PRAYER: SEEKING AFTER GOD
Publisher: Kineto
Published: 2016
Place of publication: Cape Town South Africa
Copyright date: 2016
Table of contents: title: Mervyn Naidoo; title: PERMISSION GRANTED FOR PERSONAL AND NON PROFITABLE USE.; title: ALL SCRIPTURE QUOTATIONS FROM NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION UNLESS OTHERWISE STATED OR THE. WRITER FOUND TO BE BEST UNDERSTOOD TO THE BENEFIT OF READER.; title: CONTENTS; title: SEEKING AFTER GOD; title: THE WORK OF THE HOLY SPIRIT; title: KNOWING THE NATURE OF GOD; title: THY WILL BE DONE; title: JESUS AND PRAYER; title: PRAYER IS REVELATION; title: AMEN – ‘IT IS SO’; title: SEEKING AFTER GOD; title: Prayer is Gods’ design for man. Best understood it is the seeking of God the Father through His Son Jesus by the help and leading of the Holy Spirit. No amount of knowledge and understanding of Prayer can complete the life of Prayer. Books and much writings of this important aspect of the Christ Life are there to assist us. It is a powerful duty essential in the life of every follower of the Lord.; title: Hidden as it may be, yet bursting to be revealed. The more consistent we are in approaching the throne of God, the deeper we are moved to understanding the Lord. The Prophet experienced total reliance when in depth. The water from ankle to total submergence gives a clear understanding of how we grow in the Lord. At first we move until we can only move and breathe in Him. The prophet Ezekiel describes it so ‘…and then led me through water that was ankle - deep. He measured off another thousand cubits and led me through water that was knee- deep. He measured off another thousand and led me through water that was up to the waist. He measured off another thousand, but now it was a river I could not cross, because the water had risen and was deep enough to swim in-a river that no one could cross. He asked me ‘Son of man, do you see this?’ Ezekiel 47.3-6 This relates to the work of the Holy Spirit in New Testament believers.; title: Prayer is depth with God. Prayer is depth in God. Prayer reveals the heart of God. The apostle Paul understood this 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 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 in prayer. The revelation of God’s heart must be measured by the consistency of the believer before God. This means that he who knows God much is apt to be one who spends much time in His presence. The deeper things of God come by way of consistently being with Him. For the believer this means being in Christ and ongoing fellowship. This is a very difficult task for the believer as life here on earth does not place this with life’s important duties, only God does. ‘Do not work for food that spoils, but for food that endures to eternal life, which the Son of Man will give you. On Him God the Father has placed His seal of approval.’ John 6.27; title: The earthly time table is work, work and more work. This is the road to success for the world and to a better life. The rest that the world offers is to those who have diligently followed its earthly time table. And by the time we are done with everyday life, there is little or no time of quality with God. Our struggles through life have found us wanting.                              Even though we are found doing the things we do not want to do and not doing what we ought to do, there lies deep down in every believer a desire placed there by God to communicate with Him.; title: Here are two scriptures to confirm what I am saying. ‘I do not understand what I do. For what I want to do I do not do, but what I hate, I do’ Romans 7.15; title: Yet in Luke 11.1 we find a desire in the disciples to do what the Lord was constantly doing.; title: ‘It happened that while Jesus was praying in a certain place, after he had finished, one of His disciples said to Him, “Lord, teach us how to pray, just as John also taught his disciples.’’’; title: The Bible teaches us that the wicked have no desire to pray. ‘In his pride the wicked does not seek him; in all his thoughts there is no room for God.’ Psalm 10.4; title: God desires first place at all times. Prayer and our communication with Almighty God is notion that He be first. As His, we ought to think and behave as so. He loves us and loved us first. And so we must love Him and love ourselves. Thinking and behaving so helps us in our approach before His throne. This is prayer, knowing who we are and helping us take hold of God in Prayer. This ‘taking hold’ of God reveals the extent of one’s desire for Him. Prayer opens up the door for God to reveal much of what He has for us. That which the Apostle Paul speaks of in the book of Ephesians is revelation knowledge and understanding that grows deeper as we spend more and more time with God. We grow with the understanding and wisdom of our Heavenly Father. Prayer reveals Him, the Almighty God. As God reveals to us in prayer, we grow to understand that there is nothing better than what He may have for us. This is His preplanned and pleasure for us. It becomes known that it is not something new to God but instead new to us as we are only now coming to know.; title: The enemy’s plan since the Garden of Eden has been to hide what God has for man. Today the enemy uses the world to hide what God has for us. Our spiritual distance from God deprives us from knowing the plans He has for us.; title: Prayer is simply Gods’ way of telling the Church what He wishes here on earth. The duty of the believer is to then pray out this accomplishment here on earth. Prayer enables us and shows forth what must be done to accomplish that perfect Will that God has for us. Prayer then brings forth the purpose of man because it unites the believers’ thoughts with God’s.; title: THE WORK OF THE HOLY SPIRIT; title: The Holy Spirit, who is God here on earth, unites the thoughts of man to God the Father through God the Son. We teach more on the work of the Holy Spirit in the book ‘PRAYER AND THE HOLY SPIRIT’ by Mervyn Naidoo; title: The union of the believers’ thoughts with Gods’ is not just any random, wishful, desire that man may just conjure up in his mind. Prayer is Gods’ thoughts accepted by man through His Spirit and then given back to God by His Spirit. And so God will not answer a prayer because man simply has faith and can ask whatever he wants.; title: ‘You ask and do not receive, because you ask amiss, that you spend it on your pleasures.’ James 4.3.; title: When reference is made to asking whatever we may to the Lord, we must be found asking in the Spirit for it is already accomplished in the Spirit of God.; title: ‘The man without the Spirit (the Holy Spirit) does not accept the things that come from the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him and he cannot understand them, because they are spiritually discerned.’ 1Corinthians 2.14 When a believer asks in the Spirit then yes, he is asking by being led in the Spirit to ask what the Spirit of God already knows. The Spirit now asks God on our behalf what is already in the mind of God to give to his children. God is Spirit and has revealed it to us. ` ……but God has revealed it to us by His Spirit. ’1 Corinthians 2.10; title: Here in lies an important aspect of praying in tongues. Praying in tongues is the Spirit now praying on our behalf. How simple can that be? Why do we make this so complicated. All believers are able to speak in tongues. My book on tongues elaborates further on this important aspect of the prayer life of every believer. ’I DESIRE YOU ALL SPEAK IN TONGUES’ Mervyn Naidoo The book helps the believer understand the importance of tongues and why God has designed it so. If tongues are given to one believer and not the other then there is a lacking in the Body of Christ.; title: Prayer has all to do with the Spirit of God and His divine Will. Therefore it is apt to say that prayer has a lot to do with ‘CHANGE.’  You may ask, what has change to do with prayer. After all is prayer not asking, seeking and knocking? True as that may be yet none of this can be truth unless God can first have His way with our hearts. For God to have His way with our hearts there must be change. To ask of God, to seek of Him, and to knock on the door of Heaven is only worth your while if you are willing to have a change of heart. Going to God has never been about the blessing of one’s own desires unless those desires have come from 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 problem is that man is so absorbed in the things of the world that Heaven has to wait. 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. For 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.; title: 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.’; title: vs 5 says ‘Commit your way to the Lord; trust also in Him; and He shall bring it to pass.’ NIV; title: The original Hebrew meaning of the word delight is to be ‘soft and pliable ‘in the hands of God.’; title: The Holy Spirit through Prayer is responsible for causing this softness. Prayer is responsible for the creation of this pliability before God. It is a removing of what we want and replacing it with what God desires. That word ‘it’ in verse 5 is the desires that He now places in our hearts that we can pray back to Him.; title: To ‘Commit’ according to this scripture is to surrender or to give over to Him all our deciding. Difficult as it may seem, yet it is so nevertheless.; title: It is here, this place in our journey with the Lord that He is able to place in our hearts the desires we allow Him to. I hope that you will understand this very important principle of Prayer.; title: Any wonder why we are never the same after going to God.; title: ‘For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, declares the Lord. 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: This then my friend is a Life Hidden in Prayer. Welcome it, embrace it and be a part of what God is doing.; title: KNOWING THE NATURE OF GOD; title: Remember that God is the El Shaddai, this means He is the Almighty One. He is God who knows all things for He is the Omniscient All-Knowing God. God is omnipresent – the ever-flowing Presence. The visible and the invisible Creator of all is He. With this in mind prayer ought to have God’s desire at all times. He is an all loving God and proven in that great display of sending His only begotten Son to earth for our sakes, it is Him who knows the best for us; title: ` ……but God has revealed it to us by His Spirit. ’1 Corinthians 2.10; title: Prayer must therefore express our faith, our trust and expectations in God knowing what He has already done for us through His Son. Our prayers must reveal to God that we desire what He already has purposed for us. God has already established the call to pray for this revelation. Many other duties of the church life will not reveal this. There has since never been a substitute for prayer. And the aspects and characteristics of prayer are the most intimate and fundamental of who God is.; title: Prayer reveals who God is and by knowing who He is we are then able to know the nature of God. Prayer reveals to us the provisions that have already been set aside for us. Note that the key is to first know who God is. The revelation of who He is reveals to us His nature and character. The more we are introduced to God the more closely we become associated with Him. It is this association with Him that causes us His children to become more familiar with His ways. The more time with Him, the more we come to know more of Him as God our Father. In us coming to know who God is we come to know ourselves. Is it not wonderful that there is a way, already determined by God for us to become more familiar with Him and His kingdom? May you today be rooted in and established, to be filled with this power that is available to know more of His love. Prayer is the key to this fulfillment.; title: THY WILL BE DONE; title: The strength of our praying will determine how much of what God desires is really being accomplished here on earth. It is the very will of God that man comes to know His Will. For it is through man that He’s Will is accomplished here on earth. And the duty of the believer is to pray out this accomplishment here on earth. Prayer then is the means designed by God as to how we come to know His perfect Will. Knowing Heaven is about knowing the heart of God. Prayer opens that door for man to see. When we are able to see through prayer, we become more familiar with the ways of God. And so we become more informed about managing the affairs of a Holy God here on earth. Jesus refused to do anything except that which was in the Will of His Father. The Lord walked this earth as a man amongst men and in doing so knew that prayer was the key to Him knowing His Fathers’ Will on earth.; title: The Kingdom of God is a spiritual one. The world though governed by spirit is nevertheless done so by the evil one. When Jesus was tempted He overcame through the principles of a Heavenly Kingdom. He borrowed nothing from the earth for all He needed was available to Him from the Kingdom of God.; title: The Kingdom of God is received in one way only and that is through Jesus. This is the only one way to receive this spiritual kingdom. God is spirit and He is the owner and King of this Kingdom. He has made it possible for us to have access to this kingdom only through salvation.; title: Jesus said the following ‘….I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through Me.’ John 14.6; title: We now have access to His Father’s Heavenly Kingdom for His Holy Spirit guides us into all truth. He speaks with Heavenly authority and only that which He hears from the Kingdom of Heaven.; title: Jesus went onto say, ‘However, when He, the Spirit of truth has come, He will guide you into all truth; for He will speak not speak on His own authority but whatever He hears He will speak; and He will tell you things to come.’ John 16.13; title: JESUS AND PRAYER; title: The Will of the Father was the most important thing to Jesus. Though He spent time with the crowds He never gave them priority over His Father. Jesus spent much intimate time with the Father. It is here the Lord knew that He would find what the Father desired.; title: ‘One of those days Jesus went out to a mountainside to pray, and spent the night praying to God.’ Luke 6.12.; title: ‘Very early in the morning, while it was still dark, Jesus got up, left the house and went off to a solitary place , where He prayed’ Mark 1.35.; title: ‘But Jesus would often withdraw to lonely places and pray’ Luke 5.16; title: ‘Once when Jesus was praying in private and his disciples were with him, he asked them, “Who do the crowds say I am?”’ Luke 9.18; title: ‘Then Jesus went with His disciples to a place called Gethsemane, and he said to them, “Sit here while I go over there and pray.”’ Matthew 26.36.; title: ‘It happened that while Jesus was praying in a certain place, after he had finished, one of His disciples said to Him, “Lord, teach us how to pray, just as John also taught his disciples.’” Luke 11.1; title: Today the Lord continues with what He did for us here on earth. The Bible teaches us that Jesus continues to intercede for us even now. Jesus is able to continue in office. . ‘After He had dismissed them, He went up on a mountainside by Himself to pray. When evening came He was there alone…..’ Matthew 14.23.; title: ‘Who is he that condemns? Christ Jesus is He who died - more than that, who was raised to life - is at the right hand of God and is also interceding for us.’ Romans 8.34; title: I mentioned the previous two scriptures to again reiterate the importance of Prayer to our Lord Jesus. Prayer must be our lifestyle seeking and finding out more of God.; title: Prayer is forever because prayer is forever revelation. Prayer is what keeps man from temptation. ‘Watch and Pray so that you will not fall into temptation’ Why? Because the spirit of man is willing but the body is weak. Read Matt. 26.41. Prayer is what sustained Christ surrounding His crucifixion. Jesus’ prayer was answered because of His reverent submission to the Will of God.; title: If Jesus being the Son of God prayed with such a Godly fear how much more you and I need to heed the instruction to pray.  All men are called to pray from slave to king. Prayer must be a constant thing. The more men we have praying the stronger is the fragrance that rises towards heaven. Men must never be selfish to leave of praying for others to do. If we ever do we are weaker than before and we become more vulnerable to the evil one. There is for sure a great force when there are people praying everywhere.; title: And so I encourage you this day to respond to the call to be men and women of God, people who pray. For so in, lies the hidden life waiting to burst forth.; title: 1Thessalonians 5.17 ‘Pray without ceasing’; title: AMEN –‘IT IS SO’; title: The word ‘amen’ is not ‘let it be’ just because we have asked according to our own wishes and wants. We very often love quoting the scripture about asking God and He will give it to us.’ Ask and it will be given to you …….’  Matthew 7.7 but wait! ‘You ask and do not receive, because you ask amiss, that you spend it on your pleasures.’ James 4.3.; title: The word ‘amen’ means - ‘it is so.’  God has already said it is so. It is so therefore we stand on His promises. It is so therefore we come by faith. It is so therefore we trust in Him. And it is so because it is already done. In other words we are to pray what God already has in mind for us. What God has in mind for us is already prepared in Heaven. Our prayers are meant to release what is so.  We pray what God has already commissioned. This speaks volumes about the need of a true relationship with Him.; title: PRAYER IS REVELATION; title: The more we pray the less strange are we with the God’s ways. The ways of God and that of man are vast in difference. Prayer much prayer lessens that difference. ‘However, as it is written: “No eye has seen no ear has heard no mind has conceived what God has prepared for those who love Him” but God has revealed it to us by His Spirit. ’’’1 Corinthians 2.9-10.; title: The knowledge of God regarding the earth is huge when compared to what man knows. This is God’s design. Again prayer is the design of the Heavenly Father for us to know the true earth. Man however believes otherwise and concludes many things about earth without God. The result is the pain and suffering many of us experience here today.; title: When a man comes to know the Will of the Father in Heaven, he comes to understand the ways and manners of God’s affairs here on earth. Yet more so He helps man manage those affairs here on earth. Again prayer is the means by which God reveals this. I have had many believers say to me over the years that they wish they could be praying more. Nevertheless I have also heard many who do not really pray much and are adamant they don’t need to. How sad!; title: Prayer is the key to us drawing closer to God. You cannot manage a ministry if you are not a man or woman of prayer. Over the years I have heard ministers gladly proclaim from the pulpit that they do not pray much and are willing to let their partners (wives) to do more of the praying. God has a distinct purpose and plan that is supposed to be revealed to you. If you are not the one praying then I am afraid that plan and purpose shall not be revealed. Leaders are supposed to be the ones praying and interceding for their congregants. God works by revealing the plans He has to the church leaders and prophets alike. They are there to help minister the plans of God to His people. How they go about doing so is important. That importance and understanding comes from time spent with God – Prayer. If we as leaders would spend more time alone in God’s presence we would then love His people more. He would open His heart to us about them.; title: Now here in lies the problem. When we are found sluggish or lacking in our prayers, there is then little of Heaven accomplished out here on earth. Awesome revelation becomes lacking and little revival. Prayer brings forth the supernatural. It brings out that which man did not predict. The more the body faints in praying the more earth will be bound to collapse through the pressure of the evil one. Many things have heaped up in Heaven based on this simple truth of people not praying. Many things have stalled for there is no more flow. Prayer gets the river of God to flow. This is Heaven to earth praying. It is time the church has a greater awakening that enables her to know the ways of God. In knowing we must become pliable in the hands of this our living God. We must be released from the fear of man and know the source of our being is from Him and not man. Whatever God has for earth is ready planned and waiting to be released from Heaven. ‘Your will be done on earth as it is in heaven.’  Matthew 6.10 This means it is already done. Prayer is the means that ‘transfers’ that which is spiritual into the physical which is here on earth. God is Spirit and reveals Himself in Spirit. He has given us His Holy Spirit to help us do so. 1 Corinthians 2……; title: We ask and receive because it is in the will of God in the first place. God is never obligated to man’s asking; if anything God is obligated to His perfect will which is revealed to us by His Spirit. Prayer is God’s means to do so.; title: The New Testament believer is one who is drawn to God by His Spirit. Man first shows the initiative to want to come closer to Him. The Holy Spirit sees this and brings one closer to Him. We find ourselves coming to know the desires of the Lord’s heart. This is what the Lord wants, that we know His heart. That which is the heart of God is not revealed through some note delivered by some prophet or preacher but is simply a confirmation of what He has already spoken. It is here that God has designed prayer as the means for the revelation that is in His heart. A man may enter into this secret place by one simple word but let that not be a mystery to you. The time he spends with God makes this possible.; title: Pray without Ceasing!