David Diga Hernandez - The Privilege of Prayer

Every true believer desires to establish a prayer life; every true believer will do all they can to seek God on a daily basis. Now, when you become one who commits to prayer, when you become one who commits yourself to knowing God through that prayerful daily visitation with Him, then you will find—and I don’t mean to sound negative—that you will often fail. In fact, I’m here to say—and again, I’m not trying to be negative—that you will fail from time to time. Now, this is where the battle begins in the mind, because when you miss yesterday’s appointment for prayer, sometimes you imagine that when you go to pray today, God is standing over you with His arms folded, looking down at you, angry and disappointed that you missed yesterday’s appointment. But that’s not the case. When you finally go to pray again, God is not looking at you and asking where you were yesterday. God is not looking at you and reminding you of the mistakes you made the day before. God is just happy to see you seeking Him again. Now, many times we’ll find that momentum in prayer. Maybe you’ll go a week; maybe you’ll go a month where daily you’re seeking the Lord and making contact with His glory. You’re growing spiritually, and you’re seeing all of these things develop in your character that are more Christ-like, and then all of a sudden it seems that maybe life’s concerns take you in another direction, or maybe distraction pulls for your attention, or maybe the weight of some responsibility crushes out the inspiration from that momentum. And it’s in that place that you have to remember that guilt is different from conviction. Conviction draws you closer to God; guilt pushes you away in shame. Don’t allow yourself to miss today’s appointment because of the guilt of missing yesterday’s appointment. Don’t miss what God has for you today in prayer because you’re so consumed by how you messed up by missing yesterday’s prayer session. This is important because we do that back and forth as we grow. We do that thing where we take two steps forward and one step back—sometimes three steps forward, five steps back—but as you pursue God and as you work to develop—and it is a discipline—as you work to develop this prayer life, as you work to establish that faithful prayer life where you’re making daily contact with the Lord, you will face these battles. Now, prayer is not just some obligation that we must fulfill; prayer is not just some burden that God has placed on us that we have to fulfill; otherwise, we will anger Him. Prayer is not an obligation; it’s an opportunity. It’s an opportunity to connect with God; it’s an opportunity to know His mind, His heart, His nature, His power, His will. It’s an opportunity to truly go into the depths of the Spirit and be transformed by the presence and power of the Holy Spirit, but we must commit to pray. Now, there are times when you will sense this, how shall I say, desire or hunger that causes you to pray, and then there are days—I’m just going to be honest with you—there will be days when you do not feel like praying. There will be days when you do not feel what I described as a spiritual momentum, and this is why I want to keep you connected to this truth, and I want you to keep this truth in your mind. I want you to remind yourself of this truth: daily prayer is a privilege. Do you realize that only the Spirit-filled can truly pray? Yes, every earthly being, or every human being who is mindful of their own existence can communicate from the earthly realm to the heavenly realm, but it’s different. You see, people, when they find themselves in trouble, will pray. We recognize that people in the occult pray to demonic powers. We realize that even atheists, when they find themselves in particularly scary situations, suddenly begin to pray. But there is a difference between praying from your mind, praying from your emotions, and praying from your spirit. There is a difference between praying as the unredeemed—and I don’t mean to dehumanize them; I simply mean that there is a difference. There is a difference between praying as an unredeemed individual and as a redeemed individual. You see, when we pray, the believer prays; we have God’s attention. When we pray, we have an audience with Him. The prayer that God hears from the wicked is that prayer of repentance, but until then God is not by any means obligated to listen to them. But because we are His children, He has committed Himself to hearing the cries of our hearts. It truly is a privilege to pray. Now, in the Old Testament, we see the tabernacle, and the tabernacle was the place that held the presence of God for the children of Israel; it was their means to connect with God. Now, the tabernacle was constructed in three parts: there was the outer court, the inner court, and the most holy place. Without going into too much detail, I will explain this one truth to you: the most holy place was the place where the glory of God dwelt. It was in the Ark of the Covenant—I should say on the Ark of the Covenant—that the glory of God would hover, and the presence of God would follow the children of Israel as they moved about. The Ark of the Covenant, as I said, was stored in the most holy place. Now, in order to commune with God, in order to connect with God, in order to speak with Him, they had to use the…