We are starting a new series and we trust God that in the next 4 weeks, the Lord will be leading us in this direction and He will be giving us understanding on this subject matter. It is something that is very dear to us as believers. As children of God, this subject matter must be central in our lives and in our daily activities. And that is why the Holy Spirit, in this month will be leading us on this series called LEADING BY PRAYERS. That’s the series we will be looking at throughout the month of March by the help of the Holy Spirit.
Listen to Podcast: LEADING BY PRAYER: AN INTRODUCTION
But today, we will be looking at a section of that broad series which is LEADING BY PRAYERS. Today, we will be looking at INTRODUCTION TO PRAYER. How did we come about the concept of prayer, the prayer walk, how did it come to bear, what is God’s stand about it, what examples can we refer to that shows us that we ought to pray, we have to be given to prayer. Prayer is not an option but a necessity in the life of a believer.
We are going to start by looking at the definition of prayer and I will like you to join me to turn to the book of Jeremiah, Jeremiah chapter 33 and we will read verse 3, I am sure many of us have read this before, I will start my reading from verse 2, so that we can gain proper understanding;
2 “Thus says the Lord who made it, the Lord who formed it to establish it (the Lord is His name): 3 ‘Call to Me, and I will answer you, and show you great and mighty things, which you do not know.’
Jeremiah 33: 2-3
“Thus says the Lord who made it, the Lord who formed it to establish it (the Lord is His name): ‘Call to Me, so we understand from verse 2, that this statement in verse 3 was not made by a man but it was made by God, He said call to me and I will answer you, and show you great and mighty things, which you do not know.’ He says, Thus says the Lord who made it, the Lord who formed it to establish it, and this is His word, call to me and I, God, the Lord God will answer you and I will not just answer you, not just give you a response, I will show you. So, one of the things Jeremiah chapter 33 verse 3 made us to see as a working definition of prayer is that prayer comes from us to God, God is the one we address prayers to, the Lord God and He commanded us to pray. He said, call to me and I will answer you, I will be the one to give the response. The response will not come from angels even though I might send them. The response will not come from creatures in heaven, even though they might be privy to the response I want to give you, the response will come from Me, God. So the answers to your prayers come from God directly. God is the one that gives response to our prayers so prayer is a call to God with an expectation of a response from him. That’s the working definition we will be using throughout this series. Prayer is a call to God with an expectation of response from Him. And the nature of God’s response is this, He said I will show you great and mighty things which you do not know.
So, prayer clears our ignorance, Prayer takes us from the place of ignorance to knowledge of the will of God so when you pray, you are calling to God with an expectation of a response and when God responds to you, God brings light to a dark issue. God brings knowledge to a prevailing ignorance. That’s what happens when we pray. So, haven read that definition of prayer, haven understood that, let’s also see some other Scriptures where God made emphatic reference to prayers and how that God expects us as his children, as bearers that carry treasure in this earthen vessel to pray and I want us to go with me to Isaiah chapter 56
Even I will bring to my holy mountain and make them joyful in my house of prayer. Their burnt offerings and their sacrifices will be accepted on my altar, For My house shall be called a house of prayer for all nations.”
Isaiah 56:7
This is God Himself speaking. Now, if you read from verse 1 of that Isaiah chapter 56, God was talking about, how salvation will come to the gentiles, how that foreigners will come to his light, they will come to the understanding of who is and He will embrace them, In verse 3, he said, Do not let the son of the foreigner who has joined himself to the Lord speak saying, ‘The Lord has utterly separated me from His people. Nor let the eunuch say Here I am, a dry tree”.
Now God said, after making mention of all those things, in verse 7, even them, this people, this category of people, I will bring to my holy mountain and make them joyful in my house of prayer. Their burnt offerings and their sacrifices will be accepted on my altar, For My house shall be called a house of prayer for all nations.” Now, when God made this statement, He was talking about a room that He has created, for everyone, both Gentiles and the Jews and the Greeks, everyone to come to Him, to call to Him and He will accept them, He will receive them , He will give an answer to their cry. Now Jesus made this same statement, He quoted this particular verse when He was talking about prayer in Matthew chapter 21, I want us to see that Scripture, then you will now relate it together and see what the Lord is saying to us. Matthew chapter 21, we will read verse 12 and stop at 16, because it was an incident, and in the midst of that incident, Jesus made that statement.
12 Then Jesus went into the temple of God and drove out all those who bought and sold in the temple, and overturned the tables of the money changers and the seats of those who sold doves. 13 And He said to them, “It is written, ‘My house shall be called a house of prayer,’ but you have made it a ‘den of thieves.’ ”14 Then the blind and the lame came to Him in the temple, and He healed them. 15 But when the chief priests and scribes saw the wonderful things that He did, and the children crying out in the temple and saying, “Hosanna to the Son of David!” they were indignant 16 and said to Him, “Do You hear what these are saying?” And Jesus said to them, “Yes. Have you never read, ‘Out of the mouth of babes and nursing infants. You have perfected praise’?”
Matthew 21:12-16
What was the first thing that happened in verse 12? Jesus entered into the temple and He saw exchange going on and He saw that the temple was busy with business. Many people were buying and selling, exchanging money, going about doing transactions and Jesus, what did He do? It said, He overturned the tables, He scattered their merchandise, that you are doing a wrong thing, this place called the temple of God is not for transactions in the flesh. It is not for transactions among men, it’s a place of spiritual transaction, where you call and there is a response and you are being shown great and mighty things that you do not know, that is what this place is for. So, Jesus overturning the tables, gave us an impression, gave us an understanding that God was not pleased with what was happening in the temple. Just like today, God is not pleased with physical transactions, money transactions, transactions of the flesh, going on in the temples of God all over the world because He said my house. When God is saying my house, is it a house of brick or is God talking about a house of metal or brass? When God is talking about a house, God is talking about a temple, He is talking about a place that has been prepared for him that cannot be built with human hand.
And Jesus overturned the tables and He declared the counsel of God and the same counsel, what I say to one, I say to all. The same counsel is what God is declaring to us, enough of transactions in the flesh, enough of creating tables, structures, programs, that makes the temple of God to become a place of financial and physical transaction, a place of trade. He said my house shall be called a house of prayer for all nations, where all nations will gather and come and spiritual transactions are going on. There is a call to God and there is a response from heaven, a place where heaven touch the earth, where earth touches the heaven.
No wonder when Jesus was giving us a model of prayer and he was saying to his disciples in that place, in Matthew chapter 6, he said see this is how you should pray, this is the model, this is the example, this is what should happen, this is the conversation you should be having with God. Connect with Him as your Lord and Saviour. After connecting with Him, let there be an exchange, let there be an exchange between you and God. Something must be exchanging. That’s prayer. Something must be exchanging. In the place of prayer, you exchange your weakness for the strength of God. You exchange your ignorance with the knowledge of God. You exchange your poverty for the riches of God. You exchange in the place of prayer. And He said my house is a house of spiritual exchange, a place of spiritual transaction where heaven and earth connects.
And when Jesus overturned the tables and He said this to them, see what happened the verse 14, Jesus now showed them what should be happening in the temple, Oh! When I saw that, I rejoiced in my heart. He said overtime, men have been receiving glory in this temple, men have been feeding fine in this temple, they have been filling their pockets in this temple. He said no longer, He said my house shall be called a house of prayer and in verse 14, then, then talks about ‘after that event’, ‘thereafter’. He said, the blind and the lame came to Him in the temple, the same temple that has become a place of transactions in the flesh and he said in the temple, the blind and the lame came to Him and He healed them. When he did that? Who was glorified? When the blind could now see, and the lame could walk, is it a financial transaction, is it a trade in the flesh? No! It’s a spiritual transaction taking place where all the glory goes to God.
So, when God calls his house the house of prayer, what he is saying to you is that it should be a place of spiritual transaction, where heaven connects to the earth, where we are able to connect to the source of every good thing and we are able to draw on the will of God. No wonder when Jesus was teaching us to pray, at a point He said, you should pray like this, lat your kingdom come, let your will be done on earth as it is in heaven. That’s what should happen in the temples. The temple should be a place where the will of God is enforced on the earth and how can it happen, by making that house, a house of prayer, where we call unto him and He answers us and He shows us things we’ve never seen before, where his light dawns on our heart, where his light shines upon our hearts and darkness is not able to comprehend it. The Bible makes us to understand in Isaiah chapter 60, it said Arise and shine, for your light is come, the light is not sourced anywhere else, for the glory of the Lord is risen upon you. You have received something from heaven and it is activated on the earth and you can see the visible workings in your life. That’s what happens when we become a house of prayer. And you will see the reason why I said this, 1st Corinthians chapter 6, that Jesus was not talking about a physical building,
18 Flee sexual immorality. Every sin that a man does is outside the body, but he who commits sexual immorality sins against his own body.19 Or do you not know that your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit who is in you, whom you have from God, and you are not your own? 20 For you were bought at a price; therefore glorify God in your body and in your spirit, which are God’s.
1st Corinthians 6:18-20
In verse 18, He said, Flee sexual immorality. Every sin that a man does is outside the body, but he who commits sexual immorality sins against his own body. Or do you not know that your body, do you see that? Do you not know that your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit? do you not know that your body is the temple of God? Do you not know that your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit, who is in you, whom you have received from God, and you are not your own? For you were bought at a price; therefore glorify God in your body, children of God, did we see that? Glorify God in your body. How do you glorify God in your body? By your temple becoming a house of prayer. And in your spirit which are God’s. Glorify God in your body and in your spirit which is God’s. So you are the temple of God, you are the temple that God is talking about.
You are the temple that Jesus is referring to in Matthew chapter 21, that this temple, that God has said, that no longer, because what God wants to do with our lives in this month of March is to overturn the tables. Jesus wants to overturn the tables, all the tables that we have been using to trade and exchange. He said, no longer will that happen, but your spirit will become a place, your body will become a place called the house of prayer. Where you can reach out to God and he responds to you and he shows you great and mighty things that you have not known. Jesus was not talking about a physical building, He is talking about you. You! He is talking about me, that we become a house of prayer. We become a house of prayer! I want us to see Jeremiah chapter 7 verse 8 to 16, so we pick something from there, then we return to the new testament.
8 “Behold, you trust in lying words that cannot profit. 9 Will you steal, murder, commit adultery, swear falsely, burn incense to Baal, and walk after other gods whom you do not know, 10 and then come and stand before Me in this house which is called by My name, and say, ‘We are delivered to do all these abominations’? 11 Has this house, which is called by My name, become a den of thieves in your eyes? Behold, I, even I, have seen it,” says the Lord.12 “But go now to My place which was in Shiloh, where I set My name at the first, and see what I did to it because of the wickedness of My people Israel. 13 And now, because you have done all these works,” says the Lord, “and I spoke to you, rising up early and speaking, but you did not hear, and I called you, but you did not answer, 14 therefore I will do to the house which is called by My name, in which you trust, and to this place which I gave to you and your fathers, as I have done to Shiloh. 15 And I will cast you out of My sight, as I have cast out all your brethren—the whole posterity of Ephraim. 16 “Therefore do not pray for this people, nor lift up a cry or prayer for them, nor make intercession to Me; for I will not hear you.
Jeremiah 7:8-16
“Behold, you trust in lying words that cannot profit. 9 Will you steal, murder, commit adultery, swear falsely, burn incense to Baal, and walk after other gods whom you do not know, and then come and stand before Me in this house which is called by My name, and say, ‘We are delivered to do all these abominations’? Has this house, which is called by My name, become a den of thieves in your eyes? Now, God was addressing one issue, He said you can’t go about committing adultery, fornicating, lying, swearing falsely and come back and stand before me and call me, I won’t answer you. We will see what God said to them, He said, Behold, I, even I, have seen it,” says the Lord. “But go now to My place which was in Shiloh, God wants to show them something, where I set My name at the first, and see what I did to it because of the wickedness of My people Israel. And now, because you have done all these works,” says the Lord, “and I spoke to you, rising up early and speaking, but you did not hear, I called you, but you did not answer, now this is a people that belong to God from the beginning and God said return to me, He called out to them, come back.
You are gradually straying away from the original purpose of your destiny, you are gradually straying away from the original purpose of your life. Come back, He said. God said I called out to them but they did not answer. He said, therefore, because I have called out to you and you did not answer, because I have said go back to your original design, go back to the original purpose of which I have given you this temple. He said, Therefore I will do to the house which is called by My name, in which you trust, and to this place which I gave to you and your fathers, as I have done to Shiloh. And I will cast you out of My sight, as I have cast out all your brethren—the whole posterity of Ephraim. “Therefore do not pray for this people, nor lift up a cry or prayer for them, nor make intercession to Me; for I will not hear you.
When we become a house of prayer, God only hears us when iniquity is not found in us. This people were a people of God, they started out in God. They used to pray and God hears them. They used to be a people that God was fond of, that God loves. So much so that when they were in their ignorance, God was still calling out to them and saying come out, don’t do like this, don’t burn incense to Baal, don’t lie, don’t swear falsely, don’t commit adultery. Remember where we read in 1st Corinthians chapter 6 verse 19, He said when you do sexual immorality, it is a sin against your body, the same body which is a temple of God. You can’t share the same temple of God with mammon. You can’t share it with the devil. The devil can’t have you and God will have you at the same time, it doesn’t work.
So, for you to become a house of prayer, you must be a consecrated child of God, you are consecrated only and solely to him. That’s when you will call upon him and He will answer you. That’s when He will show you great and mighty things that you have not known. That’s when! He said glorify God in your body and in your Spirit, which is God’s. You are God’s property. You are God’s own. God will not share you. He said my glory will I share, not with any man. God will not share you with you, talk less of sharing you with another. He wants to own you solely, that’s when you become a house of prayer to all nations. That’s how you can lead. The Bible makes us to understand that Elijah was a man of like passions like we are and he prayed and there was no rain for three and the half years in a nation, do you think such a man will say something and everybody will not want to listen to him? We complain that we are deprived of power as a church of God. The question we should ask ourselves is that as temples of the living God, are we a house of prayer? Because that’s how we can lead.
All authority in heaven and earth has been given to Christ and He is seated at the right hand of the Father. He is mediating on our behalf, but imagine, if we don’t show up, there is nothing Jesus can do. That is why He is calling us, that’s why He wants to overturn the table this morning, stop the transactions of the flesh, step into the realities of who you are as a spiritual house, that’s what Apostle Paul said, you are a spiritual house, start having spiritual transactions, that’s how you lead. And Jesus showed us this example, I want us to see Luke chapter 18, I will read verse 1 to 8
Then He spoke a parable to them, that men always ought to pray and not lose heart, 2 saying: “There was in a certain city a judge who did not fear God nor regard man. 3 Now there was a widow in that city; and she came to him, saying, ‘Get justice for me from my adversary.’ 4 And he would not for a while; but afterward he said within himself, ‘Though I do not fear God nor regard man, 5 yet because this widow troubles me I will avenge her, lest by her continual coming she weary me.’ ”6 Then the Lord said, “Hear what the unjust judge said. 7 And shall God not avenge His own elect who cry out day and night to Him, though He bears long with them? 8 I tell you that He will avenge them speedily. Nevertheless, when the Son of Man comes, will He really find faith on the earth?”
Luke 18: 1-8
Then He spoke a parable to them, that men always ought to pray and not lose heart, Now all these things He said thereafter is to this end, that men always ought to pray, men should always pray, men should always be a house of prayer, they should not faint, they should not lose heart, they should never be discouraged. You must be a spiritual house, saying: “There was in a certain city a judge who did not fear God nor regard man. Now there was a widow in that city; and she came to him, saying, ‘Get justice for me from my adversary.’ Now, that’s all that woman was asking for, that was her prayer And he would not for a while; but afterward he said within himself, ‘Though I do not fear God nor regard man, yet because this widow troubles me I will avenge her, lest by her continual coming, I love that word, Her continual coming, what was the intro of this parable? He spoke this parable to this end that men ought to pray and not lose heart.
In that parable, this unjust judge said, I will avenge her lest by her continual coming, so she did not come once, she did not come twice, she kept coming. Again and again, she comes, she did not just have a petition, she has become her petition. Every time the man sees her, without even hearing what she has to say, he knows. Have we become a house of prayer, that we don’t just have a prayer, we ourselves are a house of prayer. That when we show up in the spiritual realm, in fact the host of heaven knows why. It says by her continual coming she weary me.’ ” Then the Lord said, “Hear what the unjust judge said. And shall God not avenge His own elect, shall God not respond to His own people? Shall God not respond to His own temples? What do they do? Who cry out day and night to Him, though He bears long with them? I tell you that He will avenge them speedily. Nevertheless, when the Son of Man comes, will He really find faith on the earth?”
And for the first time, the Holy Spirit made me understand what Jesus was saying here, Jesus was not talking about men that would believe, Men that will just believe that Jesus is Lord, when Jesus was saying this, He is saying it in relation to the parable, He said when the son of man returns, will He find men and woman that are a house of prayer that are still standing in faith in prayer, that are still praying, saying that you know what, we might not see that Jesus is coming yet but we will tarry and wait and continue to ask for the Father, of the coming of the Lord Jesus Christ and I said ‘Wow! Okay’.
There is a difference between just believing and staying aloof and believing and asking for that which you believe. They are different. The posture of faith that Jesus is talking about here, He is active persistent faith. People that keep coming to God, people that believe that God is and He is a rewarder of those that diligently seek Him, that’s the people that Jesus is talking about. Will I find such people? Will I find believers that have become a house of prayer that are asking for the will of heaven to be done on the earth. That though they might not see the wind, they might not see the rain, they know the valleys are being filled, that what God has said will come to pass.
Can I have people like Daniel that will still be in slavery but will go and check what the Lord has said and will pray and there will be things happening in the realm of the spirit, preventing their prayers from being answered but they will continue. Imagine if Daniel didn’t continue in prayer. Imagine that Daniel prayed once and said that, you know what, glory to God, God has heard. God heard, the response was coming but there was a Prince of Persia. The Prince of Persia withheld the angel that was bringing the response. The response from heaven but earth has not received it yet. That’s why He said ask, John 16, ask, keep on asking, continue until your joy is full. That’s prayer.
God is not just talking about you praying, just come, one hour, but you yourself becoming a house of prayer, you yourself becoming a place of connectivity between heaven and earth. Where you yourself, you are attracting from heaven resources, you are connecting to the dimensions of God, you are bringing down answers, solutions, light, for all nations. When the light of God comes, it is not just for you, it is for all nations.
Peter and John, they met a man at the gate called Beautiful, he was looking at them, and they said, silver and gold, we are not here to trade in the flesh, we are not here to trade the way people have been trading in this temple, they will come, they will give you 5 cents, they will give you 5 dollars. No! That’s not why we are here. We are here for spiritual transaction, such as we have because we are a house of prayer, we connect with heaven on your behalf and we receive your healing, such as we have. So, we are connected with heaven so we now have your healing.
Hope we are getting it? We now have it, such as we have, we give to you, what happens when you trade? You have something. Somebody else is in need, then you trade. He said, we are not here for that, this is a spiritual transaction going on, God has given us your healing, such as we have, we give to you. Rise up and walk! And the Bible said in the same instance, the man rose up, He rose up! That’s what happens when we become a house of prayer, that’s what happens, we start dealing in spiritual things, you start enforcing the will of God.
Why is it that it looks as if the devil is so popular? His activities are so wide spread. He has agents receiving from him and giving on the earth. How many men and women will stand up and become a spiritual house, become a house a prayer, when you become an agent of God, a child of God on the earth, taking from God and giving to men. That’s what Jesus was doing. That’s what Jesus showed us. Jesus will go while it is yet night. He will go to the mountain to pray, He will go and receive from God. He wasn’t there praying or sleeping, He was transacting. That’s why you realize that when you are truly transacting in the spirit, time is not a barrier.
You are praying and you are yawning. If you are doing a physical transaction, if people are giving you money, you say this money is okay, you people should go, I am tired. I am going. Does it happen? You are eager, you are anxious, ‘bring the money, take the goods, take it’. How come we are not doing that’s spiritually? Is it that God does not talk or God is not interested in what is happening in the earth. He is. The Bible says in Psalms, that God is looking down on the earth, looking for a man, a man He can transact with that will transact to the earth. A man He can pour into, that will pour on the earth, a man, He can trade with that he knows eventually will trade with the earth. That’s what God is looking for.
And the question this morning is, are you that man, are you that woman, men always ought to pray and not to faint. Prayer is a continuous exercise for spiritual houses, It is an activity, it is something that must be second nature to you except you are not a spiritual house of God. You generate so much power in the realm of the spirit that it becomes evident. Apostle Paul, apostle Peter, they generated so much power in the spirit. Now wonder Apostle Paul said if you think you guys are praying in tongues, I pray in tongues more than you all but I still desire that you do what? Prophesy and pray in understanding so that you can bless more people. He generated so much power, the Bible says even his clothes, his aprons were healing the sick because that cloth, that apron was so much soaked in the experience, in the transaction that it became a vessel, a means of exchange. What are we exchanging in our lives? Understand that the spiritual controls the physical. Anything you are seeing now is controlled in the spiritual, will you become a spiritual house for God? We are trusting God for more of what God will reveal to us on prayers, this is just the introduction.
Please, every table that God needs to overturn in your life this morning, allow him to. There are some of us, we are too busy that we don’t have time for God. We are too busy with things that if we look at it, they make no sense. If you invest the time, you use to invest in those other things in prayer, you will see it. We are too busy trading that we have not become a house of prayer, and God is saying this morning, I will want you to be a house of prayer. I want my house to be called a house of prayer for all nations, where you receive light, where you receive knowledge, where you receive understanding.
Some of us, Jesus needs to turn our tables this morning, He needs to turn those tables, those tables that prevent us from seeing the light, from seeing road, from seeing what God wants to do in our lives.