May my prayer be counted as incense before You; the lifting up of my hands as the evening offering. Psalm 141:2.
Today your LORD (יהוה) God (אלהים) says:
I do not take prayer lightly and neither should you. Prayer is sacred. Prayer is conversation at its highest level. My thoughts are higher than yours and in prayer I share My thoughts with you to raise you up to see things as I do. In prayer I give you the highest honor, complete access day and night to the Most High. In the world, private audiences with rulers of nations are sought after as high honors for government dignitaries and must be approved and reserved months in advance. It is not so with Me, the creator and ruler of all, I am open to you day and night, just come with confidence to My throne of grace to receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need. But never lose the wonder and awe of the sacredness of the place to which you come in prayer. It is the secret place of the Most High, the abode of the believers by faith.
Therefore if you have been raised up with Christ, keep seeking the things above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God. Set your mind on the things above, not on the things that are on earth. For you have died and your life is hidden with Christ in God. When Christ, who is our life, is revealed, then you also will be revealed with Him in glory. Colossians 3:1-4.
Jesus released you from your sins by His blood because of His great love for you and for Me, and He made you to be a kingdom, priests unto Me. Revelation 1:5-6. I was the portion of the priests under the Old Covenant and that is the same under the new. You are My heirs, joint heirs with Christ, and I have been pleased to give you the Kingdom. The priests of the Old Covenant ministered unto Me and unto the people. They offered the sacrifices for the people and the priests prayed, they lifted up prayers of devotion, praise and thanksgiving, even with the blowing of trumpets and musical instruments, and they interceded for the people and the nation.
And coming to Him as to a living stone which has been rejected by men, but is choice and precious in the sight of God, you also, as living stones, are being built up as a spiritual house for a holy priesthood, to offer up spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ. 1 Peter 2:4-5.
You are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for God’s own possession, so that you may proclaim the excellencies of Him who has called you out of darkness into His marvelous light; for you once were not a people, but now you are the people of God; you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy. 1 Peter 2:9-10.
The priests ministered in My house of prayer.
Even those I will bring to My holy mountain and make them joyful in My house of prayer. Their burnt offerings and their sacrifices will be acceptable on My altar; for My house will be called a house of prayer for all the peoples.” Isaiah 56:7.
The sacred place made holy by My presence becomes your dwelling place and My dwelling place in you. I dwell upon your praises.
Yet You are holy, O You who are enthroned upon the praises of Israel. Psalm 22:3.
The first thing to remember in prayer is that it is of the heart.
On God my salvation and my glory rest; the rock of my strength, my refuge is in God. Trust in Him at all times, O people; pour out your heart before Him; God is a refuge for us. Selah. Psalm 62:7-8.
But you, when you pray, go into your inner room, close your door and pray to your Father who is in secret, and your Father who sees what is done in secret will reward you. Matthew 6:6.
And do not fear intimidation from others who regard prayer with scorn, and do not be troubled, sanctify Christ as Lord in your hearts. And walk in holiness and truth by walking in and with Him. Come with Him, your great High Priest through the veil by the new and living way into fellowship with Me, your creator, spouse, and LORD.
Remember, you are conversing with the Divine. It puts you on holy ground. It is of the Spirit and not of the flesh. When I touched Mt. Horeb with My presence in the burning bush, I told Moses he was on sacred, holy ground, not common ordinary ground where dishonorable conduct is acceptable, where you bring in the worldly and profane, but set apart as Holy. Sanctified. Consecrated to divine use.
And what went on in the sacred encounter between Me and Moses? Divine conversation and revelation about things to come and the part I would take and the part he was entrusted to take in the miraculous deliverance of My people out of slavery to the promised land. And when he objected that he was too insignificant and could not accomplish such a great work, I simply assured him that I would be with him. And that is enough. And in prayer you are there for Me and I am there for you. And together we write the vision down and run with it.
Your prayers are so valuable to Me that I have the elders who sit on the 24 thrones in Heaven (the 12 tribes and the 12 apostles) holding up your prayers as incense before Me in beautiful golden bowls.
When He had taken the scroll, the four living creatures and the twenty-four elders fell down before the Lamb, each one holding a harp and golden bowls full of incense, which are the prayers of the believers (holy ones). Revelation 5:9.
And that is not all, I have the angels putting them on the golden altar of incense before Me.
Another angel came and stood at the altar, holding a golden censer; and much incense was given to him, so that he might add it to the prayers of all the believers (holy ones) on the golden altar which was before the throne. And the smoke of the incense, [c]with the prayers of the [d]saints, went up before God out of the angel’s hand. Then the angel took the censer and filled it with the fire of the altar, and threw it to the earth; and there followed peals of thunder and sounds and flashes of lightning and an earthquake. Revelation 8:3-5.
I so value the fervent prayer of a believer that they are like memorials before Me causing My angels to go into action. Remember the centurion, Cornelius? I sent My angel to tell him to go get Peter to learn about Jesus and the true Way.
Now there was a man at Caesarea named Cornelius, a centurion of what was called the Italian cohort, a devout man and one who feared God with all his household, and gave many alms to the Jewish people and prayed to God continually. About the ninth hour of the day he clearly saw in a vision an angel of God who had just come in and said to him, “Cornelius!” And fixing his gaze on him and being much alarmed, he said, “What is it, Lord?” And he said to him, “Your prayers and alms have ascended as a memorial before God. Now dispatch some men to Joppa and send for a man named Simon, who is also called Peter; he is staying with a tanner named Simon, whose house is by the sea.” Acts 10:1-4
There is a certain royal protocol for the royal priesthood for prayer. Jesus gave you insights and ground rules throughout His ministry as one of you on earth and He also gave you, in His own prayer life and spontaneous prayers to Me, the example of unceasing prayer.
Jesus never was a moment without being aware of My presence with Him and was open every moment to receive revelation and direction. He was often found by His disciples up early after a late night of ministry praying in a secluded place far from the hustle and bustle of the crowds that thronged Him, just to have time to rest in and receive directions from Me.
Jesus shared with you that when you pray to Me you do not win a hearing and an answer by the sheer multiplication of words. People tend to think long prayers of repetition get Me to give them what they are seeking. Some even have chain prayers in which you have to say the same thing multiple times and get it to ten other people to get Me to move on your behalf. But this is foolish and is simply not the case. If you notice when I talk with you, I generally say a few Words that open up vistas of ideas, related verses from the Bible, and give you light on a subject or project you have been seeking to understand or complete.
Prayer is done on a one-to-one basis with Me. You can be in a crowd when I talk to you but no one else will be addressed in the same way I am addressing you. My conversation with you is private, though I may give you words to share with another person to encourage, exhort, or edify them—words of wisdom and words of knowledge. But primarily, as Jesus explained, He knocks at the door of your heart and if you hear His voice and open we dine with you and you with us. Just you. Just Me, the Three in One and One in Three. I am always there for you.
To pray you must be inside minded. Remember, the Holy Spirit dwells in you. So prayer is an affair of the heart. You go inward to obtain access to the Kingdom. Your spirit is a sanctuary of the Holy Spirit, you are always holy ground. Pray and walk accordingly.
Prayer is not a common marketplace, that is why Jesus overturned the money changers and merchants tables in My house of prayer. Prayer sets a place apart as holy, as sacred, as consecrated for divine purpose. Walk in keeping with who you are and pray in keeping with the same. Prayer is an honor and a great opportunity to draw close to Me and hear great and mighty things you could not know. It is a place of answers and a place of rejoicing. I make you joyful by revealing divine secrets to you in our place of prayer. It is there you learn how beloved and forgiven you are in a personal way.
Another rule of prayer protocol is that to be heard you must pray according to My Will, and you find My Will in the promises and instructions in My Word. When you pray according to My Will (which is praying using My Word, which is law in My Kingdom and in the functioning of the entire universe), I hear you, it is in the golden bowls before Me and on the golden altar of incense, your prayers according to My Word come straight to My ears, and when I hear you, you know that what you ask for is yours.
This is the confidence which we have before Him, that, if we ask anything according to His will, He hears us. And if we know that He hears us in whatever we ask, we know that we have the requests which we have asked from Him. 1 John 5:14-15.
That makes answered prayer very simple, just be sure you are praying what you are seeking based on a Scripture, such as Isaiah 53:5-6 or Psalm 23:1 or Psalm 103:1-5, and so many others. There are usually at least two or three Scriptures in the Old and New Testaments that address whatever issue you are facing and these give you the victory.
I do not hear the prayers of the wicked. If you are praying for the destruction of others I do not listen, My will and desire is for all men to be saved and come to know the truth. I do not desire that any perish but that all are saved. Pray for your enemies to be saved and come to know the truth and that is doing good to them. The same with leaders of nations and those in authority. I ask you to intercede for them and I will give you the nations.
I love you and I delight in being with you in meaningful fellowship. I still have much more to discuss with you about the joy of prayer, unceasing prayer. I will discuss this further with you in our next Life Lesson.