Communicating With God In His Own Words

The Prophet Jeremiah was told, “The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked; who can know it?  I, the Lord, search the heart, I test the mind” (Jeremiah 17:9-10).  Long before this, Solomon had observed, “Truly the hearts of the sons of men are full of evil; madness is in their hearts while they live, and after that they go to the dead” (Ecclesiastes 9:3).  While the work of redemption is to change a person’s nature, change usually comes gradually and far too slowly.

When in a religious setting, we have a change of mind, which deceives us into believing that we also have a change of heart.  Much of our praying is ineffectual because it comes out of a heart that has not responded to the work of the cross.

How often our mouths pray selfless words even though our hearts are filled with selfish desires.  It is easy to pray for God’s glory to be revealed, when actually our hearts yearn to have our glory demonstrated.

Our human nature stands in great contract to the divine nature.  We are limited, while God is totally unlimited.  We are usually selfish, but God is unselfish.  We pray out of a nature that wants to get, but God wants to give.  We want power and authority with God, when God wants friendship and association with us.

Though it can devastate our egos, Scripture, if we accept what it says about us, will greatly enhance our communication with God.  Our entrance into His presence is never based upon our goodness, anyway.  It is based upon His grace.

The Spirit does not leave us in this devastation long, for God’s desire is not to build barriers that prevent us from coming into His presence.  It is to build that help us get to Him.

Although salvation changes the way we feel about ourselves, only the Scripture can reveal how God feels about us.  How the Spirit likes to point out to us that we are children of God, heirs of God, the family of God, and even the bride of Christ.  When we pray from this position, we talk to God as a member of the family.

When we slip into self-condemnation during prayer, we need to pause in our petitions long enough to pray:

For you did not receive the spirit of bondage again to fear, but you received the Spirit of adoption by whom we cry out, “Abba, Father.”  The Spirit Himself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God, and if children, then heir—heirs of God and joint heirs with Christ.           Romans 8:15-17

Unless we pray with authority, we petition as beggars rather than communicate as sons.  Satan will do everything in his power to keep praying Christians from discovering their authority in prayer, but the Holy Spirit will also do everything necessary to help us discover that authority.

When we pray the Scriptures, we discover the authority of petition that God has given to us.   Again and again we are told, “If you ask anything in My name, I will do it” (John 14:14).  We do not merely pray out of desire; we pray by directive.  The prayer of a saint transcends asking; it is the expression of authority.

As we pray the Scriptures we embrace the authority of declaration, for we discover that we can have whatever we ask.  Jesus said, “For assuredly, I say to you, whoever says to this mountain, ‘Be removed and cast into the sea,’ and does not doubt in his heart, but believes that those things he says will come to pass, he will have whatever he says” (Mark 11:23).  There are times when the Spirit so infiltrates our hearts with faith that we pray with authority of proclamation rather than mere petition.

Pray the Scriptures also moves us into the authority of restoration.  Just before His ascension, Jesus told His disciples, “If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven them; if you retain the sins of any, they are retained” (John 20:23).  While this passage has been subject of many theological debates, it does seem to place an authority of restoration on the person who is praying according to the will of God.  It does not, of course, make a savior out of any person, but it does give us the governmental right, under God, to lift a person out of failure back into the favor of God.

We have authority with God, and we also have authority over demons and powers of hell.  How we need to be reminded of these authorities when we are in prayer.  Praying the Scriptures will keep our proper authority before us constantly.