I started talking about prayer yesterday, and even continued the topic during lunch with a good brother in Christ. The issue of prayer must be discussed and properly discerned. The concept has become a huge rolling snowball of religious nonsense which is so far removed from what Jesus was trying to explain to us that it will take a magnanimous task to try to get the Church on track to a proper understanding.
There are a lot of layers to unravel.
I mentioned yesterday that the Church has pretty much ignored what Jesus says in Matt. 6 about prayer, and instead began to pray the opposite. On the whole it has continued to do so on up to the present.
We have adopted the "Pester God Continually For Things He Already Has Said We Have" model.
So let me preemptively answer the ultimate question of, "Oh yeah...well..what about Asking, Seeking, and Knocking?".
What about it? That's been grossly misinterpreted as well. That falls into the category of "Exhaustively Pestering God Continually For Things He Has Already Said We Have" model.
Sorry. Sacred Cows are highly impervious to cattle prods.
Ask, seek, knock does not imply continually petitioning God for the stuff you think you need. The proper understanding of the verse was never translated correctly. Here's how it should read:
Matthew 7:8 (AMP) - "For everyone who keeps on asking receives; and he who keeps on seeking finds; and to him who keeps on knocking, [the door] will be opened."
Okaaayyy....how is this helping your case, pastor? This is worse! It screams pester God!
Not if we learn to understand prayer in context it doesn't. The Bible does not contradict itself.
Paul says, "Pray without ceasing" (1 Th. 5:17). Have you tried that lately? If you think it means how it initially reads, let me know how that's working out for you.
Praying without ceasing falls into the category of asking, seeking, knocking, and when improperly discerned and interpreted, it will deter more people from prayer than encourage. Why? Because in the physical mechanical sense it can't be done. This is the stuff that drove men with long brown robes into the desert to escape reality and live in monastic silence while trying to accomplish a perfect prayer life. This did more to damage and set back Christian progress than to help it.
So if it means none of what we have traditionally believed and failed to implement, then what under an open heaven pastor, does it mean?
It means pray who you are. I know, I just confused you further.
Be. Stop and just "BE". You and everything about you must be the praying.
Think about it. If you are the adopted in the Family of God co-heir of Jesus Christ with access to all the riches of Heaven, and have literally been given the "Keys" to The Kingdom of Heaven, if your living here should reflect "on earth as it is in Heaven", then what in this cheap knock off of Heaven we call earth is their to beg and pester God for?
Citizen of Heaven. What do you not have that you think God has not already given you?
This takes a ginormous attitude! THAT's what prayer is to me. It's a GINORMOUS attutude, so completely sold out and consecrated to God that my thoughts are the thoughts of Christ (1 Cor. 2:16). It's communal. It's communing. It's inclusive of being in the presence of God, the Holy Spirit, and Jesus Christ along with the heavenly host of His Angels!
Stop "praying" and confessing your lack. Start living thankfulness for your abundance!
Any praying I ever previously thought was praying pales in comparison to what can only be termed as "true fellowship".
It is the essential "praying in the Spirit" (Rom. 8:26).
This asking, and seeking, and knocking is perpetual (hence "without ceasing). It's something we are, not what we "do" when we need something, it's a life we live and lead all of the time. We breathe asking. We sweat seeking. We bleed knocking.
Our face is continually before God's face. Eye to eye. Forehead to forehead. Arms intertwined.
It's not a "prayer life". It IS life.
Keepin' it Real,
Pastor Kevin <><
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