Prayer has generally been defined as a
way of communicating with a god. Even though the god in question is relative,
the motive surely is always absolute.
“Prayer is not what you do when you are in need; it is what you
need to do if you want to continue to remain connected to the source of your
life – God”.
According to the United Nations Worldometer estimate, the world’s
population, as of May 2020, is approximately 7.8 billion. If we
assume that about 4.8 billion people
have reached the age in which they need to seek the help and guidance of a
supernatural being to progress with their life, it means that about 4.8 billion people pray to only one God, and everyone expects an
answer.
Whose
prayer will God answer and whose will he reject? Whose will he answer first;
whose will he delay? Whose will he mark important and whose will be irrelevant?
You see, this goes on and on…
As
humans, sometimes we do not even know what to pray for, as the situation may be
so complicated. We become confused as to WHAT answers will be better, we become
confused as to HOW best our prayer should be answered, we even become confused
as to WHEN the answers would be appropriate.
But
guess what, God knows the answers already (Jeremiah
1:5). The only thing here is that:
There must be something that
distinguishes your prayers from others.
There
must be something that makes your prayer a sweet-smelling savour to be ingested
by God. There must be something that makes your prayer justifiable before God.
There must be something……..
But what is that thing?
When
I see people who are praying and expecting something from God, acting
precipitously to find other solutions, whilst still making sure that no
religious activity in their worship centers is missed, three questions pop up
in my mind:
1. Are they sceptical as to whether
God can save them from the problems and challenges, they face at the time, and
therefore are still troubled even while praying inside the church?
2. Do they believe that God can save
them, hence their reason for coming to the church, but of the mind-set that heaven only helps those who help themselves,
therefore they too should try to help themselves, while still believing in God?
3. Do they think it does not matter
what they do with their lives; at least, they go to church?
What could be their mindset at any point in time?
Well,
whatever their reasons may be, the bible says, “if any of you lacks wisdom, you should ask God, who gives generously to
all without finding fault, and it will be given to you” (James 1:5).
We
shall come back to this later. Now, let us look into various definitions of
prayers.
Wisdom-4-Excellence Books--
THE PRAYERS THAT RUN (TPTR)?
61 MOST GUARDED SECRETS OF LIFE (61MGS)?
UNLOCKING THE POWERS OF YOUR BELIEFS (UTPOYB)?
POVERTY IS A MAN: PERHAPS A WOMAN (PIAM)?
BEYOND THE ECLIPSE (BTE)?
Incidentally,
there are many forms of “gods”, just as there are many forms of religion in the world today.
In each religion, prayers stand to mean the same thing (talking to your demiurge), even though it is practiced or performed
in different manners.
I
once belonged to a religious group where dance measures a person’s level of
spirituality. The more you danced, the more fellow members believed you are
closer to the god of the religion
than the others. I grew up believing that I was not doing well as a member of
that congregation, because of course I was a very poor dancer.
As
time went by, I began to realise that what we practiced in that denomination
was far from the truth, in terms of
relationship and connection to God
Almighty. What we practiced then, to me, was merely based on some religious
rituals and ceremonies, which in one way or the other defines the sentiments
that govern that particular religious body.
Eventually,
I grew up to the understanding and revelation that my faith is not yet closely
aligned with the principles of any deity whatsoever; all I had been doing was
simply following the bandwagon. As such, a certain urge began to grow in me,
and I began to find answers to pertinent and emerging questions.
In
my quest to understand what had been missing in my relationship with any
supernatural being/deity, I suddenly found myself in a mystic aura of divine
involvement and then it clicked. I found
the answer.
The main questions in my heart at
that time were:
Because
I have always been very inquisitive, religious
study and science were the only
subjects that made sense to me in high school. I found it very easy to see
something to hold on to in those two areas. Eventually, I realised that these
two areas have been in conflict since
time immemorial. Thus, I had to decide which of them will guide my journey, my
understanding of life and my spirituality.
Looking
at the human anatomy, the almighty God sounded so true and real to me than
whatever science was professing. It is a very interesting thing to me, in fact
a thing of uttermost delight, that science marvels at the wonders of God’s
creations. If science actually established the world, how come going to space
seems like an out of this world achievement?
Precisely
on May 30, 2020, President Donald
Trump spoke on the launch of the Demo-2 mission (the mission that carried NASA
[American] astronauts to the International Space Station [ISS] aboard a Crew
Dragon capsule). While making his speech, he emphasized on how elated he was
and stated that he was honoured to be delivering the first big space message in
50 years. He added that,
“a
new age of American ambition has now begun, and that by 2024, American
astronauts will re- turn to the lunar surface to establish a permanent presence
and the launching pad to Mars.”
What
am I trying to bring out from the above elucidation?
1. Humans often celebrate new
discoveries made from nature, as significant praise-worthy achievements. More
so, the fact that astronauts were able to employ state-of-the-art equipment to
travel to space in the year 2020, was to President Trump and the Americans, a
historical/momentous occasion. So, I asked myself, has this space not always been there all along?
Why is it now a special event to visit space in 2020?
2. The president also mentioned that
he is preparing to launch American
Astronauts to Mars in 2024. Now, I ask again, what if Mars is no longer
there at that time? What if Mars has moved a lot closer to earth? What if the
true creator decides to merge the planets Mars and Earth before the year 2024?
What if Mars has swallowed the earth or vice-versa by that year? What if……
You see!?
We
could go on and on to ask unending rhetorical questions. Let us not even talk
about those early astronauts who died trying to uncover God’s mysteries in the
outer world. Fortunately, there are lots of scientific articles, video clips,
documentaries, interviews, documentations, etc. out there already, pointing to
the fact that God is real, and the world was actually created by him.
Some other surface questions:
If
the world originated from apes and big bang theory as science claims, then why
is there need for continuous exploration, exploitation, and expeditions? Why
haven't the apes evolved to other kinds of human beings apart from man and
woman that God created? By the way, why did the ape even stop evolving and
where did the first ape come from? Why do humans now come as babies carried in
a woman’s womb? What about the other animals; how did they evolve? What about
death, how does evolution relate to death?
We
cannot continue to deceive ourselves. We all know that there is a supernatural being out there who puts things in the order he wants them to
appear and leaves us humans with eagerness and zeal to explore these things, so that we can forever continue to try to uncover the mysteries
behind all the wonderful creations.
I
found myself growing in the knowledge of God the father of our Lord and
saviour, Jesus Christ, and then it became pertinent that I learn how to
communicate directly with him. There was nothing anybody said that would have
made any meaning to me, because I have a strong spirit of discernment. I prefer
to see and learn things for myself, or else, they would make no sense to me,
even in my academic work. Therefore, I delved into a very deep exploration of
the word of God, the act of God, and his entire creation, so that I could find
out the truth about the true living God for myself.
Based
on what I have learnt so far about having a personal relationship/connection
with God, I want to share some of my own understanding of prayer, why some
prayers are delayed, why some answer to prayers come very quick, and how you
can make your prayer run to God with faith or run astray to Satan with fear.
Let
us start by defining prayer. First and most importantly, like I said earlier, prayer is not what you do when you are in need
or what you do when you are in a worship house, or even what you do because you
are religious.
Prayer is what you do to complete your
second- to-second life cycle. You pray to keep your life connected to the
owner, and to keep the root of your life nourished from its source. You must
pray because the life you live is not yours; to keep living, you must continuously present yourself to be
watered by your designer (God).
Prayer, from my experience, is an attitude
of losing oneself to a higher divine power. A time for prayer is a time for
divine connection and transfiguration. By transfiguration, I mean transformation
to a higher/supernatural being, where the
god is the superior and you are the subordinate. A praying person must pray
with his/her entirety. That is, every part of his/her being must be involved;
else, it is no longer prayer, but doctrine.
Irrespective
of the god in question, if a
connection/bond is not there, then there is bound to be a gap between the one
who is praying and the one who is supposed to answer the prayer.
For
a true Christian, Prayer signifies total submission to God's supremacy. Prayers are meant to create an avenue
for reconciliation between the persons praying, and their god. When a Christian
prays, he/she is actually saying to God almighty,
“I am here in your presence, because I have no other place to go
to, and I have no power to help myself in your absence.”
Prayer is or is supposed to be a
lifestyle/habit. It is the act that should reference the person of God in the life of every human being. A
person who is not persistent in their prayer life is not an ardent believer of
Christ. Relinquishing your prayer life could mean that you believe that you
have arrived, or you do not need any form of help (you are self-sufficient). It could equally mean that you can now
stand on your own without depending on any extraordinary
being to sort things for you. It could mean that you can now handle
situations on your own successfully, whether God intervenes or not.
Your
Prayer life signifies the degree of
relationship between you and a higher authority (the almighty God, for Christians). That is why nobody
can pray for you, except you are a child or you are still an unbeliever of the
Christian gospel. Even if someone prays for you as we are admonished in James 5:14, it is the level of
agreement and the degree of relationship between your spirit and God that
determines how the prayer is dealt with or handled by God. If your faith cannot carry the manifestation or
the materialization of your
prayers, you may end up with an unanswered prayer.
Your state of mind, otherwise designated as faith,
contributes greatly to the potency of your prayers. Mark 11:24 says “therefore I
say unto you, what things soever ye desire,
when ye pray, believe that ye receive them, and ye shall have them”.
Who is your God?
The
reason why so many religious leaders have become
like gods, and why there is a drastic increase in the number of false
prophets (fake or vicious religious
leaders) around us today, is that the members of the congregation or better
put, the Christians of nowadays, depend wholly on these clerics for answers to
their life issues.
In
most cases, when these priests’ prayers fail or seem to be futile, most members
either leave the religious group (the
congregation), resort to other means (diabolical,
dubious, or vicious), or change
the congregation. These priests’ prayers are bound to
fail most of the time because as believers, even when they pray for us, we are
still supposed to be the ones to carry the burden of the request to God
directly; not the pastors, imams, bishops... The onus is on us to make the
prayer fruitful. We are the ones
whose hearts need to be aligned with the word of God so that we can exhibit all
the spiritual characteristics required from an expectant man.
To
retain their members (that is the members
of their congregation), some vicious
religious leaders (popularly called false prophets) go extra unholy lengths, to seek extraordinary
powers nowadays. Some of them do not have any other job but their fake
religious business. Therefore, they are bound to do whatever it takes to make
sure they are not out of business.
The
exposition above is why some Christian believers have lost their identity in
Christ. They follow the sugar-coated,
business-oriented, prosperity-based, self-serving, and kingdom-deficient sermons
of these fake pleasure mongering priests/clerics and eventually lose grip on
the truth.
Most
victims of these false prophets eventually become miracle seekers, miracle buyers and gullible faithfuls; God then
becomes an expensive commodity to them, no longer a father or a source of help. Then they eventually become lost sheep.
These
lost sheep tend to always be on their feet, running helter-skelter, from one person of God to the other, forgetting
and disregarding the actual true God of
all men, who is a refuge, strength, and an ever-present need in all times
of troubles and predicaments (Psalm 46:1).
“Do not be deceived, God is not
mocked; whatever you sow, you will reap” (Galatians 6:7).
Even
though these men of God are important to our lives because they stand in the
gap for us especially when we are weak (Ezekiel
22:30), no number of prayers from
any man of God can deliver you from your own atrocities; no matter how
anointed and tongue talking they are. You do not need to go from one mountain
to another looking for freedom from shackles that you have established (knowing or unknowingly) for your life.
As an adult that prays, you are responsible for what you do with your life.
Therefore, if you fail to lay your heart with supplication to God in prayer, all the prophet's prayers and
rituals may still end in vain.
You
cannot live life recklessly and afterward expect your man of God to pray you out of your spiritual dept. The fake ones among these men of God (the false
prophets), will never tell you the truth, so that they will not lose you.
Rather than tell you to go to God and cry out your iniquities so that God can
consider your heart and attend to your prayers, they will ask you to bring money for sacrifice and spiritual cleansing,
and eventually, you become their money
tree.
Some
false prophets will even ask gullible followers to give up some or all of their
life possessions, so that God will see them as helpless and then come to their
rescue.
It
is true that the bible asks us to confess our sins/faults outrightly to one
another (James 5:16), but this is
for the sole purpose of building and empowering our faith and making our
prayers more effective. That same scripture asks that we also pray for one
another so that God will heal us. There is even a condition that says both
parties must be “righteous” before
their prayers can avail much.
Unfortunately,
due to ignorance, some gullible Christian believers lose the true meaning of
the scripture above and relinquish all their God-given power and authority to
those false prophets. Therefore, a lot of atrocities are swept under the carpet
and things continue to go wrong in so many religious settings and in the body
of Christ.
No
matter how powerful these clerics (especially
the fake ones) may seem to be, 1
John 4:1-5 says, “beloved, believe
not every spirit, but try the spirits whether they are of God: because many false prophets are gone out
into the world”.
When
your prayers are not answered, it is
not time for you to go from one religious house to another. No! It is actually
time for you to go back to the drawing board and talk directly to the master of
life, it is the right time to sit down and reconsider your life and living
style, and finally, it is time to sit down with your maker and have a
conversation (pray).
In Matthew 11:28-30, the bible says “come unto Me, all ye that labour and are heavy
laden, and I Will Give you Rest. Take My Yoke upon you and Learn of Me; for I
am meek and Lowly in Heart: and ye shall find rest unto your soul”.
The scripture above says, come unto me (God), not go to any of my
men (men
of God). Even if your life is
in a mess or has totally lost meaning, only God himself can cleanse you and
make you relevant. No man of God is
closer to God than you are; not at all, not any one of them. We are all made
equally and have the same authority, as long as we believe.
John 1:12 says “But as many as received him, to
them gave He power to become the sons of God, even to them that believe in
his name”.
Please
note that my aim is not to discredit those who function in the five-fold
ministry. Each of them (the genuine ones) has an important
role to play in the body of Christ. In fact, they are meant to help guide and
counsel us in our relationship with God. The point I’m trying to make is that
they shouldn’t take the place of God in our lives. Rather, they should direct
us to God.
When
we pray as Christians, we are referencing God. No wonder there is a common
saying that a prayerless Christian is a powerless Christian.
A Christian that prays in truth
and in spirit, honours the person of the almighty God, and thereby draws more
strength from him.
When
we refuse to pray, we are deciding to forfeit the great strength and empowerment
promised to us by God himself. We are deciding to bear needless pain on our
own, which otherwise would be borne for us by Christ.
Know
the scripture for yourself. In Matthew 22:29, “Jesus answered them saying, ‘You are wrong, because you know neither
the scriptures nor the power of God”.
It
is an assignment for you to
understand the power of God personally, so that you can build a relationship
directly with your father in heaven. Religious leaders/men of God are for spiritual support. They are there to help your
spirit man, especially when the world is crumbling on you. They cannot take the
place of God in your life, so you must not leave all your life burdens (spiritually and materially) to them.
Ephesians 5:17 says, “Therefore do not be foolish but understand what the will of the
Lord is for you”.
Go to your religious leaders only
as a way of getting a spiritual backing and spiritual support. James 5:14 says “Is any sick among you? Let him call for the elders of the church; and
let them pray over him, anointing him with oil in the name of the Lord”.
Note
that the above scripture never concludes that the priest’s anointing will heal
you; so, you must not lose yourself to laxity and slothfulness without working
divinely into your expected miracle/healing.
When
these clerics pray for you, you need to stand by faith to send their/your
prayers quicker to God and bring down your healing faster.
Many
believers, rather than practicing the authority they now possess in Christ
Jesus to support the prayers of these men
of God, resort to diabolic or fetish means when the miracles of those clerics fail to heal or deliver them.
Do
not allow yourself to be gullible to
false/fake prophets. Otherwise, the scripture will say to you: “woe to them, for they go down to Egypt for
help and rely on horses, who trust in chariots because they are many and in
horsemen because they are very strong, but do not look to the Holy One of
Israel or consult the Lord!” (Isaiah
31:1).
The devil too can perform
miracles, you know!
That
is why the bible admonishes us to be watchful, “lest Satan should get an advantage of us: for we are not ignorant of
his devices,” (2 Corinthians 2:11).
Likewise, the bible tells us in Acts
26:18, to open our eyes, and turn from darkness to light, and from the power of Satan unto God, that we may
receive forgiveness of sins, and inheritance among us, which are sanctified by
faith that is in God.
Always
remember that these priests/men of God are
humans with flesh and blood, with problems and unfortunately in some cases,
equally with several unanswered questions
and prayers concerning their lives. If you are going to them for prayers,
make sure it is according to God's instructions and laid down principles. They
too need your own prayers and spiritual support. Do not go to them looking to
transfer all your life burdens to them, while you sit there and shout “amen!
God is good,” and that is it. Then eventually, you blame them when your prayers
are not answered or are delayed and then say things like “this man of God is not strong”, “that man of God performs fake miracles”, etc. If I may ask you a
question, “whose man are you, MAN OF
SATAN?”
Do
not go back home after any prayer session with a cleric, to bury yourself
inside the television, watching HOME
MOVIES and NETFLIX, while you
wait for the prayers and miracles of the priests to manifest. You might just
have a long wait ahead of you!
Going
to church and shouting Amen! Hallelujah! I receive! does not make you a
Christian, a believer, a son of God or even a prayer warrior. Sadly, many
Christians end their Christianity in the church; once they are out of the
church premises, c’est fini!
On
your own, pray to your heavenly father directly. Commune with him, in faith;
agree with the prayers of your priests in faith. To bring the prayers to pass,
put your trust wholly in God, because he is the author and finisher of your
faith (Hebrews 12:2).
Lifestyle:
Another
thing is this; you might be praying enough, praying right, and praying in
tongues, but you may not be living right,
as we have mentioned before. This is the truth many people will never tell you.
The almighty God is a jealous God; He wants the totality of you (spirit, soul,
and body) always. The taste of your prayer to God depends on what you sow/do
with your life, because the effectual fervent prayer of a righteous man avails much (James 5:16b).
Even
though you cannot be righteous by your own power except by his grace, you still
need to diligently workout your own righteousness through that same grace. Romans 12:1 says, “I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God,
that ye present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable unto God,
which is your reasonable service”.
It
is true that it is only God that can give us the power to will and to do (Philippians 2:13), but then the same
God has already given us the power to know
right and wrong just as he gave Adam and Eve
in Genesis 2:17.
So,
we must continue to prove all things and only hold fast to that which is good (1
Thessalonians 5:21). By so doing, (making
right choices), we are making our prayers more fruitful. Remember also that
John 15:7 says, “if ye abide in me, and my words abide in you, ye shall ask what ye
will, and it shall be done unto you”. Thus, living your life
rightly in the sight of God and man, can give you an assurance of an accepted
prayer.
Motives:
Sometimes,
your motive for praying could deter
or delay the answer to your prayers. James 4:3 says, “when you ask, you do not receive, because you ask amiss (with wrong or
inappropriate motives), that you may spend what you get on your pleasures”.
Do
not misinterpret the scripture above. Job
36:11 shows us that God wants us to enjoy all the benefits of this world,
but that is only when we obey and serve him according to his mandate; only then
shall we spend our days in prosperity, and our years in pleasures.
Your
primary purpose of existence is to dominate and win the world into God's
kingdom. That is why Colossians 3:1-2 said,
“since you have been raised with Christ,
then set your hearts on things above, where Christ is, not on earthly things”. Even
the popular Matthew 6:33, wrote, “seek ye first the kingdom of God, and his
righteousness; and all these things (you
are praying for) shall be added unto you.
If
we take time to scrutinize our prayers. We may find out that what we pray for
most times, is not actually what we need, but what we want. Sometimes,
we might even unwittingly be praying for the downfall of another person or we
might be praying for a way to spite colleagues, family, and friends. Worst
still, there are times when we even pray for things that are irrelevant, just
so that we can show off. God knows our intentions, and he knows our motives;
that is why he might not answer our prayers. In such cases, he probably does
not find our prayers serious, or he finds them frivolous and pleasure seeking. The kingdom business
is a serious one and God only finds pleasure in people who take the business
seriously. Psalm 149:4 says, “for the Lord takes pleasure in His people;
He will beautify the afflicted ones with salvation”. God will rather
quickly consider prayers that are kingdom
based, than selfish, self-centred,
flesh satisfying, pleasure seeking prayers, as was expressed in James 4:3.
Again,
if your prayers are seasonal (maybe
Sundays, Wednesdays… or any other congregational service days), or if you
only pray when you are in a place of worship, then there is a problem. Matthew 6:5 says, “when you pray, thou shalt not be as the hypocrites for they love to
pray standing in the synagogues (praying
only in the worship places/centres but will never pray at home or when they are
alone) and in the corners of the streets, that they may be seen of men.
Verily I say unto you, they have their reward”.
Dearly beloved, your prayers might have just been on delay
because you only pray when people are watching. The moment nobody is seeing or monitoring you, prayers cease. You
pray loud and speak in tongues in the church, but as soon as you get home, to your tent oh Israel!
There
is even this category of people who go to church to shout the loudest Hallelujah, because their priest is
watching. Whenever they see their priests, they feel they have reached a
spiritual climate, so they pray extraordinarily. They do not have any personal relationship with God. These
ones, their hopes are mainly on their lips and on their priests, and so their
prayers always END IN THE CHURCH unfortunately.
