11 Becoming Pray-ers

Copyright © 2017 Michael A. Brown

      There are all kinds of things that we need to do in church life or any other form of Christian work and ministry, but it is people who will pray that the Lord needs, more than any other thing.  Christian work and ministry is not like any other form of work.  Its success ultimately depends on our recognizing that it is, in the first place, spiritual work.  And so it is primarily spiritual tools and weapons that we need to learn to use, to build it up.  Paul said that the weapons of our warfare are not carnal; they are spiritual, and they have divine power to demolish strongholds (2 Cor. 10:3-4).

      Our fleshly nature resists the call to prayer.  We do not want to surrender ourselves to becoming people who will stand in the Lord’s presence, because we are carnal: we give in to the pull of our flesh too often, and we do not get the victory over this.  We are lovers of social relationships, before being lovers of God; we give ourselves over to busyness and working, and we enjoy the satisfaction that this brings us, more than we give ourselves to God himself; we love human pleasures, more than the spiritual satisfaction of being in God's presence.  So our tendency too often is towards almost prayer-less human busyness and its consequent fruitlessness.

      However, throughout the Bible in both Testaments, we are told and exhorted to understand that it is prayer that is primary in the work of God.  Through Isaiah, the Lord exhorted those who are indeed watchmen, to continue to stand and to give themselves no rest and to give him no rest, until he established his work (Isa. 62:6-7).  Similarly, Jesus taught his disciples the primacy of prayer when he told them the parable of the widow and the unjust judge.  We should always pray and not give up.  God will surely bring about justice for his chosen ones (Luke 18:1,7-8).  Luke tells us of Anna the prophetess.  She was a woman who had committed herself to being a person of prayer, never leaving the temple day or night, but continuing daily with prayers and fasting (Luke 2:36-37).

      Whatever our actual role, position or work is in the church or the work of God, God seeks believers (and leaders) who will become people of prayer, people who are willing to become intercessors in his work, people who are able and willing to carry the spiritual burdens of his kingdom.  At one very low point of Israel’s history, he lamented the fact that he could find no-one to pray and intercede before him for the nation (Ezek. 22:30, cf. Isa. 59:16).  God seeks believers who have understood that prayer really is the most important thing they can do (whatever their other responsibilities are), and who will therefore make whatever changes they need to make to their lifestyles and daily schedules in order to make time for it.  Talking about this and agreeing with it in principle is not enough, we need to actually do it.

      Good and necessary though they are, it is not simply our own daily quiet times (together with an hour or so spent in prayer every week at the church prayer meeting) that we need.  These alone will not suffice to overcome and break through the denseness of the spiritual darkness around us which grips and controls the lives of so many people.  We need extended times of personal prayer (whether at home or at church).  We need to gather together at church for extended times spent in prayer, whether during the day or during the evening.  We need to be willing to have days of prayer and fasting from time to time.  We need to be willing to rise during the quiet hours of the night to spend time with God and to intercede before him.  We need to make prayer primary.  Wherever we look, either in the Bible or in the lives of those whom God has used powerfully in ministry or mission, we find it is this quality and calibre of spiritual life that God needs to produce in his people in order for breakthrough and blessing to come.

      When he has found people who are willing to pray, then he is able to work powerfully through them.  As we learn to live surrendered lives, as we learn the ways of the Holy Spirit, and as we grow by learning to trust God and walk with him through the many and varied circumstances and challenges of daily life, then we develop the inner capacity to bear the spiritual burdens of God’s work.  We become vessels through whom the Holy Spirit can pray and intercede (Rom. 8:26-27), and he can work powerfully through us.  Fruitfulness comes through activity rooted in and empowered by prayer.  It is consistently prayerful men and women who bear much fruit (cf. John 15:7-8,16).