Walk in the Spirit… not the flesh

 
A book called “Blame it on the Brain” explains the difference between the old self and the new creation and how doing anything in my own strength, no matter how good it looks, is sin. He explains the need to watch out for ‘self’ being my source and motivation. This OT prophet uses a vivid word picture to say the same thing:

Behold, all you who kindle a fire, who equip yourselves with burning torches! Walk by the light of your fire, and by the torches that you have kindled! This you have from my hand: you shall lie down in torment. (Isaiah 50:11)

This is a solemn warning to those who walk in darkness and yet who try to help themselves out into the light. It is also a warning to those who believe in Christ yet when in trouble, we try to find a way without relying on the Lord. If I try to find answers through other means or the advice of my friends, or any other sources that is a ‘fire of my own kindling’ then God might let me walk in the light of those sparks, but the end will be sorrow and torment.

Not only that, God uses trials to teach me lessons I need, so premature deliverance will block His work of grace in my life. I need to cease meddling with His plans lest I mar His work and know that it is better to walk in the dark with Him than walk alone in the tiny light I create.

Another way to describe my meddling with His plans: I can move the hands of a clock but the time does not change. I can try to mess with God’s will but cannot change it. I can open the bud of a flower, but my impatience only ruins the flower. I need to take my concerns to God and leave all to Him.

For example, I’ve struggled with prayer. The OT describes times of evil when God looked for prayer, but no one was praying:

Truth is lacking, and he who departs from evil makes himself a prey. The Lord saw it, and it displeased him that there was no justice. He saw that there was no man, and wondered that there was no one to intercede; then his own arm brought him salvation, and his righteousness upheld him. (Isaiah 59:15–16)

I’ve also felt great need as the news of the world and the situations closer to home pressed on my heart, but I had trouble going to prayer about them. For a long time, I tried to ‘kindle my own fire’ with prayer lists. They made me pray out of a sense of duty and my heart felt dry, thus prayer became spotty and often absent.

Then God showed me that worship and intercession go together. The one is impossible without the other. I was trying to pray rightly for the messes around me without first worshipping the One to whom I wanted to work out solutions. Praise reminded me that I am talking to Almighty God. He knows what to do, when to do it, and how to give peace and even joyful expectation to my heart and mind. It also helped me get to the mind of the Lord. Instead of telling him what I wanted or what I thought He should do, I began to pray things that surprised me as the words seemed to come from His heart instead of my head.
 
A reading this morning describes this progression of what happens when the focus is on Christ and my heart is living or abiding there. It goes like this: 1. “He that abides in Him sins not” 2. He that abides in Him, “the same brings forth much fruit.” 3. He that abides in Him “shall ask what he will and it shall be done unto him.”

PRAY: Oh Jesus, how true. When I quit trying to do anything apart from You, even praying, then life takes a drastic change. The fruit of the Spirit begins to appear, yet in abiding that is not my focus; it is always You, not what I am doing. And the answers to prayer are astonishing and surprisingly unpredictable. Life becomes an adventure. Instead of trying to make myself worthy, or do things ‘properly’ I am seeing You at work and filled with wonder at You.

Intercession

“All we can do is pray.”

I’ve said it, so have many other Christians. Yet we would agree that this is a disgraceful attitude, as if prayer is the last resort when it ought to be our constant way of life.

Prayer is many things; a conversation with God like conversations with others, sometimes an expression of love, a telling of events, a pleading for change, a request for help. One of the most challenging variations of prayer is that of intercession. In fact, the word is rare in the Bible, and those who pray that way seem as rare.

Truth is lacking, and he who departs from evil makes himself a prey. The Lord saw it, and it displeased him that there was no justice. He saw that there was no man, and wondered that there was no one to intercede; then his own arm brought him salvation, and his righteousness upheld him. (Isaiah 59:15–16)

No one to intercede. Chambers says the reason for no intercession is that we are “merely sentimentally interested” in prayer. I’m not sure about that, but I do agree when he says worship and intercession must go together because intercession means seeking the mind of Christ in my praying, coming to Him without any notion or opinion of how I think He should answer my prayers.

Prayer is laying hold of God, being in contact with His mind about the ones for whom I pray. That requires a deep and holy relationship with God. I cannot be insistent or dogmatic. I cannot think that I know what should be done. I must surrender entirely, in total trust. That is worship.

Worship presses me to abandon thoughts that my request is impossible, but it also presses me to abandon all of my own schemes of how He should answer. When I say, “Thy will be done” I must mean it with all my heart, and I cannot mean it unless I stop bringing a shopping list, and stop telling Him what to do. I have to believe that He hears, He knows, and He will answer. I cannot do that apart from an attitude of worship.

Chambers calls intercession ‘work’ and I agree. While I want a joyful conversation with God, intercession can leave me exhausted and emptied. This is because the intercession undertaken and exemplified by Jesus Christ involves talking with God, but it comes with a cost.

Therefore I will divide him a portion with the many, and he shall divide the spoil with the strong, because he poured out his soul to death and was numbered with the transgressors; yet he bore the sin of many, and makes intercession for the transgressors. (Isaiah 53:12)

When intercessors pray, we do not physically die for sinners, yet there is an abandoning of our own desires and a pouring out of our souls. We bear the weight of sin in the sense of it has driven us to this lonely kind of prayer.

Not only that, intercession is never finished. While sinners are saved through the power (and mystery) of prayer, the Prince of prayer reveals that this is a lifetime work . . .

Consequently, he is able to save to the uttermost those who draw near to God through him, since he always lives to make intercession for them. (Hebrews 7:25)

Yet intercession is also a blessing. Getting to the heart of God about how I should pray is ‘getting to the heart of God’ — and what could be more blessed than that? Further, the Spirit of God is right with me, acting as my interpreter so that my intercession is translated into the will of God before it reaches His throne.

Likewise the Spirit helps us in our weakness. For we do not know what to pray for as we ought, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with groanings too deep for words. And he who searches hearts knows what is the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for the saints according to the will of God. (Romans 8:26–27)

When God looks out on the world and sees the mess it is in, may He find many who are willing to intercede, to pray with a sense of awe in God, fully believing that He hears and answers and will do what is right.