“How To Walk With God”
Session Five
Part C
By Nita Johnson
NOLA Revival Services June, 2011
From last week:
He loves to reveal Himself to His people. I can remember in the early years of walking with the Lord I loved to be called to intercession because every time He gave me a new assignment, I automatically got to know more about Him. I got to know about the way He loves and thinks about people and circumstances etc. He would show me people I had never met. Once He showed me a woman sitting at a kitchen table and she had been drinking. She looked so sad and I said to Him: What is wrong with this woman? He said: She is an alcoholic and she is an alcoholic because her heart was broken a long time ago, but I want to save her. Will you pray for her? As I began to pray for her, I could feel her brokenness and the losses she had incurred in life until she was so hopeless she turned to drinking. I prayed and prayed for her until the Lord said: You have done well; I can now break this off her and bring her to Me. So, what did I learn? I learned His compassion and mercy. I learned how He loves the failing heart. He does not sit in judgment of those who fail; He loves them tenderly and longs to draw them near.
I can remember a time I was praying for someone. I knew some of the things they were currently going through, so I was praying they would let things go and draw near to God. Suddenly I found myself before the Lord’s throne and in front of us was the person I was praying for; she was rolling in agony clutching her gut as if she had just been beaten. I was confused and the Lord told me this was guilt. He said: She cannot forgive herself for her failures and it is causing this kind of pain in her soul. Pray that she will allow herself the privilege of forgiveness so I can heal her and bring her to Me. As I began to pray, so did He. We were both weeping over her so tenderly and compassionately. This person was in all kinds of sin, but the sin they were in was out of guilt and if they could give themselves the privilege of forgiveness, He could restore them and bring them out from a life of sin.
It is so amazing why we do some of the things we do. I think it is awesome that I learn more about the nature and character of Christ through intercession than in any other way. When He brought me to the place of interceding for nations I realized that I was learning so much about His character, but unless He continuously expands you, you cannot carry it all. He is so big in His love and long-suffering and all the intricate ways of His carefulness. He knows why nations go up and down and why we do wrong or good—He understands it all, so much more than we do. However, when you start to intercede for nations you have to grow a lot to understand all these wonderful things about His character. Prayer binds you to Him; it opens up the mind of God to you. It opens up the strategies and the ways of His nature, character, plans and purposes. You think, why do I have to say a thousand prayers to get it answered? While the Lord knows when He will answer it, what it will take to answer it, and that He is so proud we are still praying.
Us: Show me Your ways Lord, teach me Your ways.
Lord: I am trying.
He is trying, but we become impatient. We forget that every time we pray we invite Him to be our teacher and we are also seeking the knowledge of His face and ways and He is trying to help us understand. How wonderful it is, but if you do not pray then you do not get to know—you just get to hear what someone else says, and you miss the very important bonding that takes place.
Let’s be honest. What is more important: that you get your prayer answered or that you know God? If the answer is to know God, then keep telling yourself that when discouragement tries to set in. Leonard Ravenhill said he prayed for revival in America every day for fifty years and it never happened while he was alive. So, what is more important: getting your prayer answered or knowing God? In answering your prayer and teaching you how to pray, you come to know Him. God will answer every prayer that needs to be answered, strengthening and transforming you in the process—drawing you closer to Him that you understand more about Him.
I can remember He assigned to me a pastor and said: I want you to pray for this pastor because he is going to lose his ministry because he is going to fall into sin. I prayed and prayed for this man for years as I watch him slide deeper into the pit thinking, “Lord, you have got to save this man from this pit he is getting himself into.” The Lord showed me all kinds of revelations and for the first six or seven years I thought that if God were just long-suffering enough, He would pull this guy through. But, after that period of time I was thinking: You need to keep me long suffering, Lord! I learned You are far more long-suffering than I. I learned something about God and how patient and long-suffering He is while the people we are praying for learn His ways and learn to hate their own. So, what do you want: your prayers answered, or to know God?
Sometimes it seems like your prayer is never going to be answered by Him. Things seem to get worse the harder you pray. God is teaching you not only patience and long-suffering, but how He goes about delivering the one you are praying for. He is teaching you His wisdom, faith, faithfulness, love and compassion. Do not run from the prayer closet to the person you are praying for and say: If you would just get it right, God would answer my prayer! He is teaching you about the power of prayer.
One man tells of his best friend; he prayed for his salvation for sixty years while he was in a foreign country. His friend got saved just days before he went on to be with the Lord. Sixty years! He is teaching you truth, faithfulness, how important the soul is and how important it is to be responsive to the Holy Spirit and available for prayer when He needs you to be. He is ever praying. Is that not what the Bible teaches us? He is ever before the Father in intercession for you and me.
One time, I was praying for a person who just sinned. I am not sure why I thought God would not forgive, but, I was feverish with anxiety and experiencing an extremely difficult time, suddenly found myself in heaven. I saw the Father on the throne and Jesus had grabbed the horns of the altar; praying, weeping and travailing for the person who had just sinned. Finally He stood up and said: Father I must present myself to You on behalf of this person. Yes, they just sinned, but remember—I went to the cross and My blood covers this sin. The Father said: I remember Son and they are forgiven. That person had not even yet asked for forgiveness, but because of the intercession Jesus had gone through, the Father granted it, forgiveness was given. The person was restored and then asked for forgiveness.
Do you see the ways of God? He is marvelous in His workings and wonderful in His ways. Intercession will help you understand the author of the Word. What you are praying about or even how you are praying does not matter, because either way, every time you pray, grace comes into you from the throne of God. This builds you up and strengthens you in righteousness and enables you to stand against the wiles of the enemy. The more you pray, the stronger you get against sin and the more you grow to hate sin—until you cannot bear it. You fear what it will do to your soul and it hurts you to think you would hurt the Father. You are now becoming a little more like Jesus. The Bible says: How can two walk together except they be agreed? How can you walk with Him if you do not know Him? Become a person of prayer and He will begin to own you.
One pastor was talking to another pastor. The first pastor said: So, how much of the time do you run around doing what the Lord told you to do? The second pastor said: Well, God does not tell me what to do too much, maybe four times in my whole life. (I can’t help but think: four times in your whole life and you are a pastor? How is it that God could only talk to you four times in your whole life?) The worst thing was that the senior pastor said: Now that sounds more realistic. We wonder why the Church is in trouble. The Church is in trouble because leaders have been taught wrong and they think they are doing right. On the other hand there are pastors and other Christians who think if they took the garbage outside, then the Lord told them to do that—so there are two extremes right?
It tempers with time, so the more we pray, the more we learn how to walk in His ways which brings us closer to walking with Him. If two are agreed, they can walk together…
In His Amazing Love,
Nita Johnson
