If the recent spiritual state of the modern-day church has proven anything, it’s that the old path, which it has chosen to discard in lieu of more exciting, newly forged goat tracks, isn’t just superior to anything our contemporary luminaries can come up with, but it still remains the only true path that will lead to our desired destination. Jesus said He is the way, and it remains as true today as it was two thousand years ago when He uttered the words.
My purpose in this writing isn’t to reimagine one’s
relationship with God or bring new revelation, but to bring to mind what the
Word of God says regarding such indispensable practices as prayer, so that we
might endeavor to return to the purity, simplicity, and functionality of true
worship.
Nothing I write should be new to anyone who’s been walking
with the Lord for any length of time, but a refresher, a reminder, that doing
the simple things consistently is what has worked since the early church and
beyond.
A life of prayer isn’t bombastic or showy, but the inner
strength that consistent prayer produces is so vast and deep that one can tap
into it whenever the need arises without having to wonder if it’s available.
We must be able to distinguish between genuine strength and
chemically enhanced show muscle. The two are not the same, and when true
strength is required, the show muscles will fall short every time. We’ve gone
from men and women of God walking in His authority, whom the enemy knows by
name and is weary of, to a gaggle of entertainers trying to outdo each other
with ever more elaborate stage productions that do nothing to fuel the
spiritual man to greater heights of power.
If entertainment is what you’re after, then by all means,
seek out the closest guy prancing on stage, throwing his coat at people, and
punching cancer patients in the gut. If true strength is what you seek, then
there is no alternative to spending time with God, in prayer, consistently and
unwaveringly.
By nature of being in fellowship with God, prayer is a
transformative experience. Prayer changes you. It transforms you. If you are earnestly
carving out time to be in His presence, with every encounter, your spiritual
man becomes all the stronger, your perception becomes all the clearer, and your
ability to know His voice becomes all the more refined.
The more you press in and beseech God with prayers and
supplications, the more time you will want to spend with Him. Back in the day,
before the kids, when I still had what some call downtime and actually turned
on the television once in a while, there was a commercial for a potato chip
making the rounds, and its tagline was that you couldn’t eat just one. Once you
pop, you can’t stop, and the way they spun the narrative, it was supposed to be
a good thing. It was for their bottom line, but likely not so for anyone’s waistline.
The same can be said for the pursuit of a life of prayer, although when it
comes to spending time in prayer, there is no downside. Once you begin to seek
the face of God in earnest and desire to have fellowship with Him, the desire
for more of it will only grow, becoming near to compulsory, having known what it
is to feel His presence, and know that He is there.
As such, qualitative prayer will inevitably stir within us a desire
for more quantitative ones. There is no muscle fatigue associated with prayer.
If you have no clue what I’m referring to, muscle fatigue is the principle that
you can overwork a muscle to the point that the exercise is no longer
beneficial but detrimental to one’s development. There’s no such thing as
praying too much or too long. There’s no hard stop at thirty minutes or three
hours from which point you get diminishing rates of return for the time you put
in.
Lamentations 3:22-24, “Through the Lord’s mercies we are not
consumed, because His compassions fail not. They are new every morning; great is
Your faithfulness. ‘The Lord is my portion,’ says my soul, ‘Therefore I hope in
Him!’”
God’s mercies do not run out. He is not Santa Claus, discovering
he’s reached the bottom of his goody bag, and there’s nothing left but a pair
of socks that look suspiciously similar to the ones your mom bought for your
dad on his birthday. They are new every morning, and every time you come before
Him, you will know the refreshing that comes with spending time in His presence,
a refreshing that does not grow stale or diminish over time, but that is
vibrant and full of life with each iteration.
When I first bought it, my cell phone would hold a charge for
a couple of days. I don’t use it much to begin with, nor have I increased my screen
time, yet a few years in, if I don’t charge it every couple of hours, the
battery dies. It is not so when it comes to what we experience in prayer. You
don’t feel less of God with each passing day; you feel more of Him. Your
strength is not more readily depleted, but grows exponentially as you continue
building the bond of faith, trust, obedience, and submission.
Prayer is not a fad. It’s not something that’s here today and
gone tomorrow. It is the foundation and support structure for both faith and
the relationship we, as His children, must have with God, our Father. While the
Scriptures are how He speaks to us corporately, prayer is how we communicate
with Him and how He communicates with us on a personal, one-on-one level.
There is one caveat that needs mentioning, given the recent
spate of unbiblical revelation by individuals who insist we should trust them
over the written Word, and that is that God will never contradict His Word. He
is not double-minded, He is not flighty, and He will never give an individual
message that contravenes, or stands in stark opposition to Scripture itself.
Yes, there are those who speak when God has not spoken. There
are those who go that God has not sent. Whenever you encounter an individual who
places themselves above the authority of Scripture, insisting they should be
believed over what the Bible says, they are not to be placated, indulged, or
humored, but wholly rejected and given a wide berth.
With love in Christ,
Michael Boldea, Jr.
Posted on 4 June 2025 | 11:13 am
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