The Grands Letter

Dear Grands,

Luke 11:1, “…’LORD, teach us to pray…”

There are several fundamentals we need to understand about prayer. First, all prayer that reaches the Father, reaches Him through Jesus Christ, and the Holy Spirit has already initiated all prayer that reaches the Father through Christ. Thus, the only prayer a lost person can pray to the Father that the Father hears and answers is the prayer: “God be merciful to me a sinner,” or a meaning to that effect. The prayer must come from a sincere and repentant heart.

When a lost person offers a prayer confessing sin, believing upon Jesus as the Father’s sacrifice for one’s own sin, the LORD saves that person by affecting the covering of his sin by the blood of Jesus Christ. Immediately, with the life cleansed of its sin, the Holy Spirit enters and takes up residency within the individual.

From that instant onward, the Holy Spirit is the Person who burdens the believer to pray. A believer’s burden is the Holy Spirit’s call to prayer. A believer, who is living outside the realm of the Father’s perfect will, hinders the divine power of the Spirit in the initiation of prayer and all else that is spiritually and righteously potential in the individual’s life.

Therefore, for you or me or anyone. true prayer is the outgrowth of a righteous life before the Father. Christian prayer is not a mantra that is repeated over and over and over again with the hope that what is requested will be given. In fact, Jesus seriously warned against “vain repetitions.”[1] Prayer may be and ought to be persistent. The Father wants to know that we’re serious about the things we bring before Him. But, being persistent in praying is quite different from empty and meaningless phrases that become mindlessly, continuously repeated.

Examine the multiple prayers in the Bible –prayers of Abraham, Isaac, Joseph, Elijah, David, Solomon, Daniel, Isaiah, Jeremiah, to name but a few. All of these men, while inherently sinful from Adam, were supported by righteous lives that led to their prayers being answered.

The Psalmist saw a connection between the incense on the Altar of Incense in the Tabernacle’s Holy Place and the prayers of those who loved and served the LORD. David wrote:

May my prayer be counted as incense before Thee; The lifting up of my hands as the evening offering (Psalm 141:2).

Another of the more interesting facets of prayer comes to us from the Book of Revelation. It is there that we learn from the Apostle John, who was caught up into Heaven, that true prayers are never lost to God.

And when He had taken the book, the four living creatures and the twenty-four elders fell down before the Lamb, having each one a harp, and golden bowls full of incense, which are the prayers of the saints (Revelation 5:8,

Indeed, the LORD hears all of the prayers of the righteous. Being initiated by the Holy Spirit, the Father answers with “Yes” or “Wait.” All petitions that lack the Holy Sprit’s impetus or initiation, the Father does not hear with the intent to respond. Such petitions result in a, “No,” from our perspective.

Many Biblical personalities received no divine response to their prayers. Careful examination reveals that where no response results, the character of the inquirer was out of step with the will of God, his Creator.

Do you pray? Is it the Holy Spirit who burdens you to pray? Are your prayers answered?

If they are, do you express thankfulness to the LORD? If they are not answered, have you looked to your life for the answer?

I am praying earnestly for you!

Heartily in Christ Jesus,

(Dado III)

Gene L. Jeffries, Th.D.

Springdale, Arkansas 72764

United States of America

“We never know that God is all we need

until He becomes all that we have.”

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[1] Mathew 6:7