We will talk about a paradigm shift in prayer connected with a change in our maturity.
As we ascend in maturity, we ascend in prayer and watch ourselves how our prayer changes. There are a few sections where it happens
The first section is worship. Prayer-worship is not only singing, it is when we experience God. In the life of every believer, we must feel Him. If we stop paying attention to it, stop feeling Him, we lose love as well – we become callous, rough, hard. A man can notice that he is becoming like everyone else, which means, probably, he has ceased to have a contrite heart in worship.
Worship can include singing, and contrition, and repentance, and crying, and also joy and dancing – but it’s not the matter of singing. I’m talking about worship in a broader sense. That is, we must experience the presence of God – feel His holy breath in our heart.
When a believer stops paying attention and becomes callous, this is where terrible religion begins: man stops noticing that he is turning into a “little monster”, because a religious person without the Holy Spirit is a monster. When we don’t have the Holy Spirit in us, we are hypocrites, because only with the Holy Spirit can we be holy. It is better not to engage with one who keeps the commandments without the Holy Spirit, because this is a most cruel, most hypocritical person.
Therefore, it is very important to always be filled with the Spirit and keep worship in the first place, so that we can be spiritual, inspired, heavenly people. It should feel that we are heavenly people, that our thinking is heavenly, this is the thinking of a believer.
Sometimes I speak with Christians and I see that they are like non-believers – they think like non-believers, they fear like non-believers, they don’t believe like non-believers. But a believer trusts in the Living God! He believes that God is. And he believes that He will reward those who seek Him.
For a believer, it’s normal to believe in God – that God helps, that God is supernatural, for him it’s like breathing. And a person who stopped believing and became religious, he is not a believer, he just goes to church, follows some rules and lives his ordinary life. I believe that this is a miserable person. He sits on treasure and plays beggar.
Therefore, it is written, “And for the Gentiles to glorify God for His mercy, as it is written, “Therefore I praise You among the Gentiles and I sing praises to Your name” (Romans 15:9).
“For from the rising of the sun even to its setting, My name shall be great among the nations. In every place incense is going to be offered to My name, and a grain offering, that is pure; for My name shall be great among the nations”, says the Lord of hosts (Malachi 1:11).
This means that we can experience His holy breath in any place, not necessarily in a church meeting, in a temple.
The paradigm of our prayer changes with our maturity. We begin to value these moments. And not only moments, but times of contemplation of God, when we walk and enjoy Him.
Sometimes visitations happen at our meetings. I notice that often, when I enter a meeting, I merge with the people, jump into this host and “exalt” so high that I soar above everyone else. As if playfully you begin to fly among a flock of birds. You begin to cut the usual pattern, soar in spirit among the people, and there you have exalted experience of contrition, delight, and so on. These are martial arts of the spirit.
It is very important that we go beyond the boundaries. This is called the ability to go into a trance on your own initiative – not when the Lord visits you, but when you visit the Lord. Before there was such an understanding that you sit and wait for a visitation. Esther would have waited and waited for an invitation, until she decided to go herself. She rose up and went, and saw him – there was a connection, and his heart was broken.
Likewise, we should learn not to wait for Him come, but learn to come to Him ourselves. This is the ability in worship – to call Him to an encounter. This is the mature level of worship warriors.
When we worship at our concerts and prayers, it’s like a little death. Each time the level of giving yourself, when we communicate the message is as if we break into pieces. Every time you die, you prepare yourself for the coming. Jesus can come for you at any time.
What does admiration mean to you? – It’s death. This is the complete openness of your spirit and your soul at the maximum level. You are not earthly. You don’t expect the coming of Christ as some kind of “strike from heaven.” But you wait on Him – you see Him from afar. Here He is coming – and it will not take you by surprise. Those who are awake, they will not sleep, they will wait and communicate information to each other in the Spirit – that Jesus is coming today. I think so it will be.
This is what worship is – when you are maximally open to heaven. And with our maturity we become heavenly people.
You always go with an open heaven. This is also a kind of highest prayer. When your type of thinking and vision of the world becomes through heavenly eyes. When His feelings and His thinking become part of you. When you can exclaim: “The Lord is my part!” It’s not that He lives separately and you live separately. He becomes your flesh and blood. You no longer belong to yourself.
This is what you should strive for. This is the way I know it must end. This is what happens with all the saints – those who walk with Him, they simply merge, they do not go through death, they transit into eternal life.
This is worship prayer. I put it in the first place, in the most important place – when you walk before Him, you are wide open to the maximum, and everything that you do on earth is not important – you are always connected with Him. He never left you, and neither did you leave Him. He never betrayed you, and neither did you betray Him.
We’re digging all the time, looking for guilt, in order to be justified by the Blood again and again. This is the disease of Christianity – they are always looking for guilt. It “stabilizes” us, puts us in our place. And we “pull out of it”, work with it, all the grace is “dragged down” onto ourselves. But grace can be used and go for the glory. This is not psychology. As we receive this cloud, enter in it, we can live without guilt and use the Blood not to ask for forgiveness, to walk repentant, but to use it for other purposes – to save the world, to walk in the light, inviolable, engage in spiritual warfare, and so on.
The next type of prayer that also needs to be transformed is the prayer of intercession, when we bring our working needs. Remember that we will never be released from that responsibility to pray. But it is gaining more trust, more hope. I don’t want to say that we should pray less or less often for some need, but we should pray more effectively. What is a powerful prayer? It is an effective prayer. This is the prayer that God answers.
Another type of prayer we should have is prayers of faith. Intercession becomes more confident, more precise, and it is connected with hearing, it becomes more effective.
Sometimes you can pray in such a way that one hundred percent God will answer, and sometimes he prays in such a way that you hear from the spirit of the prayer that the man doesn’t believe. You feel like he’s asking “just in case”. It wasn’t that he asked, but he keeps asking. He has not the way for what he asked he received. He just keeps asking. And you just feel – these are such painful prayer meetings. Everyone is asking. And how are they asking? – Quality way! There were such “professionals” in Israel – mourners. They cry so much that make you want to cry. And then there are those who ask – intercessors. Intercessors are beggars. In other words, they are professional spiritual petitioners.
And a new spiritual level of intercession opens when we begin to pray so that the Lord hears us. This moment we must feel thoroughly as change in our prayer.
Pray with faith, pray in such a way that you will receive an answer. There are things that it is even indecent to ask for. But religious leaders can go for so much! There are things to be trusted with. And there is also intercession.
And here is the prayer that God answers – to pray in faith. Pray to God for needs, bless Israel, bless the church of Christ, bless the city, which is lifted up with the prayer. There are certain things that we, as God’s people, are called to do and prophesy. I would even combine these things – where prophecy also comes in, when we prophesy both what God said and what is written, and what comes to our hearts as a revelation.
The next prayer that I would point out is the prayer at the inspiration of the Holy Spirit. It could be an emergency prayer. I can pray this prayer several times a day, sometimes even briefly. The Lord puts some kind of need that you didn’t even imagine that this need exists: a revelation about some person, or about yourself, and you begin to receive thoughts from the Lord and affirm them with God in prayer. It is also very important that we may be pierced by the Holy Spirit. To allow to pierce us with the court sword of God’s revelations, so that our thought may be open to the thoughts of God. Therefore, attain it to be a man of revelation, to hear the Lord.
The sword of revelation pierces right through you. The Lord wants us to hear Him. This is how we talk about transforming the prayer life. It’s not just a man who lives with a rough heart, with a rough mind – just as he never hear God, he doesn’t hear Him now, how he was with a “tight ear”, so he remained – twenty years of the same carnal thing, the same way “tight” and the same way not hearing God. It should not be so. We must break our hearts to hear the Lord. We must become refined with the Lord. We fast, we pray, but nothing happens. We need to become subtle and fine with Him, become more sensitive to the Holy Spirit, because many of us should be teachers by now. Be open to revelations.
We have covered large layers – working prayers; worship and revelation of the Holy Spirit. And one more layer where we should feel the transformation is contemplation. When we hear Him, when we receive His power from Him, when we are saturated with His presence, His light.
This is a special kind of prayer, it also refers to worship, but it is for receiving – when we receive from Him His light, His power, His wisdom, His love. When we lack, we take from Him. You even get physical strength from Him. Receive from Him the grace sent to us for timely help. And God always sends His grace to His faithful ones. Remember that it is sufficient. But ask God for it, open yourselves, receive grace from Him. Because sometimes we are closed from the inside. We need to be able to pray in such a way that we receive refreshment, renewal, resurrection again. Need to learn.
This is His grace. We must learn to receive strength from Him, to contemplate His beauty, His grace, His wisdom. It falls on you and brings His Spirit, or love. It happens when the Lord fills you with love, and you begin to serve a person with the wisdom of love. The Lord simply melts you, and you already feel that it is no longer you.
We all must learn to receive in prayer. You walk like this, you live like that, and you abide in all this. Transform into this, because this is the most important thing – our spirit, it must be well tended, it must not be neglected. This is our garden. Where the Lord was crucified, there was a garden. If our garden becomes a dry forest, then animals will inhabit it. Birds of paradise should sing there. Let the light and joy within us intensify so that there is something inside that we can give to people. This is the main thing – that we should be rich in God, “get rich in God.” Grow rich in God – this is our whole essence.