The end of trying to define prayer

Pauline prayer is the literal "access channel" for producing peace and contentment independent of any of the circumstances of life.

“It’s designed to enhance your spiritual perception, and your spiritual character, so that regardless of the circumstances that come upon you, you’re able to function with stability, empowerment and effectiveness,” says Jordan.

“Pauline prayer is the vehicle for the release of the power of God’s Word in the details of life for a dispensational Bible Believer. It’s praying according to the principle of grace: ‘The only response grace will accept is the response of faith.’

“We internalize the truths of God through that energizing ministry of God the Holy Spirit—through His enlightening ministry—and Pauline prayer is the catalyst to accomplish that.

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“Prayer is to be CONSTANTLY talking to God about everything going on in your life, applying what His Word says. All of a sudden you’re making all of your life under this wonderful, intimate communion with a heavenly Father who loves you and desires you more than anything else.

“What He desires is that fellowship and active communion where you take what He says and bring it into your experience by walking by faith.

“Paul writes in II Thessalonians 3:1, ‘Finally, brethren, pray for us, that the word of the Lord may have free course, and be glorified, even as it is with you.’ He’s saying, ‘I want the Word of the Lord to be set free; run without obstacles, run without needing to stop. And to be glorified.’

“When you glorify something, you demonstrate how valuable it is; how much of a treasure it is, how important it is to you. How would you glorify the Lord Jesus Christ? How do you demonstrate in your life that you cherish Him--His wisdom, His thinking--more than anybody else?

“When you make decisions in life, whose opinion is the most valuable? You’re choosing HIS attitudes and having HIS actions. It’s, ‘I can’t live the life, but He gave me HIS life and that’s the life that’s going to count!’

“I Thessalonians 1:5 says, ‘For our gospel came not unto you in word only, but also in power, and in the Holy Ghost, and in much assurance; as ye know what manner of men we were among you for your sake.’

“The power is in the power of God. As I Thessalonians 2:13 says, ‘For this cause also thank we God without ceasing, because, when ye received the word of God which ye heard of us, ye received it not as the word of men, but as it is in truth, the word of God, which effectually worketh also in you that believe.’

“Jesus says, ‘The flesh profiteth nothing,’ meaning all of our wisdom, our resources, aren’t the issue. You got to start there! You never want to glory in yourself. Galatians 2:20 says, ‘I am crucified with Christ: nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me: and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave himself for me.’

“You’re constantly learning that, ‘It isn’t ME; it’s HIM!’ Jesus said, ‘The words that I speak unto you, they are spirit, and they are life.' The objective measure of the working of the Spirit of God in your life is, God’s Spirit wrote a Book and it’s the physical, tangible connection between Him and you.

"The words on the pages are the words of the Spirit, and when I believe that Word, and put my faith in it, it WORKS; it becomes energizing activity and LIFE.

"You never appropriate that into your experience until you need that. If you don't know it, you can't appropriate it. The need is, 'Not I, but Christ.' You're constantly learning that, ‘It isn't ME!’ You keep learning this at a deeper, different level; that's part of what maturity is all about!

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Here’s an outtake on prayer application from a recent study:

“Okay, Lord, I’m going to talk to you about these things going on in my life. I want to know what you think about them so I’m going to go to your Word and I’m going to rejoice and be grateful, motivated by ‘the love of Christ,’ and then I’m going to make requests.

“I’m going to say, ‘How do I take what your Word says and apply it to this particular situation?’ That’s what prayer is. Prayer is not bowing your head and talking to the Father and saying ‘Amen.’ If it was, I’d be . . . you ever tried to drive down the freeway with your head bowed? Try walking around the room like that.

“Prayer is you living in a CONSTANT consciousness of the fact that you live in communion with the Father in an unbroken, never-ending communion.

“You know why people like to think that if they sin, it breaks fellowship with God? Because they like to think they can do some things where God isn’t watching. You think about that.

“What if you realized every time you sin, God the Holy Spirit is right there with you? You took Him with you. I ask people to ask, ‘Lord, you like being here?’ That’s His hand. ‘You like doing that?’ Those are His eyes. ‘You like seeing that?’

“That will be a self-corrective measure almost immediately. That’s how maturity happens. I realize who I am. I’m a saint of the Most High God and my body is a temple of the Holy Spirit.  That means He’s living, functioning, going with me everywhere I go and my privilege is to be able to commune with Him constantly in my inner man, talking to Him.

“I ask Him, ‘What do you think about this?’ and get information from Him out of His Word and then apply the details I need. The result is the peace of God. Not peace with God but the peace of God.

“Paul says, ‘And the peace of God, which passeth all understanding, shall keep your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus.’ That heart and mind is that inner man. You see, He strengthens us in that inner man and it’s that application of the sound doctrine to the details of life.

“All of a sudden prayer isn’t this ritual I go through. It’s that constant communion and thinking. You learn to live in a consciousness of being in the presence of the fellowship with the Father ALL of the time, through His Son, and you learn to THINK that way.”