Maturity in Prayer Life

Set Apart Ministries Members Group Discussion

Listen in as SAM members describe our process of coming together in community and in learning about personal and corporate maturity in our prayer lives.

This project was completed a number of years ago, before we saw that it would be one of three foundational pieces of what we are to share with other Believers. We believe that our prayer lives are an essential part of our succes in walking on the path of righteousness so we include this project as an introduction to how we incorporate this understanding with the Life Model^TM materials in our community.

Since corporate righteousness is so directly dependent on personal righteousness, we want to encourage every one to invest their heart, their minds and souls in prayerful relationship with our Abba through His Son, our Messiah, Yeshua.

Oswald Chambers recognized this truth and spoke of it, later recorded by his wife in the book, My Utmost for His Highest.

The Worker's Ruling Passion

"Wherefore we labour that . . we may be accepted of Him." 2 Corinthians 5:9

"Wherefore we labour . . . ." It is arduous work to keep the master ambition in front. It means holding one's self to the high ideal year in and year out, not being ambitious to win souls or to establish churches or to have revivals, but being ambitious only to be "accepted of Him." It is not lack of spiritual experience that leads to failure, but lack of labouring to keep the ideal right. Once a week at least take stock before God and see whether you are keeping your life up to the standard He wishes. Paul is like a musician who does not heed the approval of the audience if he can catch the look of approval from his Master.

Any ambition which is in the tiniest degree away from this central one of being "approved unto God" may end in our being castaways. Learn to discern where the ambition leads, and you will see why it is so necessary to live facing the Lord Jesus Christ. Paul says - "Lest my body should make me take another line, I am constantly watching so that I may bring it into subjection and keep it under." (1 Cor. 9:27.)

I have to learn to relate everything to the master ambition, and to maintain it without any cessation. My worth to God in public is what I am in private. Is my master ambition to please Him and be acceptable to Him, or is it something less, no matter how noble?

Taken from My Utmost for His Highest by Oswald Chambers. (c) l935 by Dodd Mead & Co., renewed (c) 1963 by the Oswald Chambers Publications Assn., Ltd., and is used by permission of Discovery House Publishers, Box 3566, Grand Rapids MI 4950l. All rights reserved.

In complimentary fashion, so does corporate righteousness impact the personal righteousness of each member of the community. We can be of encouragement to others by our faithfulness in how we live. We can also be a source of subtle or blatant discouragement as well.

Our prayer and hope is that this discussion will encourage our listeners as they recognize where they are in their prayer lives and re-double their focus on growing up in every way into Messiah Who is our Head.

We hope that this information will be a helpful blessing to all who listen and want it to be available to all who are in need.

How This Project Came About

Several years ago, during an intercessory prayer time, YHWH impressed several things on us:

• that we do need to be aware of our growth and relationship with Him as we pray.
• that there is a connection with how we pray and what stage of maturity we are in.
• that we do need to stand firm in the authority and position He has drawn us to as we pray, not abdicating our confidence as we present ourselves before Him.

Have you seen as we have that it seems so easy for corporate prayer times to fall into a litany of supplications mostly for those who are ill? It is most certainly not wrong to pray for His healing yet these prayers are so much more socially "acceptable" than addressing other matters. Do you find yourself editing what you might pray in someone else's hearing rather than pouring out your heart? At the same time, can you see that there IS a difference between how we pray in our own prayer closets and how we join together in prayer?

It wouldn't be helpful to expect a child to pray in adult maturity and understanding, and sometimes we need to remember that a person may be chronologically an adult, but still a child in maturity.

Coming to Messiah with the faith of a child has to do with humility and understanding of our position in relationship to Him, but does not mean that we do not seek to grow in that understanding.

There are indeed many challenges as we grow in our prayer life, but perhaps the most daunting prospect we saw as we discussed how this maturity process seems to flow is moving from being at His feet as His bond servant, yet also receiving His Hand and moving into our role as His Bride. More to come on that another time!