Sunesis

Understanding how to pray effectively
is tied to understanding the Word of God.
It is funny how many of us
have the Bible but do not
know how to read it or
perhaps we just don’t understand it
because it has not been opened
unto us. Jesus told his disciples
that it has been given to
them to understand the mysteries of
the Kingdom but the same understanding
was not given to the Pharisees
and other religious people.

In the church, we have those
Who understand the scriptures,
those who follow tradition and
those who stumble around like bats
while pretending to know when
they don’t know!
These ignorant ones hurt the body
Of Christ with their ignorance
because they mislead many.

An example is the issue of prayer.
The disciples of Jesus saw him praying and
they approached him to teach them how to
pray. They were at
this time yet to be filled
with the Holy Ghost.
Jesus had not been crucified
and the divine plan of salvation
had not been fully executed.
So Jesus taught them what
we now called the Lord’s prayer
and at that point it was apt
that they learn how to pray
at that level.
It is the same process we adopt
when teaching our non-literate parents
to use a phone or when teaching
Our little children about some realities
of life.
We teach them according
to the level of their understanding
per time. They were Jews, born into Judaism!
They knew how to pray the Jewish way
but they noticed
that Jesus prayed in another way
and his prayer was more effective
than the prayer of all the other
religious leaders put together.
They were yet to see Jesus
for who he truly was but
they called him rabbi and followed him,
each with a different understanding
of who He is.

You will remember that Jesus himself
later asked them who they say
the “Son of man is” and they
all answered in different ways.
It was only Peter that called
him Christ, the son of the living God.
So these disciples were following him
but they still do not know him
and he taught them that prayer
based on the level of their exposure
at the time. Later, after Jesus
had died and resurrected, he told the
disciples that “Hitherto you have asked
nothing in my name but henceforth,
whatsoever you ask the father
in my name shall be done”
Did you notice a big shift
here? In John 14-17, a disciple
was still asking Jesus “show
us the Father and it will suffice us”
After the resurrection, Thomas said
“Unless I see the holes on his
hands and legs I will not believe”
These were the disciples, then Jesus
appeared to them in His Glory
and Thomas said
My Lord and My God!
Even Peter betrayed him before
resurrection but after resurrection
He called him The Lord!
This shift changed how they saw
the Lord and how they shifted
their prayer level from
“The Lord’s prayer,
to praying in the name of Jesus and
exercising their authority”

You will never see any reference
to the Lord’s prayer from the
moment the apostles received the
baptism of the Holy Spirit in the
book of Acts chapter 2.
This shows progress.
When they saw him as a man,
he taught them how to pray
at that level. When they saw
him as the Son of God.
They began to pray at that
level of understanding.
They transitioned from religion to
the reality of who they are in
Christ.

When Peter and John got to the Beautiful
gate, did they pray the Lord’s prayer
to heal the lame man?
Look at the epistles of Philippians,
Ephesians, Peter and
John. Did you notice the way
they prayed as written and the
way they spoke had nothing to do
with what they used to do before resurrection?
Peter said what our hands have handled,
what our eyes have seen…
He was referring to how the resurrection
of Jesus changed everything about
how they do things.

There was a remarkable difference
and progress in everything they did
after they were baptized in the
Holy Spirit.
This is how you and I must
study the Bible, not saying the
Lord’s prayer and claiming we are
praying. It is like a 30-year-old
singing nursery rhymes.

The book of Hebrews chapter 1
told us that we should grow,
Peter said we must grow,
we must leave childish things
where they belong and stop being
simple in our approach to the
word of God and the life we
have received in the Holy Spirit.
When you read the Bible, please
read it as it is written and
move with the dispensational
changes contained in it.

There was a time there were
no mobile phones in Nigeria and
we go to our neighbor’s houses
to receive calls. Then mobile phones
came and that dispensation was gone.
Imagine someone still insists on using
that analog phone in your house every
Saturday even though the person has a
mobile phone simply because that was
what use to obtain.
We will usually consider such a
person to be out of tune with reality.
This is exactly how believers who argue
against praying in the Holy Spirit are
behaving. There used to be a way,
it was useful while it lasted
but a better way came.
There used to be Moses and
his law, that was a dispensation
Then the coming of Jesus and his
earthly life was another dispensation.
The Coming of the Holy Spirit
is another dispensation.

You cannot be in this era
of the Holy Spirit and insist
that you want to follow the
law of Moses or that you
only pray the Lord’s prayer.
How foolish is that?
Read Acts 10, Cornelius was praying,
an angel appeared to him and said
send for Peter, he will show you
the new way of doing things!
If Cornelius was told by the angel
that there is a new way and
he obeyed, why then are you
arguing that it is that old way
you will stick to?
Praying effectively is a by-product
of knowledge, read your Bible and grow!

-GSW-