My poor husband! I can sometimes be one of those “squirrel” people – you know the ones. You may be having a conversation and in the middle, the person to whom you are talking or who is talking to you gets suddenly and radically distracted by something completely off topic. Dave can be talking and out of the blue, I will point at something, change the subject, or otherwise divert the conversation. This is always completely unintentional, but frustrating just the same. I can even do it to myself! I will be talking to another person and all of a sudden, my mind gets hijacked by something I see…or by an interrupting sound. Worse yet, I sometimes can’t even remember what I was talking about when my attention comes back around to the person I was originally talking to!

So, when contemplating the difference between hearing God and listening to Him, I fully understand the distinction between the two. Unless one is deaf or hearing impaired, hearing is simply an automatic sensory activity. We don’t need to actively “do” anything to hear. Sound happens. What we choose to do with what we hear involves the activity of listening. I know this about myself as well…when I don’t pay attention to what someone is saying to me, I will have to ask them to repeat it or just try to fake that I was listening instead of hearing “blah, blah, blah” while my mind was elsewhere!

Listening involves attentiveness…it is attaching meaning to what we have heard. It is also intentionally acting upon what is heard by responding appropriately. Because this is sometimes a struggle for me, depending upon the situation, I have to work at and practice the spiritual discipline of listening well. Prayer often involves active listening because there are times when prayer is relational conversation. There are also times when just being in His presence and “being” is enough. This has been called “keeping company with God.” I love those times of intimacy – just knowing that He is with me and I am with Him.

But picking up the voice of God when He speaks to my heart is a completely different prayer experience. I wonder how often I have heard God speak, but because I wasn’t fully and actively listening, I’ve either not obeyed or have missed a blessing. So often, God spoke and still speaks to people who didn’t and/or don’t want to listen. Scripture is filled with examples.

In order to become a better listener in conversational prayer, I must practice truly listening to what I hear and gaining understanding. The disciplines of silence and solitude are very helpful and necessary for my transformational growth in listening to God. If I don’t spend time nurturing my soul in this way, I can easily be the person James admonishes: “Don’t fool yourself into thinking that you are a listener when you are anything but, letting the Word go in one ear and out the other. Act on what you hear! Those who hear and don’t act are like those who glance in the mirror, walk away, and two minutes later have no idea who they are, what they look like” (James 1:22-24 MSG).

God is very clear about Who we are to listen to: “While he was still speaking, a bright cloud overshadowed them, and behold, a voice out of the cloud said, ‘This is My beloved Son, with whom I am well-pleased; listen to Him’” (Matthew 17:5)! And Jesus, by example, practiced getting away from the noise and the crowds to hear God in silent, solitary places. How much more should we?

In biblical times, people heard from God but didn’t always listen to Him, which means they did not obey. For me it comes down to paying “close attention” to what is heard from Jesus: “Anyone with ears to hear should listen and understand.” Then he added, “Pay close attention to what you hear. The closer you listen, the more understanding you will be given—and you will receive even more. To those who listen to my teaching, more understanding will be given. But for those who are not listening, even what little understanding they have will be taken away from them.” (Mark 4:23-25 NLT). What a powerful promise and warning! One who demonstrated listening for understanding in Scripture was Mary of Bethany “…who was seated at the Lord’s feet, listening to His word” (Luke 10:39).

It’s easy to listen to the wrong voices in our culture today. Amidst all of the distractions, hearing the voice of Jesus is sometimes very difficult; however, it can be discerned more easily through practicing the disciplines that our Lord engaged in. One of my deepest desires is to get into a much better rhythm of silence and solitude in order to “listen to Him.”

Your kingdom come, Your will be done on earth as it is in heaven! We have all made this declaration thousands of times, and yet, there are so many insidious ways that the Enemy of our souls finds to take our hearts off of God’s heavenly will for His kingdom on earth.

When I first married my husband, I was so grateful to God that I unintentionally allowed Dave to become an idol in my life. This is, I believe, not an unusual occurrence when people are deeply in love with one another; however, it never occurred to me that this had become so until my husband pointed it out one day. With great humility he sat me down and explained that I was putting way too much spiritual expectation on his meeting my needs and had begun to make my relationship with him more of a focus that my relationship with  God. As he opened my eyes to this very glaring fact, I knew it instantly to be true. My love for Dave had superseded my passion for the presence of God. I was becoming more and more content in depending upon my husband to meet every need and fulfill every desire and to give me guidance and counsel.

Some of this dependence is not inherently bad…but it was growing to a point of becoming spiritually dangerous for me, as well as for my husband. Dave was, of course, flattered and happy to be my “everything” but he began to see a lessening in how his wife was pursuing the presence of Christ in all things. How blessed I am to have married this man, for he was unpretentious enough to guide me back to the One my heart should always be fully captivated by. My kingdom life and work could have been damaged and/or delayed by the enemy’s attempt to distract me – even with something as wonderful as my new spouse! The Devil is devious and underhanded to do such a thing, but he is so successful at it that many Christians, myself included, can easily fall prey to it.

Perhaps your distraction is not a person, but might be technology, a hobby, the busyness of your life, doing good and valuable kingdom things, etc. The Devil knows where we are weak and most likely to be tempted…sometimes it doesn’t take long before we are physically and/or mentally caught up in the presence of what is not God’s intent for us. The key is to recognize when this is beginning to happen to us and to find victory. For some of us, it will mean a greater effort, for we have already become addicted or distracted. We must help one another and encourage each other to be faithfully yoked to Jesus over all other distractions (even those that seem to be kingdom-focused).

That said, how can we pray for God’s best kingdom life each day? Here are several to get you started:

• Father, help me to have a repentant heart for all of the times I have placed others and other things above or before You! Give me a deeper desire to soak in Your perfect presence so that I will want nothing more than I want You! Forgive me for my inattentiveness and neglect. Forgive me for my wandering heart and thoughts. Forgive me for straying from Your kingdom in favor of my own!
• Grace-filled God, help me to keep my eyes fixed upon Your face and my ears listening for Your voice today. Help me not to waver to the right or to the left but to walk in the way You guide me for Your kingdom’s sake.
• Father, protect me from the temptations and roadblocks the Enemy puts in my path to “cut in on” my journey to be the hands and feet of Jesus to those You put in my path. May I never be so distracted that I am not fully aware of a divine appointment or a task You place in front of me.
• Holy Spirit, help me to put on Christ daily and to clothe myself in the armor of God each day so that I might be prepared for the battle. May I be continually aware of wearing the righteousness of Jesus.
• Lord Jesus, give me the strength to turn away from the things that I tend to spend so much time with that they have become or have the potential to become idols in my life. Give me quick recognition right now of anything that I need to say “no” to in order to say “yes” to You! Help my everyday life to be a reflection of Your kingdom on earth as it is in heaven!

(c) Harvest Prayer Ministries

“Nothing but the knowledge of God, as the Holy One, will make us holy. And how are we to obtain that knowledge of God, except in the inner chamber, our private place of prayer? It is a thing utterly impossible unless we take time and allow the holiness of God to shine on us.”   ~ Andrew Murray

Whenever Moses entered the presence of the Lord, his face shone: “It came about when Moses was coming down from Mount Sinai (and the two tablets of the testimony were in Moses’ hand as he was coming down from the mountain), that Moses did not know that the skin of his face shone because of his speaking with Him” (Exodus 34:29). His appearance was transformed by being with a holy God.

In the same way, the gaze of God, shining upon us as we meet with Him in the inner chamber of prayer, is able to transform us into His holy disciples. Being in the presence of God changes us…and the more time we spend with Him, the more He renovates our heart so that our lives reflect Jesus to everyone around us.

As I have been contemplating the mystery of God shining on us in all of His holiness in order that we might reflect the holiness of Christ Jesus, I dug into several scriptures that will help us to prayerfully ask for His holiness to be made manifest in us!

1. We Are Chosen to Be Holy: “For He chose us in Him before the creation of the world to be holy and blameless in His sight…” (Ephesians 1:4). We were chosen to be holy before the world came to be! What an amazing insight into the heart of God. He envisioned us as holy people even before He breathed us into existence.

Prayer: Father, what an amazing truth! You chose me even before you created the world to be holy and blameless in Your sight. I can hardly comprehend how it must grieve Your heart that Your people are so careless with this gift – myself included! Teach me to more fully understand what it means to be set apart for the purposes of Your kingdom!  Shine on me, Holy God!

2. We Are Called to Be Holy: “For God did not call us to be impure, but to live a holy life” (1 Thessalonians 4:7).  After God chose us to be holy, God called us to seek after holiness. Knowing that we have a choice multiple times a day to reflect the life of Jesus in our actions and in what we say, He keeps calling us to choose the way of holiness. How well do we respond to His call?

Prayer: Righteous One, I bow my heart in anguish over my sinful ways and worldly choices. You have called me to be holy and I have not honored Your desire for me to be set apart for Your purposes. Teach me to obey Your call! Shine on me, Holy God!

3. Worship God Because He Is the Holy One: “Ascribe to the LORD the glory due His name; worship the LORD in the splendor of His holiness” (Psalm 29:2 NIV).  “Give to the Lord the glory he deserves! Bring your offering and come into his presence. Worship the Lord in all his holy splendor” (1 Chronicles 16:29 NLT). In order to journey more deeply into the transforming work of God to make us His holy people, we must first focus on the glory of our Father, worshiping Him in His holiness. We cannot begin to comprehend the holiness of God in our own lives if we do not camp out in His holy presence.

Prayer: Father, I am in awe of Your holy splendor! You alone are worthy of worship and honor! You invite me into Your presence to give myself as an offering so that You might transform me by Your holiness. May I shine with Your holiness as You shape me into the image of Your Son, Jesus, so that I might be a living reflection of His character.

4. Be Holy Because He Is Holy: “But just as He who called you is holy, so be holy in all you do; for it is written: ‘Be holy, because I am holy’” (1 Peter 1:15-16). Holiness is not an option – it is a command from Scripture! We cannot fully obey this mandate when prayer is a duty rather than a desire. Prayer is relationship with the Holy One! The One who desires us to be holy as He is holy! When we neglect this relationship, we cannot obey the call to be holy and to be holy in all we do.

Prayer: Holy One of Israel, deepen my desire to fully know You as I am fully known by You. Forgive me of my prayerlessness and thinking I can work my way towards holiness apart from seeking Your face. Show me what it truly means to be holy as You are holy! Shine on me Holy God!

5. Share in His Holiness: “For our earthly fathers disciplined us for a few years, doing the best they knew how. But God’s discipline is always good for us, so that we might share in his holiness. No discipline is enjoyable while it is happening—it’s painful! But afterward there will be a peaceful harvest of right living for those who are trained in this way” (Hebrews 12:10-11 NLT). So many of us look at affliction and suffering as something to be avoided; however, God utilizes these things to refine us. We can’t just arrogantly expect to step into holiness without being purified, cleansed and decontaminated. Our worldliness needs to be contained and transformed into godliness. We should therefore welcome our suffering as the training ground for holiness. Zechariah 13:9 says, “I will bring that group through the fire and make them pure. I will refine them like silver and purify them like gold. They will call on my name, and I will answer them. I will say, ‘These are my people,’ and they will say, ‘The Lord is our God.’” If we are unwilling to walk through the fire, we are unwilling to be holy as He is holy.

Prayer: Father, if I am truly honest, I don’t like discipline, and I would never choose to suffer if it was dependent upon my selfish desire to avoid discomfort. But I know that if these things were not a part of my life’s journey, I would stay an immature, ineffective believer rather than growing into a purified, kingdom-changing follower of Jesus. Give me the strength to endure your loving discipline, faith to believe that You are in the midst of my suffering, and a submissive spirit to allow the refining fire to do its work to make me holy as You are holy. Shine on me, Holy God!

6. Righteousness Leads to Holiness: “You have been set free from sin and have become slaves to righteousness. I put this in human terms because you are weak in your natural selves. Just as you used to offer the parts of your body in slavery to impurity and to ever-increasing wickedness, so now offer them in slavery to righteousness leading to holiness” (Romans 6:18-19). Paul pegs us! We are “weak in our natural selves”! We must guard ourselves from making unholy alliances with the ungodly culture around us. Jesus has set us free from sin and death; yet, we keep entangling ourselves in darkness and giving in to the temptations of seemingly harmless distractions. It is in prayer where the alliance with righteousness is made strong and kept whole!

Prayer:  Lord Jesus, because of You, I have been set free from sin, and Your righteousness has become my own. Give me strength to choose holiness over the temptations of the world. Set off alarm bells in my soul whenever the evil one attempts to distract me from the purposes of Your kingdom. Shine on me, Holy God!

7. Perfect Holiness Out of Reverence: “Since we have these promises, dear friends, let us purify ourselves from everything that contaminates body and spirit, perfecting holiness out of reverence for God” (2 Corinthians 7:1). Even in this moment, each of us is likely aware of how easily entangled we can become with what contaminates our desire to be holy people. We cannot walk in integrity of heart when we harbor darkness within us.

Prayer: Holy God, show me how to purify myself from what pollutes my body and spirit! Guard my heart and help me to focus all that I am upon the beauty of Your holiness! Give me strength to walk away from the arrogance of my own thoughts and actions so that day by day I look more like Jesus. Show me how to walk towards a more perfect holiness. Shine on me, Holy God!

As we allow the presence of God to impact our lives, He will transform us from the inside out. God’s holiness will be manifested in and through our lives so that our faces truly will shine with the glory of Christ.

A.W. Tozer brings this all into a completed whole for us: “Holiness, as taught in the Scriptures, is not based upon knowledge on our part. Rather, it is based upon the resurrected Christ in-dwelling us and changing us into His likeness.”

(c) Harvest Prayer Ministries

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Many churches struggle with helping people to connect with kingdom ministry when they are unsure of what God wants them to do. Training the Church in the intercessory ministry of Jesus can help most people gain a crucial connectivity to the power of God no matter what life stage or circumstance they are in. We are called to live like Jesus.

 In Romans 8:34, the one thing we know for sure Jesus is currently doing on our behalf is interceding. He is ministering to His people by coming to God continually on our behalf!  Should we not also pray for one another as He prays for us? Intercession for people, nations, situations, churches, etc. can reach far beyond what many will ever know in their own lifetimes. The key is training people to see the kingdom impact of intercession and how praying for others is powerful and effective ministry.

 It is vital to encourage and train different populations of people in the ministry of prayer:

 Seniors – So many elderly have one of two mindsets as they age. First, they feel they have put in their time and served and now it is time for the younger people to take their places and it is their time to rest. Or, they feel their time of usefulness is past and are unsure what, if anything, to do for the kingdom of God. Leaders should enlist and engage this powerful army of intercessors and show them how their usefulness to the kingdom extends far beyond their physical abilities.

 Gather your senior saints together and share with them how vital the ministry of prayer is and personally invite them to accept prayer assignments from the leadership. Seniors can pray for pastors and families, for missionary partners, for the nations, for the children of the church, for the activities and outreaches of the church, etc. Then, give them specific prayer points for these things. Likely, you will need someone in leadership to put some time into coordinating this prayer effort by training where it is needed. Even those who have been believers for a long time don’t really know how to pray for others effectively. Teach seniors to pray the word of God over people, situations, etc. Train them to send prayers via email or personal notes to encourage others. You will be amazed at how prayer ministry can give new life to a group of people who no longer feel needed or useful. Another benefit is that by engaging your seniors in this way, some who might have a tendency to be critical, to gossip or to fall away from the church altogether can be recaptured by the power of the kingdom of God at work in and through them! Kingdom usefulness gives new life.

 Now that you have the idea using the example of seniors, here are some other populations within your congregation to engage in the ministry of prayer:

 Disabled/Health Fragile – In our churches today are many people who could be encouraged and trained in the ministry of prayer, but who are marginalized. We are setting aside some prayer warriors who just need to be pointed in the right direction and set free!

 Children and Youth – Paul said to Timothy in 1 Timothy 4:12: “Let no one look down on your youthfulness, but rather in speech, conduct, love, faith and purity, show yourself an example of those who believe.” Our children and youth do not have junior Holy Spirits and should be encouraged from the earliest ages how to seek the face of God and to intercede for others as Jesus did, and still does today. Children are some of the most powerful kingdom intercessors in the church because they are filled with faith! Rather than entertaining our young ones, we should be connecting them to the Vine and training them to minister in and through prayer!

 Congregational Intercession – Our church prays corporately for another congregation and pastor in our city each week, as well as one of our ministry partners (missionaries). This is kingdom ministry! Can you imagine what God might do as many people focus on interceding for God to move in the lives and work of other churches and ministries in our area and across the world? Rather than being dependent upon one prayer leader speaking a prayer over these needs each week, if everyone took this focus to heart and continued to intercede daily, God would respond in some astonishingly powerful ways in the lives and ministries of many pastors and missionaries.

 Small Groups – Training small group leaders to lead effective times of prayer is crucial. Otherwise, the short and automatic inclusion of praying will be secondary and focused mainly on health needs alone. We do this as a trained automatic response rather than from heartfelt desire to minister to peoples’ needs. Teach leaders how to help groups see the time of intercession as powerful ministry. Perhaps each small group could adopt an unreached, unengaged people group or a nation where Christians are being persecuted.

 Prayer is the lost doctrine of the Church, and its lack is likely the cause of our collective powerlessness for the sake of the kingdom! Much good is being done in the name of Christ, don’t misunderstand me; however, the power of intercessory prayer as modeled for us by Jesus Himself as He actively intercedes at the right hand of God for us has been put on the back burner of spiritual activity. If every ministry was energized by prayer rather than human effort, and if every person in each of our churches was actively trained to engage the Father by seeking His presence, and as a result, if they started interceding, imagine the fuel that would be poured upon the fire of the work of God in our churches!

Recently, I prayed with a young woman I had not previously met who was suffering many stresses in her young life: a struggling child, her grandfather’s recent stroke, a difficult ex-husband and a lack of peace. She is a born-again believer and deeply desires God to move in her life. As we prayed through these issues one by one, I sensed the Spirit urging me to ask her if she had forgiven her ex-husband. I had no idea what had transpired between them…only that this was a sticking place in her journey of transformation. I took a deep breath and asked the question, “Rosa, have you been able to forgive your ex-husband?”

Her eyes opened wide, and she looked startled. “No, I haven’t been able to go there. There was so much abuse.” I prayed for the painful situation in her marriage. Then, I prayed for her ex-husband, asking God to transform him by the renewing of his mind and to change his story and draw him to Jesus. Afterwards, I asked her, “Rosa, do you think you could begin to pray prayers like these for him?” I explained that un-forgiveness and bitterness were harming her spiritually and that as she learned to pray for her ex-husband’s salvation and transformation she would gradually begin to see God change her heart and bring her to a place where she could truly release all of the pain she had experienced into the Father’s hands. She could be free from the bondage of un-forgiveness and be delivered from her anger and resentment towards him. Rosa agreed, although a bit reluctantly, to begin to pray for him and to consider the possibility that her prayers could make a difference in his eternity as well as give her greater peace in her own journey. I am excited to watch God move in the lives of this family as He begins to work in response to Rosa’s prayers.

Is there someone you need to pray for today who has damaged or hurt you in some way? Perhaps you are angry with people you don’t even know – politicians, workers on strike, someone who continually parks in your space, etc. Can you ask God to give you the grace to pray for them? So often an inability to pray for certain people blocks the fullness of God’s blessing. We allow the “enemy” to give us feelings of hatred and a desire for revenge…when Jesus says, “…love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you” (Matthew 5:44).  This is not an easy or simple assignment for many…but it is the way of the kingdom.  If we desire a life that follows Christ, we must obey this directive from the One who prayed from the cross: “Father, forgive them; for they do not know what they are doing” (Luke 23:34).

Prayer as everyday life compels us to connect with the Father through the Son no matter who or what circumstance tries to trip us up in the midst of our journey towards Christlikeness. Neglecting to love our enemies and pray for those who persecute us is sin, which Psalm 66: 18 says, “If I regard wickedness in my heart, the Lord will not hear…” Instead, Jesus tells us, “If you forgive those who sin against you, your heavenly Father will forgive you” (Matthew 6:14).

May the ministry of forgiveness continually be part of us as we step into each day’s journey so that God will be honored and glorified in the midst of His people.