I’ve been saving the best for last. I’m sure there are more items in those boxes that Christ has already bought and paid for that I don’t even realize yet. But, these last two are the ones I treasure the most.
An intimate, growing relationship with the Almighty God, a.k.a, Abba Father, or, Papa.
God created us for fellowship with Him. In the garden before the fall, He daily walked and talked with Adam and Eve. Could you just take a moment and picture that? Every evening, He came to take a walk with them through the garden!
And then, sin entered the world…..Adam and Eve could no longer be in His Presence, partly from shame, partly because His holiness could not stand to look on sin. I wonder, what did they do those first few evenings after the fall? God immediately took action to restore what had been lost. It is in the garden where we have the 1st prophecy of the coming of Christ. And, the only one spoken from the mouth of the Lord rather than through a prophet.
I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and her offspring; he shall bruise your head, and you shall bruise his heel. Gen. 3:15
God, in His infinite holiness could not look upon nor fellowship with sinful man. That sin, now stood in the way of an intimate, growing relationship with Him. So, He sacrificed His own Son, thereby getting sin out of the way and re-opening a means of fellowshipping with man. The symbolism of the veil in the temple being rent in two must never lose its significance. Until His death, ONLY the high priest could enter the Presence of the Almighty. He could only enter after He had filled the room with smoky incense. In this way, the high priest could not gaze upon His glory, which would result in his immediate death. They would even tie a rope onto his ankle that in the event he did see God in His glory and died, the others could pull him out.
Now, because of His death, anyone of us can enter His Presence whenever we want. We can live in His Presence. He wants to manifest His Presence to us. He wants to reveal Himself to us. Christ died so that we could fellowship with Him, know Him intimately, hear His voice regularly and live in His Presence! It’s bought and paid for! But, we need to pursue that relationship, invest in it just like we would any other vital relationship.
The privilege of prayer.
When that curtain was rent in two, and that relationship was opened once again, it also opened up a line of communication. In the OT, God spoke through prophets. There was one time that I wonder if things could have been different.
Now when all the people saw the thunder and the flashes of lightning and the sound of the trumpet and the mountain smoking, the people were afraid and trembled, and they stood far off and said to Moses, “You speak to us, and we will listen, but do not let God speak to us, lest we die.” Moses said to the people, “Do not fear, for God has come to test you, that the fear of him may be before you, that you may not sin.” The people stood far off, while Moses drew near to the thick darkness where God was.” Ex. 20:18-21
The remainder of their time in the wilderness, God never spoke to them again. He repeatedly put boundaries between Himself and His people. But, Moses drew near to God repeatedly. He often entered the cloud of His Presence. And Scripture tells us that God spoke to him as a man speaks to a friend.
Thus the Lord used to speak to Moses face to face, as a man speaks to his friend. Ex. 33:11
Is it possible that God would have spoken to every one of them as a friend? He did with Moses, and later He did with David. These two OT men developed a relationship with their Heavenly Father and spoke with Him, pouring out their hearts. And, we can too. Daily. Hourly. We can go as Moses did on numerous occasions, to intercede for those in sin. We can as Abraham did, to plead with God to withhold His wrath. We can as David did, crying out for protection from the enemy. All because of what Jesus did on the cross.
Yet we so often turn prayer into a discipline. I don’t know about you, but if my husband had to set his phone alarm to go off every day at a certain time to remind him to tell me he loved me or talk with me a few minutes, I wouldn’t be too impressed. I would seriously question his desire for communication. Yet, we’re ok with that when it comes to prayer.
Prayer is to be the primary activity of the church. A church without a prayer ministry is a church without any effective ministry because prayer is the ministry that supports all the others. Prayer is not meant to be a once-a-week meeting where we spend less time actually praying than anything else. Nor is it meant to be simply an opening and closing to our idea of important activity. It is to be the primary activity. Isaiah tells us,
“….my house shall be called a house of prayer for all peoples.” Is. 56:7b
Prayer is not a grocery list we hand to God vocally, then go on our way. Prayer is communication and communication is 2-way or it isn’t communication. In any conversation we are in, if one party does all the talking, we usually believe that party thinks they’re pretty important or at least, what they have to say is pretty important-more important than what the other(s) has to say anyway. What are we saying when our prayer life is filled with our talking and very little listening? Is that really communication?
He died so we could communicate directly with the Father! Let’s become a people of prayer. All the methods in the world are useless; all the books are of no effect; all the preaching we could do makes little impact…..if we are not praying.