Renewing Our Minds About Prayer That Pleases God

Did you know that God treasures  the prayers of the saints so much, that they come up him as a sweet swelling incense?  David,  in Psalm 141: 2, writes “Let my prayer be set before you as incense.”  In Acts 10:4, God spoke to his faithful servant and  told Cornelius that his prayers and gifts to the poor came up as a memorial before him.  In Revelations, we discover that God keeps the prayers of the saints on his altar in heaven…

“And the smoke of the incense, with the prayers of the saints, went up before God out of the angel’s hand.”  Revelation 8:4

“And the twenty-four elders fell down before the Lamb. Each one had a harp and they were holding golden bowls full of incense, which are the prayers of the saints.”  Revelation 5:8

Prayer is not just something we “ought” to do as Christians…it is an offering before God.  It is how we please God and delight in him.  In the bible, there are several mentions of prayers that please God.  These prayers are a fragrant incense before him.  We should know that there are prayers that are malodorous, displeasing and offensive to God!    Psalm 80:4.  We know that God is pleased with prayers for the poor from God’s words to Cornelius.  There are other stories of God being pleased with prayer–such as the story of Solomon in I Kings 3, when Solomon asked God for the wisdom to judge and lead his people, instead of asking for riches and wealth!  And God granted him everything that he hadn’t asked for…because the bible said that what he had asked pleased God.   The secret to prayer that pleases God is so simple….It’s praying God’s will!  Did not the Lord model this in the Lords prayer when he said “Thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.”

We should have the humility to come to God and pray for his will–for he will delight in this prayer.  If we come to him dictating what we should have, or demanding, this may not be a sweet smelling incense.  It may likely be better if this type of prayer is not prayed.  Not saying that you shouldn’t ask for anything…God says ask..and it should be given to you!  Matthew 7:7.  But the caveat is in I John 5:14-15, which says that you must ask anything…according to God’s will!!  Faith is not a blank check to cash in on your desires…but we must have the humility to come before God humbly and ASK ONLY that his will be done.  It may very well be that the desires in your heart are God’s desires.  The surest thing to pray is God’s revealed will…and its what’s in the word of God.  That is fragrant incense!  This is prayer  that God will hear!  The bible says that the effectual prayer avails much! James 5:16.  The effectual prayer is a I John 5:14 prayer…it is a prayer according to God’s will!  Any other prayer is ineffectual, a waste of breathe.  An ineffectual prayer does not yield results…and potentially offensive to God.    Here’s how….

Then the LORD said to Moses—Take fragrant spices—gum resin, onycha and galbanum—and pure frankincense, all in equal amounts, and make a fragrant blend of incense, the work of a perfumer. It is to be salted and pure and sacred.” Exodus 30:34-35.

The Lord gave Moses specific instructions for the incense that Aaron was instructed to burn every morning.   In fact he told him to add nothing more too it!!   In Exodus 30:8-9 God says don’t add anything…none of these extra things because it will be “strange incense”…in other words…it stinks!  But the incense should be salted, pure, and sacred!  Our prayers should be this way before a holy God.  A pure prayer is a heartfelt prayer desires God’s will revealed to his children through his rhema word and written word.  It is a prayer that is is after  the things of God’s own heart.  It not a strange incense of our own plans mixed in with a little bit of God’s will.  Prayer is our ministry to God.  It shouldn’t be about us…but his gospel.  Our food should be to do the will of our father!  John 4:34.  It’s okay to pray for desires, these desires may be things God placed on your heart…but let’s place first things first….but I urge you…FIRST OF ALL….

I urge you, first of all, to pray for all people. Ask God to help them; intercede on their behalf, and give thanks for them. Pray this way for kings and all who are in authority so that we can live peaceful and quiet lives marked by godliness and dignity. This is good and pleases God our Savior, for he wants everyone to be saved and understand the truth.   – 1 Timothy 2:1-3

Praying for salvation for others pleases God.  This is God’s will.  This is what is on his heart.  What is on our hearts?  Is it the same?   This is a delight to him.  Do you know what else is a delight to him?  When we long to spend time with God in prayer in communion and fellowship with him…when it’s not just another task…but we long to be in his presence…that is delighting in him!!  When God is more satisfying than all of these cares..that is delighting in him.  When he is more satisfying than anything!   When nothing else matters…that’s delighting in him.  When we yearn to spend time in prayer with God…it’s like being in love!  You can’t wait to talk to that person!  You can’t wait to please that person!  That person is number one!  But we don’t want to spend time with God, and when we do…we don’t want to please him by praying for what he wants.  We want to pray for what we want.  If married people treated their spouses like this…they would be divorced!  But yet, it is how we treat God.   Because God has yet to be more satisfying than a boyfriend or a girlfriend, friends, jobs, houses…you name it.  So we focus on those things and ignore God.

But David knew something that we don’t realize.  He knew that If you delight thyself in the Lord, God will give you the desires of your heart.  Psalm 37:4.  He knew that God looks at the heart…to see if anyone would really seek him!  He knew that everything was meaningless in comparison to delighting in God and being in his presence.  He said, One thing he desired of the Lord…One thing!  Now that is some help for us with christian ADD!  One thing is to dwell in the house of the Lord, and inquire in his temple!    Yes, David said may his prayers be as incense before God.  Psalm 141:2.

May we want nothing more than what God wants for us.  May the desires of our hearts be the desires of his heart.  May our prayers be effectual…a sweet smelling fragrance to our father…May men turn their hearts to god…about all else…may we yearn to seek him in prayer…may he be the desire of nations. Haggai 2:7

We have neglected the greater work…prayer!

“I tell you the truth, anyone who has faith in me and what I have been doing.  He will do even greater works than these, because I am going to the Father.  And I will do whatever you ask in my name, so that the Son may bring glory to the Father.  You may ask me for anything in my name, and I will do it.”  John 12:12-14

What are the “greater works than these” that Christ says we shall do?   Now we know that Jesus had an amazing ministry on earth, but he promises us an even greater ministry.  And he tells us what it is right in the next line…it’s the “Asking in his name.”  The greater work is prayer!!!  How can we bring in the souls as Christ commissioned us?   It’s in the petition of prayer!! Because God has gone to the father, he has given us the holy spirit to help us pray.  And it is through praying in the holy spirit (Ephesians 6:18), that the power of God is released to bring in the harvest of souls.  Matthew 9:37-38 says this “The harvest is plentiful but the laborers are few.  PRAY ye therefore the Lord of the harvest to send out laborer’s to his harvest.”  See when we pray, God will send out the laborers!  People will feel impressed to go out to different places to preach the gospel.  Our prayers will burden them to do God’s work.  In fact, the greatest first missionaries (Paul and Barnabas)  were sent out from a prayer meeting in Acts 13. We can see from the scripture above from John…when we do the greater work of prayer, God promises to do anything we ask when we ask in his name!!

The enemy knows this!  He knows the power of our prayers!!!  So, being the master of deception…he thinks on how he can keep the harvest of souls for being gathered by the saints.  So he does it by bringing in a false gospel.  As gospel of prosperity.  So that the saints are continually looking for their next breakthrough or promotion…while souls are perishing.  And God warns us of this scheme in  Mark 4:19.  He warns that the seed, which is the word (the gospel) will fall among thorns, but the the worries of this life, the deceitfulness of wealth,  and the desires for other things choke out the word and make it unfruitful.  He does it by roaming to and from the earth, causing suffering among the saints so that they may lose their faith and turn from doing the greater work. I Peter 5:8-9.  The enemy keeps the saints preoccupied with their troubles, success, or personal desires…so no one is planting the seed on ground where it can multiply.  The scariest thing about deception is this…no one knows they are being deceived!  [**discussed in detail in The Frustrated Chritian Series].  So they go on and on…from one blessing to the next, one frustration to another, while the souls are perishing!

BUT…if we pray…It will be like that seed sown in good ground that produces a crop, thirty, sixty, or a hundred times what was sown!!!  Now that is a real prosperity gospel!  Some of us ARE the laborers who will go out and produce the harvest.  But it all begins with our prayers. Our prayers have the power to send the laborers out…they have the power to change the hearts of sinners and bring them to repentance.  When the disciples tried to heal the demon-possesed boy, they asked why they could not.  Jesus told them, ”this kind can come out only by prayer.”Mark 9:29.  The greater work has absoloute power to come to pass….But, “We ask not.” James 4:3.  We ask not, for opportunities for God to use us to witness.  We ask not, for God to position us to meet people who God has readied to receive the gospel.  We  ask not, for the Lord to prepare to send our our ministers to spread the gospel.  When we do ask, we ask amiss…as James says, so that we may consume ourselves on our own pleasures.  But we must remember that prayer that is the greater work.  We should measure our impact as christians by the measure of our prayer lives.  If we do not pray, what use are we doing the greater work of God?   If the salt loses it’s flavor, what use is it?

What drove Jesus to do his greater work was this…compassion!  Matthew 9:35, says that “Jesus went through all the towns and villages, teaching in their synagogues and preaching the good news of the kingdom and healing every disease and sickness.  When he saw the crows, he had compassion on them, because they were harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd.” That is when he made the commission for the saints to pray for the lost.  It was his compassion for them that moved him.  When we see the lost, do we shake our heads and point fingers?  Or are we moved to pray for them?  We must be careful not to lose our compassion for sinners because they are perishing. May we, instead pray for them so that we may not be ashamed (Philliians 1:20) but see hundreds and thousands of souls making it in because we prayed!   Because we saw that they were lost and didn’t know the right way!  We can see the right way…but how can the blind see.  Shouldn’t we be a lampstand to the lost?   Matthew 5:14.

The bible says the fervent, effectual prayer of the righteous man availeth much (James 5:16).  There is something about praying in the spirit that realeases God’s hand to work.  When you pray in the spirit, Romans 8:26, says that the spirit makes intercession for us…because we know not what to pray. The scripture goes on to say that the spirit searches mind of God so that we pray God’s will!!  We know from I John 5:14, that when we pray in God’s will…God promise that anything we ask will be done!!  That’s efficient prayer isn’t it?  An effectual prayer is heard and has power with it because it’s in the will of God.

Our prayers to God go up like an incense before him (Psalm 114:2). In fact, in Acts 10:4, God speaks to Cornelius and tells him that “Your prayers and gifts to the poor has come up as a memorial offering before God.”  Not one prayer is wasted…but he keeps them before him as a memorial!  Revelations 8:8 says that God keeps the prayers of the saints on a golden altar before the throne along with the smoke of incense.  God values our prayers so much that that come up to him and he stores them away on his heavenly altar!  How else do we know that God values prayer?  He says that “my house is a house of prayer.”  Matthew 21:13.  Why didn’t he call it the house of preaching?  Or the house of singing and dance?  Because at the thrown of grace…at the altar of prayer…is where his hand is released!  It is where the greater work happens!  And through his spirit he allows us to participate in bringing in the harvest.  He calls us co-laborers in his great work!  1 Corinthians 3:9 says, For we are labourers together with God: ye are God’s husbandry, ye are God’s building.”  Yes you, are the house of prayer!  You are God’s building!

May we do the work of prayer, in the spirit, and also other kinds of prayers (Epehsians 6:18) and so fulfill the will of God to bring in the harvest.  We all have the ministry of intecession.  We are all called to be prayer warriors.  Any church or ministry will lack power without the vehicle of prayer!  Our ministries are only as strong as our prayer lives.  Paul knew this…that’s why when he writes to Timothy about the church he says…first of all prayer is of utmost importance..!!!

“I urge, then, first of all, that requests, prayers,intercession and thanksgiving be made for everyone– for kings and all those in authority, that we may live peaceful and quiet lives in all godliness and holiness. This is good, and pleases God our Savior, who wants all men to be saved and to come to a knowledge of the truth.  For there is one God and one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus. I Timothy 2:1

God is concerned about salvation, first of all!!  If we can do nothing else.  If are not able to go out an get the harvest, let us atleast pray that the Lord of the harvest send out laborers.  May we be filled with compassion for the lost…those who are like sheep without a shepherd.  May we cry out for them with all kinds of prayers and fasting.  Amen.  Please receive this in Love…whatever I speak I speak into my own life first.