Learning from Prayers

Greetings to all my friends in the precious name of our Lord Jesus Christ! All the glory to my Lord and my Savior, Jesus Christ!

Learning from Prayers

Prayers are termed as communicating with God. In the Bible, we read that the personal prayers of a person should be behind closed doors, where only God’s eyes sees the praying man and only His ears hears the prayers (Mt.6:5-6). On the other hand, we see the Word of God presenting the personal prayers of a few persons very clearly for all mankind to read. Surely, the Holy Spirit who inspired the writers to record these personal prayers has a great intention to teach us through these great prayers of great men of God. Greatness of a prayer depends upon the humbleness, meekness and the brokenness of the heart from which they arise. Lets learn a few lessons from the prayer of Nehemiah, the builder from this article.

Neh.1: 4, ‘So it was, when I heard these words, that I sat down and wept, and mourned for many days; I was fasting and praying before the God of heaven.’ Here, we see Nehemiah’s heart being stirred up by the news of  the great affliction of the remnant, broken walls of Jerusalem and the gates burnt by fire. This was the first step of his prayer. Weeping, mourning and fasting were his first expressions of the stirred up heart. Later on words came out of his mouth which could be recorded by his own hands. Great prayers are often the out pour of great crushes and stirring within the heart. Great prayers expressed in words are often expressed simultaneously through wordless expressions of weeping, mourning and fasting.

Nehemiah sat down and wept, and mourned for many days. He humbled & examined himself in the presence of God. He mourned & repented over his own sins . He took enough time to do this. Though he had an important job of being a cup bearer to the king, he sought and found time to seek God’s face and to repent. Self examining & repentance is a time taking process. Its humbling of self, every bit of it, exposing every part of our thoughts and intentions in the light of the Holy God.  Only a prayerful person who truly fears the Lord sees the ugliness of hidden and masked up sins which so easily creep into our lives . Often, we never get time to pray but a heart willing to pray always finds time to pray. Repentance can never be rushed through and there’s no short cut for same.  Nehemiah wept and mourned for many days. He gave repentance and prayers the first priority and much time in his life.  All great prayers arise from self humbling and self repentance. Deeper is the repentance,  more powerful is the prayer.

Neh.1:5, ‘And I said: “I pray, Lord God of heaven, O great and awesome God, You who keep Your covenant and mercy with those who love You^[b] and observe Your^[c] commandments,..’  Great prayers often acknowledge who the Lord is. At times, as we get more involved in the things of the world, we tend to ignore or even forget the true identity of the Holy God. Hence, we easily compromise with sin and loose the sensitivity towards the responsibilites given by God. But repentance restores not only our relation with the Lord but also restores the realization of His greatness and holiness. Prayers from  repented hearts often acknowledge the awesome power and glory of the Lord.

Neh.1:6, ‘..please let Your ear be attentive and Your eyes open, that You may hear the prayer of Your servant which I pray before You now, day and night, for the children of Israel Your servants, and confess the sins of the children of Israel which we have sinned against You. Both my father’s house and I have sinned.’  Prayers attract the attention of the Lord. Nehemiah prayed for God’s attention towards his prayers, by confessing the sins of children of Israel. Sins are the only obstacle between God and men and repentance clears off these obstacles . Nehemiah confessed not only about the sinfulness of  his father’s  house, but also of he himself. We should never overlook our own sinfulness and point fingures at others.  The words in great prayers is never ‘he’, ‘she’ or ‘they’ when it comes to confession of sins. It’s always ‘I’ or ‘we’. It’s through the confession & washing away of our sins time and again by His  precious blood that turns the attention of divine ears to our prayers.

Neh.1:8^{, ‘}Remember, I pray, the word that You commanded Your servant Moses, saying, ‘If you are unfaithful, I will scatter you among the nations;…’  When repentance restores our relation with God, the Spirit of God reminds us of His Word, which  indwells within us. The Word of God leads us not only in our daily lives but also in our prayers. Nehemiah prayed God’s words and commandments and thus pleaded for His rich mercy accordingly. No words are more powerful than God’s own words. Nehemiah made his prayers stronger by quoting and pleading God’s own words .

Neh.1:10, ‘Now these are Your servants and Your people, whom You have redeemed by Your great power, and by Your strong hand.’ Nehemiah stressed on the fact that the people for whom he was interceding were redeemed by the Lord. He knew how the Lord had saved & stood for His people during the past.  They belonged to the Lord and so, God had a great reason to save them and protect them from the attacks of the enemies. Touching the redeemed ones was like touching the apple of the Lord’s eyes. Dear friends, God is merciful and hears the prayers of one and all. But when the redeemed ones pray, its not just His mercy, but His pleasure and His great purpose to hear and answer them.  Jesus paid the price to redeem us. Hence, we are no more slaves to sin, but set free to serve and obey Christ . If we sustain in the redemption, and then pray, He takes pleasure in answering  our prayers.

Neh.1:11, ^‘ O Lord, I pray, please let Your ear be attentive to the prayer of Your servant, and to the prayer of Your servants who desire to fear Your name; and let Your servant prosper this day, I pray, and grant him mercy in the sight of this man.” Nehemiah prayed to God for mercy from the king. He could have used attractive words or taken worldly efforts to please the king for whom he worked daily. But he did not do that. Instead he trusted the Lord. Blessed is the man whose trust is in God and only in God. A man who kneels before God need not kneel before any man. When our relation with God is restored, even the decisions of kings and authorities turn favorable to God’s plans and purposes.

The remaining part of this book is the outcome of the prayers Nehemiah prayed. There was none with whom he could share his burden or pray with. He prayed all alone. He took every step after praying and hence he never failed. It takes one prayerful person to write volumes of books on God’s glorious work. Nehemiah’s prayer turned out to be great for the Lord who answered him is great.  His prayer was rich for his heart was filled with  repentance, humbleness and deep trust in God. His prayer was gracious for the outcome of his prayers glorified only the Lord’s name.

God gave us the grace to step into this new year. Let it be with a new mission to pray more than we prayed last year. Lets learn from the prayers of men and women of God in the Bible. And let our growing prayers draw us closer to the Lord and draw many lost souls into His kingdom. Nehemiah’s prayers was prayer of re-commitment, restoration and rebuilding. As we see the body of Christ today loosing ground on commitment, relation with God and protection from the evil ones, lets move forward to re-commit ourselves for growing prayers, restore our intimate relation with the Lord and thus move into His growing presence in our lives, which is the only protection from the evil one.

God bless us all

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