Seven Prayer Realities

 One workbook that has profoundly impacted my spiritual life and everything I write about is Experiencing God: Knowing and Doing the Will of God by Henry T. Blackaby and Claude V. King. In their workbook they describe how we experience God. The authors call them seven realities, which I have quoted here.

“1. God is always at work around you.

2. God pursues a continuing love relationship with you that is real and personal.

3. God invites you to become involved with Him in His work.

4. God speaks by the Holy Spirit through the Bible, prayer, circumstances, and the church to reveal Himself, His purposes, and His ways.

5. God’s invitation for you to work with Him always leads you to a crisis of belief that requires faith and action.

6. You must make major adjustments in your life to join God in what He is doing.

7. You come to know God by experience as you obey Him and He accomplishes His work through you.

Seven Prayer Realities

Based on the seven realities for Experiencing God, here are those realities adapted to the Spirit’s role in prayer:

1. The indwelling Spirit is always working in us, revealing how God is at work around us, and impressing upon our hearts how we should pray about God’s work.

2. The Spirit seeks an ongoing personal relationship with us. He pursues a relationship with us through prayer and at any other time He so chooses. He impresses needs upon our hearts and prompts us to intercede for the people concerned. His Spirit also moves us into action on behalf of the needs of others.

3.  On a momentary and ongoing basis, the Spirit calls us to serve God and to pray that we will do so according to His will and purposes.

4. The Spirit speaks to us and reveals God’s promises and purposes to us through the Bible, circumstances, people, prayer, and worship. He is continually showing us Himself, His ways and desires, and how and what we should pray and do in response to His leadings. 

5. Anytime, day or night, the Spirit may call us to minister to others, prompt us to pray, and serve Christ in a specific way. This often causes spiritual conflict and a crisis of faith as we struggle between choosing to obey or not.

The Spirit daily calls us to serve Christ in small and large ways and according to His will and purposes. This call to service requires obedience and action. The Spirit may prompt us to call or visit someone now. We must choose between obeying Him or refusing because we don’t want to do as God desires at that moment.

6.  By prayer and the Spirit’s promptings, He helps us make major and necessary adjustments in order to become a part of what God is doing and how He desires to work in and through us.

7. The Spirit reveals Christ to us, who we come to know by experience as we pray, read Gods Word, do His will, and see Him accomplish His will and purposes in and through us.

The Spirit is our Counselor who personally gives us wisdom and guides us as we pray. He leads us in the right direction on straight paths. He watches over us, advising and counseling us along the way. (Prov. 4:11; Ps. 32:8).

 “God reveals His purposes to us so we can join Him in prayer for the kingdom of God.  He reveals Himself to us through prayer because He loves us and desires to draw us into an intimate love relationship with Him” (Blackaby, 81).