The Nature of Prayer that Results in True Worship
Prayer that results in the true worship of Jesus has three basic characteristics. There must first be a total abandonment of the self-life. When Jesus called His disciples, He required them to abandon two things that could have kept them from a true knowledge of Himself. He said that each disciple must "deny himself" and "lose his life." It is the self-life that keeps us from a knowledge of the glory of the Christ-life. Therefore, we must learn to die to the self-life.
Prayer that originates in and is motivated by the self-life will only satisfy our ego needs and will never produce the glory of Jesus. The self life always cries, "I want....I think...I desire." But this life of Christ in us prays, "Not my will, but Thy will be done." That kind of praying is powerful. It has as its chief end the glory and worship of God.
One of the most powerful men of prayer in the Christian church was George Mueller. He housed, clothed, and fed thousands of orphans solely through prayer. He provided financial support to the ministry of Hudson Taylor through the means of prayer. Mueller once stated that he believed that God had given him more than thirty thousand souls in answer to prayer. Mueller's principles of prayer were very specific. He wrote:
There are five conditions (of prayer) which I always endeavor to fulfill, in observing which I have the assurance of answer to prayer:
- "I have not the least doubt because I am assured that it is the Lord's will to save them, for He willeth that all men should be saved and come to a knowledge of the truth" (1 Tim.2:4)
- "I have never pleaded for their salvation in my own name, but in the blessed name of my precious Lord Jesus, and on His merits alone (John 1:14).
- "I always firmly believed in the willingness of God to hear my prayers (Mark 11:24).
- "I am not conscious of having yielded to any sin, for 'if I regard iniquity in my heart, the Lord will not hear me' when I call (Ps.66:18).
- "I have persevered in believing prayer for more than 52 years for some, and shall continue till the answer comes: 'Shall not God avenge his own elect which cry day and night unto him' " (Luke 18:7).
The secret to the prayer life of Mr. Mueller shines forth as a golden ray of sunlight. He prayed from the heart of Jesus to the glory of Jesus. His praying, from beginning to ending, was rooted in the life of Christ. His principles of effective praying had no seeds of self-motivation to self-glory. He planted his prayer life in Christ alone.
The second characteristic of prayer that produces worship is total surrender of one's heart to God. The heart that finds its supreme satisfaction in God experiences the depths of the love of Jesus Christ. A heart that is undivided in its loyalty becomes a worshipping heart. There must be a single-mindedness in our prayer lives if we are truly to worship God. We must desire only a knowledge of Him. Thomas Goodwin said, "I have known men who came to God for nothing else but just to come to Him, they so loved Him. They scorned to soil Him and themselves with any other errand than just purely to be alone with Him in His presence."
When we thirst after a knowledge of God, we will find Him. All through the day we will long for special moments of aloneness. In those precious moments we will come into His presence. Our hearts belong to Him. We will want to be with Him, love Him, and worship Him. There will be a freshness in our love for Him when our hearts belong completely to Him.
Finally, we will have the high praises of God on our lips when we come to the inner chamber of prayer. And praise will be translated into worship. Something wonderful occurs when we praise God. Praise is the acknowledgment of the moral and spiritual attributes of God. When we begin to acknowledge Him for who He is, He comes to dwell in these praises. Imagine that. The eternal, omnipotent God actually lives in the heart that recognizes Him and the nature of His glory.
When the inner person beholds God, worship bursts forth in the heart just as the morning sunrise brings the glory of a new day. Sometimes the splendor of God will become so beautiful that we will be overwhelmed with His majesty. We will understand why Charles Wesley wrote, "O, for a thousand tongues to sing of the glory of my King." His beauty and majesty are so great that the highest praises are impossible for a mortal tongue to express. He is far beyond our highest comprehension and yet He is closer than our dearest friend. As we clothe ourselves with the high praise of God, we will discover that our garments of praise have become a wardrobe of worship. |
