05/11/2024
My devotional reading was a hot one today, dealing with fire and specifically the fire in our prayers. E.M. Bounds wrote that "It takes fire to make prayers work. God wants warmhearted servants. We are baptized with the Holy Spirit and with fire." Bounds then continued with this observation... "If our faith does not set us on fire, it is because our hearts have become cold." Of course he wasn't referring to literally being set aflame, but rather a fervency that ignites the passion within us and adds intensity to our faith and prayers. We must feel an emotional and spiritual upwelling that comes from the realized presence of God and an anticipation of His answer to our prayers. In our prayers we need to convey the importance of our petition through our attitude and the fire embodied in our effort to seek Him.
“But if I say, “I will not mention his word or speak anymore in his name,” his word is in my heart like a fire, a fire shut up in my bones. I am weary of holding it in; indeed, I cannot.”
Jerimiah 20:9 NIV
I once watched a scene unfold on the evening news which occurred following a deadly earthquake. My soul ached as I witnessed a woman fall to her knees and begin to sob and pray for a loved one who had tragically been killed. She wailed her prayer as she rocked, wept, and sought God's presence with up stretched arms. Her prayer was on fire in her grief. At moments of great emotion such as this the fervency of prayer comes naturally and spontaneously. Her prayer that rose up from her breaking heart moved me, and I feel that it had to have moved the heart of our Heavenly Father as well.
Then there are those more quiet times; a son or daughter caught up in addiction while brokenhearted parents pray for months on end for their child’s salvation and liberation from drugs. Prayers like this can wear us down and require fervency to be reached through sheer determination, not out of our own will, but in our search for God's will. These prayers rise up, formed and birthed out of the depths of love. Times such as this are not easy, and the praying itself can test our faith and physical stamina. In such cases, we should begin our prayers by asking God to strengthen us and give us the faith required to pray as we should... He will hear our plea.
“Father, if you are willing, take this cup away from me—nevertheless, not my will, but yours, be done.” Then an angel from heaven appeared to him, strengthening him.”
Luke 22:42-43 CSB
Prayer is like fighting a battle; except that in it we are seeking God's aid in defeating a different kind of enemy... Grief, disease, and heartbreak to name a few. Soldiers have long referred to "the heat of battle" and that is exactly how we should approach our prayers. The heat of battle represents an all-consuming struggle for life against an opponent who would destroy us, a time of such great threat that there is hardly a moment to consider failure, it is the crossroads between fear and desperation… life and death. Our prayers should be accompanied by that same all-consuming emotion... In faith we call this fervency.
This morning when we pray let's find the fervent nature of faith within us and seek God with the same desperation and fear that heightens the effort of soldiers when facing death. If our needs are great then the flame of spiritual battle should rage all the more. John the Baptist spoke of the coming Christ with these words:
“John answered, saying unto them all, I indeed baptize you with water; but one mightier than I cometh, the latchet of whose shoes I am not worthy to unloose: he shall baptize you with the Holy Ghost and with fire: Whose fan is in his hand, and he will thoroughly purge his floor, and will gather the wheat into his garner; but the chaff he will burn with fire unquenchable.”
Luke 3:16-17 KJV
We should seek the Holy Ghost and fire in our prayers lest we risk suffering the same fate as the chaff… an all-consuming fire. In these times of prayer God wishes much more for us, but if we are to claim this we need to seek him by pouring our entire being into our prayers. We need to leave our milquetoast prayers behind and enter into a fervency of spirit and prayer.
“But if from thence thou shalt seek the Lord thy God, thou shalt find him, if thou seek him with all thy heart and with all thy soul.”
Deuteronomy 4:29 KJV
“And thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thine heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy might.”
Deuteronomy 6:5 KJV
How do we seek God in prayer? Do we do so with a weak and unassuming heart, or do our prayers reflect the desire of a heart on fire? Do we approach our Father with a sense of urgency and expectation, or with a blasé petition that seems to be more of an aside than a fervent desire? Let’s consider this as we pray today.
Prayer:
Father, thank you for the love you have given us that fuels our desires and allows us to pray with a sense of fervency for them. Thank you Lord for broken hearts, and heightened spirits, which pour gasoline over the fire of our prayers. Thank you for not only hearing the words we pray, but feeling our emotion, and knowing the suffering and raging desire of our hearts. Help us to pray as we should Father; open our hearts to your Holy Spirit and let him guide us and teach us to pray with an intensity that causes the sweat of our brow to become like blood just as Jesus’s did in the Garden of Gethsemane. Teach us to pray with such great desire that you are moved by our plight, our need, or our intercession for another, and that your heart will thus be caught up with ours in a burning fire of urgency as you answer us. Holy, Holy, Holy, are you our God who loves us completely and from the depths of your being. Holy are you who desires that none of us should perish, but that we all believe in you and know eternal life through your grace and our all-consuming belief in Jesus Christ your Son. Hear us today Lord as we weep in our prayers, and sweat the blood of Christ as we pour out our hearts unto you. Let there be no doubting our intention, our desire, and our absolute commitment and expectation, as we pray. Give even the softest desires of our hearts, and the most mundane requests of our daily lives an underlying feeling of absolute and perfect expectation as we pray that your will be done in regards to them, and give our hearts a burning desire, and a fervent and undeniable faith, as we trust that your promise will be kept.
“Do you not believe that I am in the Father and the Father is in me? The words that I say to you I do not speak on my own authority, but the Father who dwells in me does his works. Believe me that I am in the Father and the Father is in me, or else believe on account of the works themselves. “Truly, truly, I say to you, whoever believes in me will also do the works that I do; and greater works than these will he do, because I am going to the Father. Whatever you ask in my name, this I will do, that the Father may be glorified in the Son.
John 14:10-13 ESV
Amen!
Rich Forbes