death will be cast into this place and will exist there forever. Sin and death will never be allowed to enter heaven (Rev. 21:8, 27; 22:15). Hence, we will never have to confess a single sin in prayer.

But I can’t say that we won’t have any memory of our sins. God may preserve the memory of our sins so that we can better praise Him for saving us. Since we will be completely righteous like God, we won’t ever be tempted to sin. We need not worry about that. But I think God may allow us to forever remember the ugliness of our sins and the trouble and pain it has caused us so that we will always have a fresh memory of His grace, of the great sacrifice of His love. Thus whenever we recall the pain of sin, the memory of His sacrificial death will rush in to overwhelm our minds with gratefulness. And so we will over and over again praise Jesus for dying for us and for delivering us from hell.

We Will Praise Him More

The nature of praise and thanksgiving won’t ever change; however, the frequency of our praise will greatly change. Our thoughts and conversational prayers will be full of praise and gratitude. In everything we do—in our work and play—we will worship Him. And everything on the new earth and in the universe will prompt us to praise Him.

We will not only praise Him individually as we go about our daily activities (and as we enjoy our daily adventures), we will also have special times when hundreds and thousands of us gather together to sing and praise Him. Scripture indicates that both during the millennial reign of Christ and in heaven, great multitudes will be gathered together for the single purpose of singing to Him and praising Him. What a wonderful time that will be! (Praise in the millennium: Is. 2:3; 66:23; Zech. 8:21, 22; 14:16-19; Ps. 86:9; 22:27. Praise in heaven: Rev. 5:13-14; 7:9-12)

Our Requests Will Be Answered Immediately Without The Need Of Persistence and Earnestness

The main thing about our prayers of petition that will change is that we will no longer need to pray with persistence and earnestness. In fact, in heaven prayers will be answered immediately, even before we ask. In Isaiah 65:24 it says, “‘It shall come to pass that before they call, I will answer; and while they are still speaking, I will hear.’”

This will be true of course because we will be righteous and without sin. We will be perfectly abiding in Christ. Hence, the promise in John 15:7 will have its ultimate fulfillment—“If you abide in Me, and My words abide in you, you will ask what you desire, and it shall be done for you.”

Now when we pray, prayers take time to be answered, because Satan is so entrenched in this world, and our faith is so weak. It takes time to build up our prayers and our faith.

But in heaven our hearts will always be soft toward God, our faith will always be strong, and Satan will nowhere be found. Therefore, time will never be a factor. Our desires will always be instantly met. Whenever we have a desire for anything, God will instantly, gladly provide it for us. We won’t ever have to verbally ask for it. As soon as we have the thought (with the desire) that we want something, it will be ours.

Posted in Part 4, Peak of Prayer, Prayer A to Z Excerpts, Zenith of Prayer | Tagged answers to prayer, earnest prayer, heaven, praise, prayer in heaven, prayer of confession, prayer of praise | 4 Comments

Three Parts Of Prayer That Will Last Forever

Posted on September 17, 2016 by Stephen Nielsen

1. PRAISE

Praise will always be part of our prayers—as we express our love, honor, and reverence for God. Praise begins from the Holy Spirit. He causes us to praise Him. This is true for us now and it will be true for eternity. Now of course our praise is limited because we don’t always allow God to fill us and control us. But in heaven we will always be full of His Spirit, and therefore full of praise to God.

When the Spirit moves us to praise Him, I believe He most often works in conjunction with the Word. That is, He will move us to meditate on His Word; and then, as we see wonderful things in His Word He will cause us to praise Him. This phenomenon occurs of course in a limited way now, but in heaven the Word will be unrestricted and will flow freely through our mind and heart, causing us to perpetually see His glory and praise Him.

2. THANKSGIVING

Thanksgiving is slightly different than praise. Praise is always directed to God and is intended to give honor to God for who He is and for all His works. Thanksgiving is also intended to give honor to God but is more personal. When we thank Him in prayer we usually thank Him for what He has done for us personally and for our friends. It is expressing our gratefulness to Him.

And there is a great benefit to this part of prayer; for when we express our thanksgiving to God it produces in us evidence (confirmation) that we are filled with His Spirit. And by that evidence we are made confident in Him—so that we are always ready and prepared to worship Him.

Now, in this earthly body, our thankfulness is sadly lacking. But when we receive our glorified bodies, instantly our spirit will change. Our attitude will be full of gratitude. Yes, this will be our wonderful demeanor forever; we will take great joy and pleasure in thanking Him for everything. There will never again be a selfish, ungrateful moment. We will forever be overwhelmed with gratefulness for His wonderful love and care for us.

3. PETITION

The asking part of prayer is very different than praise and thanksgiving in that it does not seek to give anything to God, but rather seeks to receive from God. This does not suggest, however, that our petitions are disconnected from the other parts of prayer. In fact, all three parts of prayer are vitally connected. True prayers of petition are always made and supported “with thanksgiving” (Phil. 4:6) and have the flavor of praise. When we ask for anything it will (or should) always be with the attitude of gratitude and “to the praise of His glory” (Eph. 1:12, 14).

Asking God for things (with thanksgiving and praise) will always be a part of prayer, for it is the nature of petition to express our dependence on Him—as we will always be dependent on Him for everything, as a branch that grows from a vine. Moreover our eternal existence depends on Him; our lives will always flow from His life. Therefore, the principle of asking and abiding will never ever go away. It is a kingdom principle that is eternal (Jn. 15:5-7).

But our asking, our being dependent on Him will never be a drudgery; we will never be bitter against Him or wish we were autonomous (a god). Some may think, as I once did, that we will be as gods, with no needs and no dependence on anyone—that God will make us just like Him. But that will not be the case. Though we will always have His nature and character, we will never be divine; we will never be without dependence. And that I’m sure will suit us fine. I’m sure we will always be pleased with our dependence on God and with our connectedness to Him; for that is the beauty of our relationship with Him. We will never want it any other way.

Now, as to what things we will ask for, I believe we can divide them into three groups: (1) for things pertaining to God’s will and kingdom, (2) for personal needs, and (3) for others.

The first group or the first level of asking is the first priority of our asking. Things pertaining to His will and kingdom are and will always be the most important part of prayer. In heaven I suppose we will always be talking to God about the kingdom and about what His desires are. And we will of course always be seeking a more intimate knowledge of Him, desiring from Him that He would reveal more of Himself to us.

Personal desires will never be considered as important to us, because we know that God will always supply all our needs. But we still will ask Him for what we desire and need because we are and will always be in a dependent relationship with Him. Hence, for whatever we desire, if it is good for us and in the Father’s will for us to have it, then we may ask Him for it and He will give it to us. Therefore the principle of asking and receiving, even for personal things is an eternal principle (Jn. 15:7; 15:16; 16:24).

The third part of asking is for others and is most often called intercession. This part of prayer will most definitely last for eternity because it is something we do when we are most godly. It is the most unselfish part of prayer and the part of prayer that God Himself is engaged in.

Though we usually separate intercession from personal prayers, intercession in a sense includes them. That is, if we are praying correctly (in the Spirit), even when we pray about our own needs, we also, at the same time, are praying for other believers because of our connectedness in the body; for all believers are connected and part of the body of Christ, and when we pray for personal needs, we are also praying for others as a family, saying “our Father” rather than “my Father” (Matt. 6:9).

We don’t feel this communion with each other so much now, because of our selfish tendencies, but when we are glorified it will be different. In heaven, though we will have separate identities and separate thoughts, we will always be thinking of others and care for others. I think to some extent we will also know the thoughts and feelings of others. I can’t wait to experience it. Being united with others in this way, of always thinking of others, will radically change prayer from what it is now. Prayer will be so very glorious, so very comforting. When we pray, when we talk to God about anything, we will feel and experience the thoughts and emotions of every other believer; we will be touched by their love and compassion for each other like we have never experienced before.

Posted in Part 4, Peak of Prayer, Prayer A to Z Excerpts, Zenith of Prayer | Tagged asking in prayer, eternal nature of prayer, Eternity, praise, praise and prayer, prayer, prayer of petition, thanksgiving, thanksgiving prayer | 5 Comments

Prayer A to Z