Most of the modern Church institutions have become powerless, spiritually devoid social clubs, all saying the right things but denying the power of the gospel. It was the healing evangelist, John G Lake who said over a hundred years ago that every church should have the letters ‘LTD’ written after their name – because they are limited in power, limited in vision and limited in their ability to minister the ability and authority granted us in Jesus Christ.
One of the root causes of this is the loss of the true meaning of prayer.
Let’s step back for a moment and look at a couple of things in the Word of God which we are instructed to do on an ongoing basis.
First of all we are told to pray without ceasing – that seems like a formidable task in itself – and, secondly, we are instructed to meditate day and night. Now. It would seem if we managed to do any one of these, it would automatically preclude the other, if for no other reason, we just wouldn’t have the time.
As a potential solution to this dilemma, I am going to present a concept for your consideration and that is that prayer and meditation are one and the same thing.
Now when we talk about meditation most Christians are scared stiff. Eastern religions, cults, devils are among some of the negative connotations which spring immediately to mind. All this shows is that they have no idea what their position in Christ is. ( a subject we will examine in more detail in future posts) The Bible tell us to meditate so therefore it is a scriptural practice and we don’t need to say anything else about it at this point except to say it is a spiritual exercise.
Prayer is also a spiritual exercise, not words committed to memory and repeated parrot fashion.
To explain prayer let’s look at a verse in Mark that we have used in a previous post – ‘Whatsoever things you desire, WHEN YOU PRAY, believe you receive them and you shall have them’. How do you believe you receive something when you pray? Simple, you get quiet and see yourself in possession of the thing you desire. But, wait a minute, you may say, doesn’t that sound more like meditation than prayer.
Exactly. Prayer and meditation are both spiritual exercises designed to do exactly the same thing.
As another example, let us look at prayer in the context of healing the sick. To pray for the sick is a common term used in most churches that believe Divine Healing has not passed away. But what if I told you that only once in the Bible does it tell you to pray for the sick and that is in the Gospel of James. In all other places it tells you to heal the sick or to lay hands on the sick and they shall recover.
Look at the ministry of Jesus and how He ministered to the sick. He commanded them to be healed, he commanded sickness to depart, He commanded devils to leave and He commanded the dead to rise. He never prayed for them, all His praying was done before He even came into contact with the sick and what He did then was exercise His authority.
So, if you are involved in ministering to the sick, here is a suggestion for you. Before you go to minister, spend time in the quiet using your imagination to see people coming out of wheelchairs, crippled limbs being made whole and all manner of diseases being healed.
That is true prayer and it has the effect of building up spiritual power on the inside of you and when you come into contact with a person in need, you release that power into their lives and set them free.
We are three part beings – spirit, soul and body. Most of the time we take care of our bodies, but neglect our soul and spirit. We all know that when we are deprived of sleep we don’t function as efficiently. We can’t think ‘straight’, our ability to focus is altered and we tend to be irritable, in other words our body starts to break down.