Praying always with all prayer and supplication in the Spirit, and watching thereunto with all perseverance and supplication for all saints; and for me that utterance may be given unto me, that I may open my mouth boldly, to make known the mystery of the gospel … Ephesians 6:18–19.
Have you ever wondered why the principle of prayer is involved in the Bible? Why does God teach us to pray? Why does He say we must pray? Couldn’t God move on the scene, sovereignly manifest Himself, and do things for people without their having to pray? Why so much on prayer? If you could understand why the Bible is a book of prayer, you would answer for yourself more questions than you can imagine.
Prayer is a divinely imposed limitation that God makes on Himself. He is pleased and determined to move through human channels. The redemption being worked out was worked out through man. You say, “God did it!” God sent His Son to be born as a man; it had to be accomplished on the human level. At the fall of man all creation was made subject to vanity and will remain so by divine plan until the sons of God release it. You see, God is working through man. He is working something in and through man; apart from that He refuses to work. I wouldn’t say He refuses to work in every instance, but he doesn’t work very much. “Well,” you say, “God works in nature.” Do you really believe it? It is nice to get out in the wide open spaces; the air is good and there are traces of divine grandeur in all of creation, but you wouldn’t shake hands with a grizzly bear. And the sharks out there—“Oh, a lovely shark, let’s go play with it.” Let’s not! There is something wild in nature, everything is preying. You don’t see God in that. In fact, you see the way the devil works—in the nature of things as they are.
God made creation subject to such futility, waiting until He works His work in us. “Oh,” you say, “we’re waiting for that great outpouring of the Holy Spirit.” Yes, and it will come—when you believe for it. Ask ye the Lord rain in the time of the latter rain … Zechariah 10:1. You ask of the Lord rain, in the time of latter rain! The provisions of God (in sovereign times chosen and planned in the will of God right down to the very moment and day) require a human being, yielded and believing and appropriating because the divine provision comes forth on the human level.
You can say, “Well, why win souls?” The old Dutch Reformed and the Calvinists used to say, “No altar calls, for the elect will be saved. He that God wills to be saved will be saved, and nothing you can say or do is going to prevent it or help it one way or the other.” It is strange they were world-wide missionaries with that kind of an attitude, but they moved a world for God. The amazing thing is that they took the attitude, “If my children are going to be raised for God, they’ll be raised for God, they’ll serve God.”
Do you believe you can take that attitude? God always places human responsibility there; you are responsible to minister God to the world. That’s why I believe we have to sacrifice to print the books, make the tapes, start churches and do these things. I have never believed, and I will never go back to the old-order rut of human zeal. I am going forward into a new declaration: I know I am anointed of the Lord and I know God has brought something to me. That anointing can accomplish little or much, according to what I am willing to believe for, what I am willing to pray for, what I am willing to work with the brothers and sisters for. It will be just as much or as little as I believe for.
People wonder, “Why aren’t the prophecies fulfilled?” Yet some people drift along—“Well, it was prophesied over me that I would have the gift of prophecy, and I prophesied a couple times, but I’m beginning to doubt that prophecy.” Don’t doubt the prophecy; you had better be humble before God and do some repenting. Stewardship in gifts is involved; God lays it before you, and then He requires that you do something with it. He calls on you to give account of your stewardship—what did you do with it?
God has never moved as much in all of the history of the church as He is moving in this day. The Spirit keeps moving. I think of what has happened in many churches where the charismatic renewal came. Maybe one church out of a hundred has gone on with something—the other ninety-nine had splits and trouble and backed away; preachers turned away from it. Why? Because when God gives something you have to have diligence to go to work.
Look in the Bible at the chapter on prophecy and gifts of the Holy Spirit. They are instructing you on tongues and interpretations, on how the prophecies come, and how the prophets speak and confirm one another. I don’t believe that God is taking people over so that they can say, “I couldn’t help myself, God just moved me.” He doesn’t possess them to make little mechanical men out of them. He is filling them as they appropriate. The command wasn’t “God shall fill you with the Spirit,” the command was to the human level, “Be filled with the Spirit; be filled with all the fullness of God!” The initiative and responsibility is ours. The provision is God’s and the initiative is ours. Pray for the leading of the Lord; God will lead you, but do you know what your part is? Knock; seek; ask! The people who get something from God are striving and crying at the top of their voices. They get an answer because they have a persistent faith. The Lord was faithful in trying to teach the place of prayer. Does that mean that God isn’t concerned? No. He is concerned, very concerned. He sent His Son to die to make the provision. Then He withdrew from the scene, from any sovereign manifestation, and committed it to twelve apostles saying, “Take it, do something with it. All authority is Mine in heaven and earth. Go and make disciples of the nations. You go and you do it. Lo, I am with you” (Matthew 28:18–20).
It is a new level, it is a new day. If it pleased the Lord Jesus Christ to withdraw into the heavenlies to be at the right hand of the Father and henceforth to move through a many-membered spiritual body, if that is what He is pleased to do, then let that spiritual body begin to appropriate His fullness now. You couldn’t find better doctrine than this because it is glorifying Christ, yet it does not lead to human ambition, human zeal or an old-order program. But it does lead away from the passivity that comes over people while they are waiting for God’s end-time move to take place and for prophecies to be fulfilled.
With faith you could prophesy almost anything to yourself and go after it and see it fulfilled. “Whatsoever you ask in My name I will do it” (John 14:13). You have promises in the Word of God that are so unlimited, so vast in scope, that you could start claiming, appropriating, and prophesying things by the Spirit of the Lord. You say that would be “self”? If you had that kind of faith you would be surprised how the Holy Spirit would inspire you, and there would be a flow of the Spirit, and God would fill your prophecy.
The bread and the cup of Communion are divine provision. When the aggressive faith of individuals reaches up and they possess God, His very presence is in it. They draw Him, they eat of Him, they take the initiative to appropriate His very life into their being. They are really blessed of God because of two things: the divine provision hovering over them and their faith reaching up to bring it down. Everyone in a service who takes the blessing can be blessed.
Are you going to be used of the Lord? Notice how many times you start out: you get a leading, you get direction, and you keep drawing from the Lord. As you keep trusting the Lord, the Lord will give you the answer. But you don’t get it all in one piece; you just keep grabbing and appropriating it as you go along. As you grow stronger in the Lord, the Lord becomes stronger in you.
I’m very much in favor of consecration services. Would you like to know the difference between an old-order consecration service and a new-order consecration service? In the old-order you come to the altar and really work at giving your all to Jesus. But where are you? You don’t really get it all given to Him anyway. Besides, it is all His to begin with because He redeemed you, and you are trying to acknowledge it and give yourself to Him.
What about a new-order consecration service? You start where the old leaves off. You become consecrated and dedicated to appropriate more of God not giving yourself more, but appropriating Him more. What you give to God doesn’t amount to much, but what God gives to you amounts to a great deal—what God has given to you amounts to everything. You start appropriating Him; that’s where consecration should come. You become dedicated and consecrated to greater possessions in God, to a greater fellowship, to a greater indwelling.
Think what God is doing! You are getting concepts that are revolutionary in their very nature. This is the thing that is going to make people walk with God. So much of our old thinking goes back to legalism, self-condemnation, and to an introspection or self-analysis. I have done that too long and I don’t find anything interesting in me: “in my flesh dwelleth no good thing” (Romans 7:18a). But what excites me is, “We are not sufficient of ourselves to think anything as of ourselves; but our sufficiency is of God who makes us able ministers of the new covenant.” And we start ministering, “not with pen and ink, but with the Spirit of the living God; not on tables of stone, but on the fleshly tables of the heart,” until men walk as living testimonies, “living epistles of Christ, read and known of all men” (II Corinthians 3:2–6).
Christ isn’t going to be read or known until He is read and known in you. Appropriate Him because Jesus is going to be heard and seen in you. If Christ is going to speak, He is going to speak through your lips. If He is going to move, He is going to move through your feeble hands. If the job is going to be done, it will be done because you have opened up to be the frailest of instruments. What do you see in the elders and ministries? Do they impress you as people, or only to the extent that you see Christ in them?
We are earthen vessels. The excellency of the power will be of God and not of ourselves; but that doesn’t take away from the initiative. We are not passive vessels; we prepare ourselves, we sanctify ourselves, we get with it. If a man therefore shall purge himself from these, he shall be a vessel of honor, sanctified, meet for the Master’s use, prepared unto every good work. II Timothy 2:21. Let’s get with it because we are going to house the glory of God. We are going to walk as temples of the living God. This walk with God is not some little spiritual, ethereal principle; it is a practical reality.
Notice Ephesians 6:18a—Praying always with all prayer and supplication.… It is very different from the old-order interpretation of that Scripture: “O God, please.…” It is the wind-up of putting on the whole armor of God because we are going to defeat the principalities and powers. We are going to enforce the victory of Jesus, bring the devils to their knees, and direct them into the abyss because Christ provided it. His victory was a total victory of provision; our victory is that by faith we execute what He has provided. This gives us a liberation; it enables us to take on new initiative of faith. Wait before God, get the word and then go with that word in faith, knowing that you are God’s instrument. Every one of us must realize our destiny is to minister the fullness of Christ to this generation. Our destiny and our ministry is to minister the living word.
You can get hangups over this living word: the word begins to bless you; then accusations come, “’the living word’?—you are taking too much onto yourself!” Nevertheless, someone is going to have to speak God’s word for this hour; someone is going to have to do the works of God. God has ordained far more to be in us than we have ever imagined. You say you want chapter and verse? Good—“The works that I do shall ye do also and greater works than these shall ye do” (John 14:12).
I am very concerned about moving into the things above and beyond the Scriptures. When I read the book of Acts I know there will be actions above and beyond the acts of the apostles. When I read the Gospels, I know there will be greater works than these. And I eagerly look for the time when people in their humility will say, “You are moving in more than the apostles moved in.” We have waited for that day; let’s make haste to move into it. We have a destiny to fulfill. The fullness of God must come forth in this generation through a remnant that God has chosen. The people that know their God shall be strong and do exploits. Daniel 11:32b. They will do exploits because they know their God and are sent by God.
This doesn’t lead to self-confidence; it leads to the deepest of humility to finally understand God’s plan to move through a human channel. Then you start praying, not to keep yourself from backsliding, but because you are a channel God is going to use to turn loose His power. You start believing. If God gave you the gift of prophecy and you are sitting down with it, get busy, it is your responsibility. The initiative is yours. “Stir up the gift that is in you!” (II Timothy 1:6). Although God will give it to you, there still is involved a great deal of faith and persevering, and for this faithfulness you are rewarded.
This great principle of being what God has called me to be burns in my heart and calls me to greater dedication. I have faith to believe for God to be in me what He wants to be.
Jesus is present in the Communion. He said, “This is My body; this is the new covenant in My blood.” As you partake, don’t miss the miracle of it; reach in with eagerness of faith, with appropriation that says, “Yes, this is true, and I am going to possess it.”
When Jesus said, “Who touched Me?” the disciples said, “Everybody’s pushing you.” A mob of people pressed in upon Him. But someone did touch Him. Creeping up from behind, she touched the hem of His garment, for she said in her heart, “If I touch the hem of His garment I’ll be whole.”
If you drink His blood in faith you will be healed; you will be delivered; you will be forgiven. If you eat of His body, you will live by Him. He is your life, O house of God; this is your Christ that is coming to you. Never let Communion become a traditional rut. Let it ever become more and more the partaking of the life of Jesus.
Master, we bless the bread that is Thy body. We bless the cup which is Thy blood. Jesus, we draw Thee, we eat of Thee, we drink of Thee this day. We shall be Thy people, Thy handmaidens and Thy servants, because you provided for us to be that, you have chosen us, and by faith we minister it one to another in the name of the Lord Jesus. We bow our hearts: to be dedicated to appropriate more of Christ; to have a new prayer life; to walk in what God sets before us constantly. We don’t want to wait while the Lord says, “This is the day! This is the hour!” Jesus, we reach for Thee. We love You and want to serve You with all our hearts because You give us the grace to do so. We take Your body, the living bread. We take Your blood, Lord Jesus, to be our cleansing and perfection. We draw of Your Spirit in greater measure to be filled with all Your fullness. We come to You to be met, to touch You, Lord Jesus, and to be every whit whole. Amen.
Christians should be conditioned to eternal life. They should be conditioned to an appropriation, as Moses was with his natural force not abated nor his eye dim. Joshua and other great men of God also walked and believed and drew from God to themselves. We believe in the life of God. Christ is our life. Our life is hid with Christ in God. We draw it by faith.
In my heart, I condition my thinking constantly to this one thing: He is my life. I draw Him, I experience Him, I minister Him, He moves through me as I dare to open my mouth. I open my heart in compassion, and He fills me with love for those that I would reach. I reach to the sick, and He fills my hands to heal them. I lay my hands on a little child, and I bless the Christ to come forth in that child. I draw in this glorious day, for I am one with the Lord, I am one with His people, and it is a great day. I take the destiny that God provided, and I shall live out my days and my years in the vigor and strength of God. I shall rise, not as a weak human being, but I shall rise as a young stripling of the sons of God, and I’ll walk with strength in the land that He says He has given me as a possession. It is my foot that will have to be put upon the ground that is mine. In promise it is mine, and then in possession it is mine. By faith I draw Thee, Lord Jesus. By faith I receive Thee. By faith I believe to be the channel through which Your life flows. Amen.