PRAYER OF CONSECRATION
Wake up, sleeper, rise from the dead, and Christ will shine on you.
Jesus, I belong to you.
I lift up my heart to you.
I set my mind on you.
I fix my eyes on you.
I offer my body to you as a living sacrifice.
Jesus, we belong to you.
Praying in the name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit, amen.
Matthew 6:6
But when you pray, go into your room, close the door and pray to your Father, who is unseen. Then your Father, who sees what is done in secret, will reward you.
CONSIDER THIS
I have heard Jesus say this at least a hundred times. It can hardly be more explicit and specific.
But when you pray, go into your room, close the door and pray to your Father, who is unseen. Then your Father, who sees what is done in secret, will reward you.
It’s like he’s giving us the step by step instructions, isn’t he?
1. Go into your room.
2. Close the door.
3. Pray to your Father who is unseen.
One day back in the late 1900s I served as a pastor at a large church in Texas. I got so busy I met myself coming and going. I tried my best to spend some quality time with Jesus every day but it was hit or miss at best and obligatory at worst. In my experience (and I am being confessional here) pastors can be some of the most prayer-less people on the planet. Anyhow, one morning I was rushing out the door to get to my first meeting when I sensed the voice of the Lord speaking to me, deep in my spirit. This brought me to a screeching halt. Four simple words pierced my soul. They weren’t audible and yet they were crystal clear.
CREATE SPACE FOR PRAYER.
I walked back over into the living room, knelt down by the couch, and prayed. Somehow I knew deep down this was my calling within my calling; my Mother Teresa moment that would lead to the awakening of the world. So I grabbed my laptop and typed out an email to my boss at the church, telling him about the experience and how we needed to “Create Space for Prayer” as a church staff. My boss promptly reversed my attempt at reverse delegation, assigning the initiative back to me. I put something together. The staff gladly participated, and after a series of faithful efforts, my “Create Space for Prayer” initiative drifted off into the heavens from whence it came.
CREATE SPACE FOR PRAYER
These four words never left me. Over the ensuing decades, I made many attempts and efforts to design initiatives, each similar to the ones before and yet with increasing sophistication. I launched prayer vigils, started prayer houses, created prayer watches, wrote prayer guides, and hosted more prayer meetings than I can remember. All of this was good and needful and helped people and I’m sure contributed to the expansion of God’s kingdom. However, today, a quarter century later, it is dawning on me that I may have missed the point of the personal revelation on that early morning in Texas.
CREATE SPACE FOR PRAYER
That was not a word for the staff, or the church, or to start a corporate practice or to build a house of prayer or launch a vigil or watch—good and needful as all those things are. It was a word spoken to me and for me. It was a personal admonition crying out for personal attention. Now here I am a quarter century later, hearing this word again, as though for the very first time.
CREATE SPACE FOR PRAYER
And it is finally dawning on me that that word is nothing more and nothing less than this word:
But when you pray, go into your room, close the door and pray to your Father, who is unseen. Then your Father, who sees what is done in secret, will reward you.
THE PRAYER TO CREATE SPACE FOR PRAYER
Father, thank you for the simple clarity of Jesus who plainly tells us to “go into your room, close the door, and pray to our Father who is unseen.” I hear you, Lord, you are telling me to create space for prayer. This was and is and ever shall be a word to me and for me. And though it is a word for so many others, would you grace me with the humility to heed it myself? Would you help me to create space for prayer—for me? That seems like enough to ask today. Thank you, Father, for this simple clarity and this gracious invitation. Praying in Jesus’s name, amen.
THE QUESTION
Do you identify with this calling to “Create Space for Prayer”? I wonder if anyone out there identifies with the way I missed the point of this calling and launched into an enterprising grandiosity to fulfill it?
THE HYMN
Today we will sing the hymn, “I Am Thine, O Lord.” It is hymn 591 in our Seedbed hymnal, Our Great Redeemer’s Praise.
For the Awakening,
J. D. Walt
Sower-in-Chief
seedbed.com
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4 Responses
More of Christ’s love will produce more prayer.
When we create space within our heart for Christ’s love, prayer rises from within us supernaturally. I woke up this morning with these thoughts forming in my mind about 3 ways to create space for the love of Jesus and just posted them on my blog:
1) Christ in me: I feel love when I let myself be aware of Jesus Christ living inside of me through the Holy Spirit (what the Bible calls “Christ in you, the hope of glory,”). I love being one of Christ’s sheep and being aware of His voice lovingly leading and directing me from within. The more I lay down my rebellion and surrender my life and my will to His, the more I’m able to receive the healing comfort of His love for me.
2) Christ in the Bible: I feel love when Jesus reveals Himself to me as I read the collected writings of His first followers and of the ancient prophets, called the Bible. When I read it with an open honest heart the words touch me deeply like a cherished love letter.
3) Christ in heart connection: I feel love when Jesus demonstrates His presence, compassion, and power through His everyday followers’ words and actions. When ordinary people humbly open their heart to one another and to the risen Jesus, His love begins to freely flow, and the reality of His presence fills the atmosphere. (The Bible calls this the Greek word “ekklesia” which means the “called-out ones.” It was the name of the participatory town hall meeting in ancient Greek cities where anyone present could speak.)
A room that needs quieting is my mind.
A door I need to shut is the one to the world.
My prayers must come from the spiritual heart of truth.
I need Jesus, so I pray.
I pray because others need Jesus.
Staying 💪’n Christ
Ephesians 6:10
Finally, be strong in the Lord and in His mighty power.
“But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness [for yourself] and all these things will be added [for yourself and others].”
When I was teen a prominent leader in the Nazarene church was traveling through my little town of London, Ky and joined us for Sunday worship. Of course, being a preacher he was asked to give a message. One thing that has always stuck with me, perhaps because of his candor. “We preachers have a tendency to hear a word from the Lord for ourselves and immediately try to put it in a sermon.” Loosely paraphrased from memory.
That applies to laity as well. We get so excited about what the Holy Spirit tells us that we forget that we’re not usually discovering a static divine principle that applies to everyone but rather a word crafted by a dynamic God for us specifically so we can understand the divine principle that has always been there.
I have to say, my wife just said (without knowing what I’m writing), “It’s nice to know God is speaking to us directly and intimately.” She’s the Mary to my Martha.
Amen