WHAT IS PRAYER?
Subtitle: Knowing God
Publisher: Kineto
Published: 2000
Place of publication: Cape Town South Africa
Description: Prayer is the design of God and not man. True Prayer is God and man and Him wanting His Way for man. This is not forced on man but lovingly given from a Father to His children because it is the best. Prayer reveals this Way! Prayer Reveals the Father and the best He has along this Way for His children. Many ways are known to man but few of God's are known to man. The race to get man to abide and ride along a path that leads to destruction grows speedily each day. When man responds to the call to Pray, he comes to Him who calls and only by faith! God responds because he has. God's response far exceeds the expectation of man as more is revealed each time one prays. And so in going to God Prayer is known for what it is.
Table of contents: title: WHAT IS PRAYER?; title: MERVYN NAIDOO; title: ©; title: Teaching and Encouraging The Church To Pray.; title: PERMISSION GRANTED FOR PERSONAL AND NON PROFIT USE COMMERCIAL USE OF ANY FORM PROHIBITED.; title: ALL SCRIPTURE QUOTATIONS FROM THE NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION UNLESS OTHERWISE STATED; title: CONTENTS; title: 	INTRODUCTION; title: 	WHAT IS PRAYER; title: 	THE CHANGE OF HEART; title: 	YOU SHALL DELIGHT IN THE LORD; title: 	WHEN BELIEVERS PRAY; title: 	Introduction; title: No amount of writing or talking about prayer can ever complete the life of prayer. Books and much about prayer may be seen and heard but they are merely there to assist us in one of the most powerful duties of the Christ life. Yet even though there is a hidden life in prayer it is a life that is bursting to be revealed. The more consistent we are in approaching the throne of God, the deeper we are moved to understanding God. Prayer reveals the heart of God. The apostle Paul understood this fully well. In his letter to the church in Ephesus he wrote the following ‘.....and I pray that you being rooted and established in love, may have the power, together with all; title: the saints, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, and to know this love that surpasses knowledge – that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God.’ Ephesians 3.17-19 Paul knew that the key to this understanding was prayer. The revelation of God’s heart must be measured by the consistency of the believer before God. Here in lies much to be known for there are many who are able get a grasp of God but never by the measure God desires. There is a measure that may differ for all men in taking hold of God. Our walk with God thus far will determine this. For the one it may be a simple prayer and he may find himself ‘caught’ up yet for others it may be a struggle like the one at Jabrok. Jacob experienced; title: this at Jabrok and his hunger for God found him receiving what God really had for him. God desires that all men take hold of Him.; title: This ‘taking hold’ of God reveals the desire that each individual has for God. It is our hunger for that which God ordained in the first place. Our little with God has been a testimony we use that we have gotten hold of God as Jacob did at Jabrok. Yet for many of us we are far from this ‘taking hold’ of God.; title: 	WHAT IS PRAYER?; title: Prayer is simply the union of the believer’s thoughts with Gods’. Prayer is Gods’ way of telling the church what He wishes to be done on earth. The duty of the believer is to pray out this accomplishment here on earth. God knows all things. He is omnipotent, meaning God is all powerful, invincible, supreme and unstoppable. Prayer therefore expresses our faith, our trust and expectations in Him. Our prayers must show forth to God that we desire what He already has purposed for us. The meaning of the word amen is not ‘let it be’ because we have now prayed, but that ‘it is so’ because God has already said so according to His word. The strength of our praying will determine how much of what God desires is really; title: being accomplished here on earth. It is Gods’ will that man comes to know His will. For it is through man that Gods’ will shall be done here on earth. The duty of the believer is to pray out this accomplishment here on earth. You see Prayer is the means by which man comes to know this will of God. Knowing Heaven is about knowing the heart of God. Prayer opens that door for man to see. When man shall pray he shall become more familiar with the ways of God. And so it is that we become more informed of how we shall manage the affairs of God here on earth. It is that which we have come to see with our spiritual eyes.; title: When a man comes to know Heaven he comes to know the way the affairs of God shall be here on earth. The more familiar he is with Gods’ ways the more consistent he may become here on earth doing Gods’ will. He begins to apply the ways of; title: God here on earth. And so God’s will is established here on earth.  ‘Your kingdom come, your will be done on earth as it is in heaven.’ Matthew 6.10. Simply put Prayer helps man to reign here on earth. Prayer is all encompassing.; title: Now here in lies the problem. If we are found not praying there will be very little of Heaven here on earth. The more the body faints in praying the more earth will be bound to collapse through the pressure of the evil one. God has designed prayer to release from Heaven. Many things that God has prepared have heaped up in heaven based on this simple truth of people not praying. God is willing to release when we pray His will, yet many things are stalled when we do not pray. God is not selfish to release what He has for earth. Remember that whatever God has for earth is already planned and ready to be released from heaven. ‘Your will be done on earth as it is in heaven’ (already done). Prayer is the means that ‘transfers’ that which is spiritual to the physical which is earth. God has given us the Holy Spirit to help us do so. Read 1 Corinthians 2; title: We ask and receive simply because it was the will of God in the first place. God is never obligated to man’s asking, if any thing God is ‘obligated’ to His Will. Our relationship with God affects this Will. Knowing more of heaven helps man to know more of God’s Will. The more time we spends with someone the more familiar that person becomes to us. The more familiar is that one. The same with what ever it may be. It becomes more usual, more regular and more established. It is not something foreign but relevant and applicable to where and how we are. We begin to see the importance of it. So it is with God.; title: Prayer allows for man to become established with God. When a man is established with God he is one of good reputation, one that can be trusted and one that is reliable to Him. The more we pray the less strange or unfamiliar are the ways of God to us. The knowledge of God, compared to mans’ earthly understanding of this knowledge is huge. An established man in God’s eyes is one God has grounded, one God trusts, and one God is familiar with. He is one who is firm in the ways of God. We must be established in the things of God rather than the order of these world things. Find a man who is established of God and you shall find a man who is prayer filled. When a man is established in the Lord he is one that shall know the heart of God. He shall know the heart of God for a city, a nation, leaders, kings, governments and kingdoms. A man who knows the will of God knows about the estate of God and how that estate is managed. This is all part of God’s will and prayer is the means that God uses to reveal this. Simply put, Prayer reveals God. Prayer reveals HOW God would have something done. Faithfully going to; title: God reveals WHEN God would have that done and it may also help us to go to God to enquire WHY this must be done.; title: After Isaac prayed to the Lord, his wife Rebekah fell pregnant. God answered by giving her twins. The bible tells us that the babies jostled within her, and she then went to ‘inquire’ of the Lord. Although Prayer may also answer for us WHY God would have something done it is not and should not be the main reason for the believer to heed the call to pray. Many things we shall not know until it is time for God to reveal it to us. Our urgency though in pursuing God ‘to know’ must never reach a state of death. The true believer though has come to know that through prayer he is given the answer of provision for the vision. In other words the calling and purpose for many a life is seldom in doubt but it is the provision for that journey that may create doubt in us. Prayer helps remove our fears of how the provision may arrive. Yet knowing WHO God is helps us to see that our provision will be met as long as we can believe and trust in Him. Our knowledge of God that he is Jehovah Jireh helps our faith to accomplish with Him the vision that is set before us. Jehovah Jireh means God has already provided and compliments Matthew 6.10 ‘…Your will be done on earth as IT IS DONE in heaven’; title: Note the key is to first know who God is. Prayer helps the believer understand who God is. For God reveals himself through the life of prayer.; title: The revelation of God is the revelation of His nature and His character. The more we are introduced to God the more closely we become associated with Him. It is this association with God that causes us children to become more familiar with His ways. The more time we spend with Him on a personal level, the more we come to know who He is. In us coming to know who God is, we come to know who we are. Prayer reveals God in us and us in God. It reveals our depth with God and that which we must still thread. Prayer takes nothing for granted. A man who truly prays will be sincere and not be found assuming the works of the kingdom. In other words he is not presumptuous with the work of God. His closeness with God through a life hidden in prayer shall reveal all about the matter. 1Corinthians 2.10; title: The great prophets of old were never moved by that which was false. When a man is certain of what he has heard or seen for himself there shall be nothing that will convince him otherwise. It becomes personal. The time spent with God by these prophets of old placed them in good stead with God.; title: Abraham knew his God, in so doing he had much faith. It was his faith that allowed him to speak to his servant thus ‘Stay here with the donkey while I and the boy go over there. We will worship and then we will come back to you.’ Genesis 22.5; title: Have you asked yourself who is ‘we’ that Abraham speaks of in this verse. Have you come to your conclusion, for when you have, you will realize the great amount of faith that this man had in God. Abraham through is personal contact with God, when tested knew that he would return with his son.; title: Prayer involves asking God for things personal but is not the highest level of prayer. The desire to request from God provision for daily life was never the principle reason He designed prayer to be. Our going to God for our daily physical needs must never be the place where prayer begins nor ends. It does have a place in the life of prayer but should never be the only reason we are found going to God. Prayer is meant so that the believer may listen to God. If you are called to pray, you are simply called to listen. When we go to God we must be willing to die to self. ‘….Yet not as I will, but as you will.’ Matthew 26.39. Prayer when manifested more on self shall see very little of God’s power here on earth.; title: Prayer gives to us the opportunity to bring glory to God. Prayer puts perfectly in place what God desires.; title: ‘I in them, and You in me; that they be brought to complete unity to let the world know that You sent me and have loved them even as You have loved me’ John 17.23; title: The more time one spends with God, the more hunger shall there be for God. The more time we spend with Him personally, the greater shall be the yearning for what He has promised through His Word.; title: The desire for God is increased and grown in the closet. It is here where the believer is one on one with God. Little can be hidden for there is no one to hide anything from. This is the starting point for us all to be really effective within the body of Christ. The less time we spend with God on a personal level the less we will have to give to the corporate life of the church. There is much that is offered in the body of Christ at present yet so much of it is not God ordained.; title: Our lack in spending time with God has allowed for much to enter the church. That which has entered the church has spread like a wild fire destroying the sanctity and holiness of how the church should be. Here in lies the problem – Our lack of yearning for what God desires. We are willing to receive and implement that which is Godly but only by the measure we have first determined. Even the pace at which holiness returns to the body is determined by us and not God and so death to self is long in the waiting. We desire a move of God but we refuse to move out of the way for Him to bring about this move. We must not neither can we dictate to God about His plan, His purpose and His desires that have already been established and put in place before the beginning of time. Also our contribution to the body must never be set by the standards set by man. No matter how attractive and fruitful it may seem, it is the believers’ duty to measure it against God’s word. The measure that we use must be that which God has set and not man. In a world that is so enticing we may become so caught up in a way that God has not set in the first place.; title: The prayer life is the revelation of a Fathers’ Heart to be with His children and to give them life to the full. John 10.10 confirms this. ‘The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy; I have come that they may have life; and have it the full.’; title: To pray and to know how to pray is the key to knowing the nature of God.; title: Much shall be revealed through the life of prayer that most duties of the church life shall never reveal. Prayer reveals the ordained days for our lives as is written in His book before one of them came to be. Prayer reveals to us how precious are His thoughts for us. ‘How precious to me are your thoughts concerning me, O God! How vast is the sum of them! Were I to count them they would out number the grains of sand…..’ Psalm 139.17 - 18; title: God’s purpose for our lives is a sole mandate that fits exclusively within the body of Christ. That mandate is solitary, exclusive and private first to you the individual. We find through prayer, God’s predestination for us as believers. The call to pray challenges the believer of the certainty of God and His ways regarding us. It proves to the believer that it was meant to be. Prayer calls for God’s purpose being revealed and lived here on earth. Prayer is about God. When we are able to understand this simple truth then shall we see the purpose of God for man. In going to God we realize that man has a role to play. Through Prayer we understand that we are to become the ‘heaven’ here on earth for God.; title: Our death to self is the greatest example to the world that we are the models of heaven here on earth. For the world to have some idea of what the Heavenly Kingdom is like, all it has to do is look at the believer. If we understand that God has already purposed it so, then we as believers will understand the enormity of the task ahead of us.; title: We are the hands and feet of God whilst on earth. These hands and feet are helpless and disabled without the Head which is Christ. Through Christ, Prayer helps us understand this. Prayer is what God has established for this revelation. There has since never been a substitute for prayer. The aspects and characteristics of prayer are the most intimate and fundamental of who God is. That which we know we bring to Him in our prayers. Yet more is revealed as we wait on God. There is much that is revealed about us in going to Him. We discover for most part that we belong to Him. We also discover that He has not forsaken us and that there is much that we may have that does not come from Him nor belongs in His kingdom. These are for most part the burdens we carry. That which does not belong to Him is removed from us through a life of prayer.; title: Prayer is Gods’ design for man that brings fellowship and His Will to be established here on earth.; title: 	The Change of Heart; title: Prayer must first change the heart of man. The heart of each man must first be willing to be changed. When the heart of man is transformed he is able to discern the heart of God. That change though must be initiated by man for God to work. In other words it must be the decision of man to go to God for change to begin. Man must with all his ability show to God that he desires this transformation. This is the stepping stone to all that God has for Him. David knew this well and begged God to create in him a clean heart. ‘Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a steadfast spirit within me.’ Psalm 51.10 Prayer is not meant to enlighten God. God knows all things. God is omniscient. Prayer, true praying is not asking of God to do what we want, although we may think so. Prayer was never meant to change the heart of God but to change ours.; title: Prayer is not putting God on the spot. It was never meant to put God on trial. He never is and never will be. The purpose of prayer is never to test God either. Even by the answers we receive we must be careful not to draw our own assumptions. The conclusion if any must still remain with God. Our provisions from God must be a testimony of Gods’ faithfulness yet we must be extra careful that we testify in truth. Also our provisions from God must never be used as a yard stick to determine who we are. The supplies from God is not something held back from the unrighteous, just look around you for proof. We would be threading on dangerous ground if we used this as our gauge. The answers to our prayers for provision must never be used as a measure of who God is nor who he is not. If this is our understanding it is shallow and superficial. For the answer given to one may not be the same for another. What God may allow for the one He may not for the other! This does not mean that God is inconsistent or contradicts what He has said. He remains the same though all His dealings with us. Each individual is unique and special in the eyes of God and He shall deal with each one has it pleases Him. The relationship you have with God is a unique one that demands a great deal of intimacy with Him.; title: God will not fill the heart of man with that which is Heavenly if he (man) has not first had a change of heart. Prayer helps towards this change of heart. It is through prayer that God removes our selfish ‘wants’ and places His desires into our hearts. There must be a change of heart in the believer for Gods’ Will to be done here on earth. For God to have His way with our hearts there must first be change or a starting with the decision to change. To ask of God, to seek of Him, to knock on the door of Heaven is only worth your while if you are willing to have this change of heart.; title: Now we know that the human heart can be the most deceitful thing. Jer.17.9. ‘The heart is deceitful above all things and beyond cure. Who can understand it?’ Yet in verse 10 of that same chapter we see that the Lord is still willing and able to change the heart. ‘I the Lord search the heart and examine the mind to reward a man according to His conduct……’ But this dependability on God reveals your heart and gives God the opportunity to change it.; title: Prayer is the key to developing this intimate relationship with God. Prayer is meant to be the means used to change our hearts. All that God desires for us is His best and He will not have that we settle for anything to the contrary.; title: That’s what prayer does. Prayer takes away the often selfish desires of our hearts and replaces it with His. More so prayer helps remove our wrong desires. There are many times when we assume that we are asking God for the best yet in actual fact we are not. The Psalmist understood this well. Let’s’ read Psalm 27.4 ‘one thing have I desired of the Lord, that will I seek: That I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life, to behold the beauty of the Lord and to enquire in His temple.’; title: Now I like that word enquire for it is to seek after and find out. It brings forth an understanding that we once never had. Prayer is the key to developing this intimate relationship with God. Our enquiring reveals the heart of God for us.; title: 	You shall delight in the Lord; title: I am often asked ‘why should we pray?’, after all God knows all things. Him being the all omnipotent God surely He knows my needs.; title: To speak thus actually reveals our misunderstanding of who God really is and that of His true nature and character. God does know all things. He knows your needs and your desires. But do you know His desires and His heart. To put God first is to know the very heart of God. The desires that you now have are never has important as the desires and plans that God has. To pray is come to God and surrender your plans and your desires for His.; title: Going to God has never been about the blessing of ones own desires unless those desires have been put there by the Lord in the first place. The key is to receive from Him that which He so desires. Has this not so stalled the consistency of many a prayer life. The desire to please God springs from the salvation of the spirit. Our souls are often in opposition to the work of the Holy Spirit.; title: Psalm 37.4-5 ‘Delight yourself in the Lord and He will give you the desires of your heart.’ Vs 5 says ‘Commit your way to the Lord; trust also in Him; and He shall bring it to pass.’; title: That word heart has to do with you as the inner person, your inner thoughts and deepest feelings. It is also about your inner yearnings.; title: Prayer is responsible for causing this softness. Prayer my friend, is responsible for the formation of this pliability in Gods’ hands. When we go to God in prayer we allow for our hearts to be flexible as opposed to being rigid. Our praying allows for God to remove what we want and replace them with what He desires. To speak of this desire of God and compare it to just anything is foolish unless you have truly gone to God and experienced it for yourself.; title: That word ‘it’ in verse 5 of Psalm 37 is the desires that He has now placed in our hearts that we then pray back to Him. To ‘Commit’ according to this scripture is to surrender or to turn over the responsibility of deciding on to Him. The original Hebrew meaning of the word delight is to be ‘soft and pliable’ in the hands of God. It is then that God brings to pass those new God given desires that we allowed Him to place in our hearts. Any wonder why we are never the same after going to God. I hope that you will understand this very important principle of Prayer.; title: ‘For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, declares the Lord; title: As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways, and my thoughts than your thoughts.’ Isaiah 55.8-9; title: To know the desires of God for you is important. We know the desires of a Godly heart when we go to God.; title: Remember that you are unique in the eyes of the Lord. Gods’ purpose for you is therefore special, of which He holds the key. For Heaven to release, we must first desire as God desires. This desire is the work of the Lord. It is placed there by God.; title: When this yearning has been placed there in the heart of man it is then the duty of man to bring it back to God. It is still the duty of the believer to show that he is in agreement with God for that which He has placed in him. We express this in our praying and worship before Go; title: 	Prayer and the burden of the Lord; title: Prayer allows for man to hear God’s voice. Prayer is God enabling the believer to hear from Him. Prayer is meant for one to listen to God and that should be an honor. If you are called to pray, you are called to listen. When we go to God we go to die, to die to self. Self has no place in the Kingdom of God.  Many of our prayers are never answered because of the great measure of self in them. We are commanded by God to love Him with all our heart. Deuteronomy 6.5-6 ‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength. These commandments that I give you today are to be upon your hearts.’; title: God desires the glory and for man to listen and then to be found dong, brings glory to God. This is the purpose of man. If all glory belongs to God, then there must a great deal of listening and seeking after God. Prayer does so, for it gives man the opportunity to glorify the Lord. Prayer helps set perfectly in place what God desires for us.; title: ‘I in them and you in me. May they be brought to complete unity to let the world know that you sent me and have loved them even as you have loved Me.’ John 17.23 The life of Jesus was a life of prayer. Even now He intercedes before the Father on our behalf.; title: The burden of the Lord is His church and through prayer that burden is released. The more prayer the more release. The burden of heaven is one of a Father for His children. We must be able to empathize with God for His church.; title: It must be the same as Jesus had on earth to please His Heavenly Father. If we are called to follow Christ then our desire to please the Father must be the same. We must at all times be found attaining to this. It is now about a bridegroom bringing into the presence of the Father His best. The opportunity to grow and be what the Father desires and to dwell in His house forever is still open to many of us. Prayer is the means that allows man this privilege into the heart of the Father. If prayer is a privilege, then it is an opportunity given to man for breakthrough in the midst of all that has surrounded him as a believer. The choice to come before God and hear His heartbeat is given to the believer. No man outside the body of Christ can lay claim to this honor.; title: The greatest understanding that the believer must have is that which pertains to life, life that God has called to him live here on earth. Prayer opens the door for the breakthrough of this knowledge. The Will of God is knowledge for man. ‘My people are destroyed from lack of knowledge.’ Hosea 4.6 The world and its desires is not the knowledge that God desires for His people. King David said ‘….. I do not concern myself with great matters or things to wonderful for me. But I have stilled and quieted my soul; like a weaned child with its mother like a weaned child is my soul within me.’ Psalm 131.1-2 What David was in fact saying was that ‘the knowledge of the Lord is sufficient for me pertaining to all of life’ If prayer is the means by which God reveals His plans to us then the lack of prayer will see a great lack of Godly planning. This desire to know God and His plans for us must not allow anything to get in the way. It shall come through much humility because that is what prayer demands. The life of praying humbles us.; title: Our affairs within a community, a city or a country or whatever the matter may be, must be put aside to first seek God. The work of the church in community must never be the excuse that we do not have to pray. For a great part in our walk with God we have unknowingly substituted ‘works’ to be the excuse for us not really giving ourselves to Prayer. Be careful there are many in the body busy with ‘works’ and really have no time for God. The emptiness that they feel is reason enough they feel this way. The more they do the more they feel they are going nowhere. The leader who does not pray can not be effective for God. It saddens me how open and candid we are about not spending time with God. It is spoken of with so little regret. If there is any regret then there must be a great deal of conviction to make right. I pray Gods’ help us in this great task ahead.  Every word that we speak, every place we go must be God inspired. This calls for a close walk with God especially if you are a leader.; title: 	When believers Pray; title: It is the will of God that believers be partakers with Him in salvation for mankind. God has limited Himself to the holy, believing, persevering prayers of His people. There are many things that will not be accomplished in God's kingdom without the intercessory prayers of believers. God desires to send forth workers into the gospel harvest; Christ teaches us that this will only be accomplished through the prayers of His people: ‘Pray ye therefore the Lord of the harvest, that he will send forth laborers into his harvest’ KJV (Matthew 9:38). In other words, God's power to accomplish many of His purposes is released only through the earnest and effective prayers of His people.; title: This enables for the progress of God’s Kingdom here on earth. When we fail to pray, we hinder the accomplishment of God's redemptive purpose, both for ourselves as individuals and for the Church as a body. The corporate Church that Christ intended suffers the most.; title: When the body faints in praying the more earth is bound to cave in and give in to the world and its desires. Many things have heaped up in heaven based on this simple truth of people not praying. Heaven is not selfish to release what it has for earth. Remember that what God has for earth is already determined, planned and ready to be released from heaven. ‘Your will be done on earth as it is (already) done in heaven’ Matthew 6.10; title: Prayer is the key to attaining the resources that are available to us in Christ, yet more importantly prayer, true prayer reveals to God by the virtue of choice given to us, that we are dependable on Him.; title: I remind you once again that Prayer is the means that transfers that which is spiritual to the physical and God has given the Holy Spirit to help us do so. If we are found lacking or sluggish in our praying we will see and experience far less of what God has determined for earth. Will you be willing to come away from the madding crowd, away from the glitz and glamour that has so caught the church and find your purpose through prayer? In so doing you shall find your purpose amongst the children of God? It is the duty of the believer to prepare oneself to pray. No matter how cast down or confused we may be, we must still hope in God. The prayer of a Godly heart reaches the God of Heaven. ‘…….here is the conclusion of the matter: Fear God and keep his commandment, for this is the whole (duty) of man.’ Ecclesiastes 12.13; title: Watch and Pray without ceasing