You are all to Him
You are all to Him
(Why is it so hard for Christians to pray?)
- David Wilkerson
Why does so few christians have a daily prayer life?
Not only do we have all these promises.
Not only we have this knowledge that prayers answered everything.
But the scripture also makes we’ve been warned of the dangers of neglecting prayer.
I wonder if you're concerned about prayer.
How lightly do you take this matter as having quality time everyday alone with the Lord?
Folks, it’s the coming before the storm.
If you have not yet learned to get alone with Him and hear His voice and to know Him,
What are you going to do? Where will you go?
If you not only to learn to exercise your faith in prayer …
God looks at the church today .
And I believe He's grieved and deeply wounded.
Because like Israel of old
We take so little time for Him.
Can a maid forget her ornaments, or a bride her attire?
yet my people have forgotten me days without number.
Jeremiah 2:32
And I’m going to give you some reasons why Christians don’t pray.
Here’s what I think bothers me, concerns me more than anything else.
We know it, we preach it, we believe it somewhere deep in our hearts.
Yes, Jesus died to open up a way for me (to be)
to have access to the throne of God.
The very God of the universe, the creator God
Jesus saying “I made a way for you through my blood to come right to the Father.
For all your needs, all your problems, all your sicknesses, diseases, everything.
You come to me.”
Then He says, “You have access to the Father.
Come boldly to the throne of grace.” (Hebrews 4:16)
There’s absolutely nothing standing between you and Heavenly Father right now!
If you confess your sins and believe in Jesus Christ with all your heart,
you can walk right into the presence of God
and make your presence known and enjoy His presence .
make your petitions known, worship Him and praise Him!
You have every right into the Holy of Holies.
The day of trouble, the day of tribulation
He said, “Even more now, as days getting close to the coming of the Lord.
It’s time to seek my face. It’s time to be in the closet with me, getting to know me.”
If you do not take advantage of it, you are embarrassing the Holy ghost.
You’re doing despite to the Holy grace of God, the scripture says,
You’re doing despite to grace of God.
He said, “You’re by your absence, by not coming daily to this place of prayer, you’re, you’re saying by (it) (you neglect) cruxfiction was in vain.”
We just neglect.
We take it lightly that He has paid His own blood, His own life
that we maybe able to pray and seek the face of God
and answer every problem in our life and
we do despite to the grace of God.
We embarrass the Holy Ghost.
Why is it so hard for us to pray?
I’m not coming here to slang anybody.
I’m speaking to myself as well.
No.1
The reason it’s so hard for Christians to pray, many Christians
It’s because they have lukewarm love for Jesus.
They have inexpensive love.
They don’t want the expensive love, that costs them a discipline.
“I don’t see you much…
You’re working for me.
You talk about me.
You tell everybody you love me.
But I don’t see you anymore.
I don’t see you.”
You see, People who have cold love, they don’t pray.
Nobody expects a dead Christian to pray.
That’s not their nature.
But if you gonna tell me you love Jesus.
How do you love somebody without spending time with them?
How and where do you love them?
It doesn’t matter how loudly you praise God in this church.
It doesn’t matter how you go all of the city, testifying and preaching on the street
or subways.
You don’t love Him if you’re not with Him alone!
You can’t be intimate in a circle like this.
This is cooperate.
That’s fine.
We worship, we praise God.
That’s all of part of the program of the church
of Jesus Christ that’s part of it.
But there’s no way you can love Him without being alone with Him!
Oh you love Him all the time to express that love.
We are married to Christ, the Bible says.
We are His spouse.
Her husband and a wife have times alone.
What kind of marriages when there’s no time alone, when there’s no intimacy?
That’s what intimacy with Jesus is all about.
Jesus has you all to Himself!
There’s no one else around.
He has you all to Himself!
People don’t pray because they are not in love with Him anymore.
They have left it.
The Bible says, “You have left it.” (Revelation 2:4)
“Something happened, you drifted away from that you once had
you drifted away from it.”
All preaching …
I can preach and preach about the need for prayer.
I can provoke you.
I can condemn you.
I can convict you.
I can yell at you.
But there’s not gonna change it.
That’s not gonna make you a prayer warrior.
That’s not gonna give you intimacy.
The only way you gonna have that
You say “Oh God! Restore to me that first love!
God help me to realize that this gonna cost me something.
There’s some discipline involved.”
Let’s go to another reason.
Perverted priorities
A priority is the importance that you place on something.
Many people don’t pray because It’s really not a priority
The priority is family
But you’re not going to pray unless prayer is a first priority in your life above everything else
God says, “I wanna see you. Put me first above your family,
above your job, above everything.”
There’s a priority.
You will not pray until you make it up priority, top priority in your life.
You will not pray until pray alone with God is your no.1 top priority.
Otherwise it’s perverted.
Tell me you don’t have time to pray.
I don’t believe that.
I never believe that.
You make time for what you have is priority.
You make time for everything else.
Your friend calls you, you make time.
You make time for everything.
You can make time for prayer.
I had a meeting years ago in one of the largest church in America.
One of the busiest pastor I have ever met.
And he made a statement "I don’t have to time to pray."
And that’s why who won the deadest churches I’ve ever preached in my life.
There’s no life.
No.3
Many do not pray because they've learned to live without prayer
They have made and settled into a life style,
a walk with God they call it without needing prayer.
They're satisfied to come to church, they're faithful to the church.
I fear for Christians who have learned to live without prayer.
And they have brought this sacrifice which is
“The Lord is pleased as long as I'm morally clean,
as long as I don’t hurt anybody. I tried to do my best, tried to help everybody.
I stay away from sins, these do the best I can. I love God and come to church.
That’s ok!”
They have given to the Lord that sacrifice to them.
That’s all that God requires of them.
But I fear the day will be among those who come before His throne
and He says, “Oh yes, you did a mighty works, miracles.
you have pray for the sick. You had a heart for people.” (Matthew 7:22)
“I don’t know you. You’ve never talked to me. You weren't in my presence.
I've really never got to know you. Depart from me. I don’t know you.”
That’s the thing I fear
I hear the Lord saying, “I have become a stranger unto my own brothers,
an alien to my mother’s children.
I’ve become a stranger.” (Psalms 69:8)
I think of prayerless Christians to spend little or no time alone with the Lord
to learn His ways.
How does a Christian who expects to be raptured or taken when Jesus comes?
Whatever theological term you wanna use
How does this Christian (that) stand before Jesus
and books open, and there’s no record at all of times spent with the Lord?
And the Christian says,
“Lord I know, we’re gonna give an account.”
and stand before the Lord and say,
“Lord, I know I didn’t have time for You.
I had time for everything else.
I had time for my children.
I had time for my job.
I know Lord, I didn’t spend much time, or occasionally I did, but I didn’t have time.
I know I’m not what you call a praying child.
Lord I’m ready now to spend eternity with You!
I’m ready now to seek You!
Lord I didn’t get to know You then.
But we have whole eternity now to get to know each other.”
You think that’s gonna stand?
You can get by without a prayer for a long time.
But I tell you what those who don’t pray, they go deeper and deeper into despair
more and more depend on their flesh.
They turn to the arm of flesh rather than to the arm of the Lord.
And there’s confusion on every side.
Let’s go no.4 here
Some people quit praying and have a hard time praying
because they don’t believe it works for them.
They say “Pastor David, I prayed. I tried. I did everything.
I fasted, I prayed, I believed God. And there’s something I’ve prayed to about for so long. I’ve not seen it happen.”
They get discouraged and they give up.
They say, “I don’t know whether it’s me. I don’t know whether it’s my lack of faith.
But, prayer is not working for me.”
I hear that so much.
The Bible makes it very clear that God’s not gonna answer a prayer
just that you can spend on your lust or pleasure.
This is what the Scripture says,
“You ask and you don’t receive
because you ask amiss or wrongly
that you may consume upon your own lust. (James 4:3)”
You’re simply trying to satisfy something you want.
You’re not asking for His will and something that.
You're not ready to submit your will to God
and let Him have His way, doing His time and His way.
You’re gonna dictate God to satisfy the lust of your heart.
I don’t care for million voices cry out.
God has answered prayer to me for me.
I don’t care for millions voices say God doesn’t answer prayer.
That every man be called a liar.
Because He said God answers the righteous man God answers and hears. (Proverbs 15:29)
Stand what He says in His word, hallelujah!
Jesus said, “All things what shall be asked in prayer believing you shall have it.” (Mark 11:24)
He said, “If you really believe you’re going to wait.
And you’re going to expect, you’re gonna hold on.”
It doesn’t matter how long it is you hold on in faith.
You believe God.
And I want tell you something.
Some you have been praying about for a long time
and you’re not trying to consume on your own lust to fulfill your own pleasure with it.
You can mark it down that God’s testing your faith.
He’s trying your faith.
And the reason He’s testing it, He wants you to come forth as pure gold.
So that you can get many many answers to prayer.
Not only for yourself but your family, your friends, for the church of Jesus Christ
and for sinners.
God wants you to be a man or a woman of faith.
And He sometimes withhold His answer.
He will not answer you immediately because He’s testing you
to see if you’re going to say “I give up. He doesn’t answer."
He says, “You hold on. You keep trusting me.
When the answer comes, I’ve prepared you now.
I’ve brought out of faith in you. That’s pure gold.
And now all you have to do sometimes it’s to will it.”
And God will do it.
Prayer meetings are wonderful.
“We have all night prayer meetings.”
That’s wonderful.
It can be merely a form of boasting.
And that doesn’t make a praying church in itself.
“We can have 5,000 in an auditorium
We have 5,000 in a prayer meeting, do once a week.”
But, if those 5,000 Christians for meeting were not meeting alone with Jesus
having that time intimacy with Him praying and seeking pouring our their hearts
It’s still not a praying church.
But once everyone of us in God’s house
learn to go to Him we’ve made a priority
and we seek Him with all of our heart.
And (we take) we go first to Him
we have developed this time with the Lord.
But if everyone that calls Himself by the name of Jesus is
praying daily seeking His face,
when we get together then glory in the power of God moves because
it’s become a praying church.
Oh God,
I want to be able to pray as more diligence and love
that I have ever prayed in my life.
Lord, I receive this tonight for myself
as one of pastors in this church.
I receive the word that You put in my heart.
I ask you to change me.
Help me to make it even more of priority.
Far more important is that we have that everyday time with you intimate alone
secretly worshiping and praising and loving you.
Lord, even those who are in crowed conditions
they can find a corner somewhere,
they can find a little chair,
they can find a little place and just shut in with you Lord.
They will make a way, Lord.
Lord, I have neglected it.
I have not been praying and seeking Your face.
And I repent!