“Hear ye now what the LORD saith; Arise, contend thou before the mountains, and let the hills hear thy voice.” (Micah 6:1)
Somewhere in the modern development of our churches we have lost the art of prayer. We’ve lost it so badly that we don’t even realize that we’ve lost it.
Fifty years ago, we didn’t pray like we do today – we prayed like warriors. The prayer room was a place of contending and battle where you went in to wage spiritual warfare as you fought your way up to the Throne of God. You knew going in that Satan would withstand you and do his best to mollify your prayers, make you weary, and convince you to quit before you won the victory. Prayer, real contending prayer, was work; a labor of love in the furnace room of war. You went in, not to sing songs and feel happy, but to fight for the cause, to contend for deliverance from the powers of darkness, and stand for the glory and honor of God.
The prayer warriors of those days talked about “praying it through”. You didn’t stop when you felt like it – you prayed it all the way through until you got the victory. If that meant all night, then you prayed all night. Why would you quit before you got your answer?
But oh, when you did! What an incredible rush of glory when you broke through! It would feel like the heavens opened up and sunshine and glory would pour down. When you got your answer, it was as sure and solid as the foundations of the Earth. You knew you had touched the Throne of God. It was always worth the fight.
Today, when I speak about storming the Throne of God in prayer, I get quizzical or blank looks from those listening to me. The response I get back is that God is our “Daddy” and because He loves us so, we shouldn’t have to struggle to gain access to Him in prayer.
Is that really faith though? Or is it a form of presumption? Do we assume that because we believe in Jesus, we merely have to mention our desires and God will leap to our call? We simply guess that if we whisper our thoughts to God, somehow He will answer … we hope. We pay no price because there is no battle. The problem is, however, that neither is there any victory.
But if you want to call for the heavens to pour out the rain like Elijah did, then you have to pray like Elijah did. There is nothing free in God – nothing. Elijah was a man who stood in the awesome fear of Almighty God, but because he stood in that righteousness, he was also able to stand in that holy boldness that only comes from the fear of the Lord. Proverbs is definitive in its statement that in the fear of the Lord is great confidence. You cannot approach the holiness of God in blood-washed victory if there is the slightest shadow of sin in your life. But even in that righteousness, Elijah was a man who knew that he had to contend before the Almighty in fervent effectual prayer if he wanted to see God rend the heavens. He was a warrior in God because that’s what it took to move the Heavenlies.
It is said that prayer moves God. And great moves require great prayer. And that takes great faith, not a faith that merely hopes God will answer, but a faith that stakes its claim on the rights that were purchased by the Blood of Jesus Christ and refuses to give in until the victory is won.
But the power to pray like that does not come overnight nor is it as simple as flipping on a light switch. There is a process that starts with the Word of God and journeys through valleys of faith to strip us of our fleshly ways and brings us through spiritual depths that are never realized nor suspected by casual Christianity. It is a place of the Cross — a place of blood, suffering, and death and of our ultimate rest in God.
It is a place where warriors are forged, where prayers are answered, and where great moves of God are birthed.
Brother Dale