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No Easy Way To Pray
By David Yonggi Cho
(Senior Pastor Yoido Full Gospel Church Seoul, Korea)
It is very hard to get a big crowd to sit down and pray for one hour. If you don't know how to lead people, then after people pray for 15-20 minutes, they won't pray anymore. They become jittery and stand up and leave. To keep people praying for hours and hours, you must know how to lead them to pray for hours.
God has shown me many ways of prayer. For example: The Temple prayer, The Lord's prayer, The Tabernacle prayer, The Praise Prayer, and Prayer at random. If you don't develop a real method of prayer, then you yourself are unable to pray more than 30 minutes. If you just pray causally, then after a little while you become tired and can't think of anything else to pray about.
Before I taught the prayer methods, I took the brethren who came from foreign countries to the C.G.I. Conference, to Prayer Mountain and said to them, "Let us pray for one hour beginning now." After about 20 minutes of novelty praying, they would sit down on the ground and repeat the word "Hallelujah! Hallelujah! Hallelujah!" That was all. This is not real praying This is the reason I want to teach you how to pray more than one hour.
We should pray at least one hour. On the mount of Gethsemane when Jesus came to His disciple, they were asleep. He said, "Can't you stay awake one hour and pray with Me? Pray so that you will not fall into temptation." The least time of prayer that you need to pray in order to conquer the devil is to pray for one hour. Personally, when I pray for a while, then look at my watch, I see that I have been praying for one hour. When I have prayed for one hour. Something "clicks", and I break the barrier and enter into the spiritual realm.
For one hour I am fighting in my spirit. I try to concentrate, but my flesh fights me. The devil fights me. So, I have to fight back. After one hour I feel something click and feel so powerful in my praying. This always happens after one hour of praying. I am now able to go beyond the barrier of the hindrances of Satan. Every day we need to pray more than hour. I will tell you how to pray at least one hour and how to lead your people to pray more than one hour. This is very important and meaningful. Many people have asked me why I pray so much. Throughout every day I pray, but make definite times of prayer:
ONE HOUR IN THE MORNING
ONE HOUR IN THE AFTERNOON
ONE HOUR IN THE EVENING
I make it a point to pray three times a day. When I go out on evangelistic tours, then I always spend the afternoon in prayer. After lunch I do not have any engagement, I stay in my hotel and pray three to five hours. So, when people ask me why I pray so much, I respond in this way.
I PRAY BECAUSE GOD WANTS ME TO.God has a great need in Himself. God is the Almighty God, but still God is love. Love has a desire to have fellowship. When you love your husband or wife, you should have fellowship together. You should like to talk with each other. But when love cools off, then you don't want to talk with one another. That is the measure of your love. When you love your friend a lot, then you want to have fellowship with your friend. My best friend in Korea is a Baptist minister named Billy Kim. He and I are, very, very good friends. That is the reason we want to have fellowship. We call one another every day and discuss politics, churches, etc. We are always helping each other.
God is the Almighty God, the eternal God, so He has eternal love. That love is a bottomless desire to have fellowship. He only created you and me so that we could have fellowship with Him. God Himself does not need anything except fellowship. He has a great need to have fellowship with us. Many times we Christians are so busy doing God's work that we have no time to have fellowship with him. Ministry unto the Lord must come before ministry unto the people. You must serve God first, and afterwards serve the people. When I was a young married man, I was always arguing with my wife about this point, I would come home from evangelistic meetings really tired and would always want to talk with my wife to relieve my tension. But, she would be busy cleaning the kitchen, doing the laundry, or other household chores. I would say, "Honey, let's talk, Let's have fellowship." She answered, "You go on ahead and sleep. I have so many things to do in the kitchen that I must get done."
One day I really exploded. I said, "What is more important to you: ME OR YOUR WORK?" She became angry and said, "I am doing all of these things for you. This is Your work ....cleaning the house, taking care of the children. Why are you harassing me about it?" I said, "I don't need my work. Leave it. Leave the laundry piled up. Don't clean the kitchen. I want you to take care of me first, not my work. I need fellowship with you. I am tired and feel empty in my heart. I pour out my heart all day long to others. I need you now. I need your fellowship. I need prayer together with you, Bible study with you, but you are always so heavily involved in household chores and leave me alone. I will not come home any more. I would rather sleep in the church. Why should I come home if I can't have fellowship with you?"
Throughout our young married life, she could not understand this fact. Now that our children have all left home, and we are left alone, she is always the one who wants me to have fellowship with her, but I answer her, " Honey, I am very busy. I have to do this or that. You go ahead and sleep while I finish my work." She responded in this way, "Why do you leave me alone so much? Why did you marry me? When I tell her I am busy, she said, "Am I not first in your life?"
Situations are like that. Even in marriage, you must put your partner first. If you put your work first and your partner second, then the fellowship will be broken and things will happen in a bad way. Likewise in God's work we are very busy. We have this prayer meeting, or that Bible study, or this teachers,' meeting, or that counseling meeting, and we should visit homes. Consequently, we are so busy that we have no time to pray to the lord, We just say, "Father, I am so busy because of Your work that I have no time to talk with you." God is grieved at these kinds of situations. You must take the time to pray to the Lord, even though you neglect the work of God. It is essential that you first serve God in prayer.
In 1964, when I had 3,000 members, people were requiring so much of my time. They wanted me to give even more time to counseling, more time to prayer and more time for visitation. Therefore I had no time to pray before the Lord. I had no time to read the scripture, meditate upon it, and talk to God. I was at a crossroads. Should I serve the people ahead of God, or should I sacrifice the people and serve God first?
As I considered the situation very carefully, I decided to put God first. I would take time enough to serve God first. Many people questioned me saying, "If you don't take care of us and give us more time, we are going to leave your church." I said, "Go ahead and leave because I am called to serve God first, then you. I have never been called to serve people first. If you want to leave, go ahead."
So, I took enough time to study, pray and meditate. After satisfying God, then I would serve the people. What power I had in my life because of my decision to put God's need first. Rather than leave my church, these people brought others to the church because I ministered to them with the power of God. I was not ministering to them with human power. If you have power with God, naturally you will have power with the people. Take ample time to serve God. In the Antioch church, Paul, Barnabas and others were fasting, praying and serving the lord, not serving the people. The Bible says so clearly that they were serving the lord. Then the Holy Spirit said, "Choose Paul and Barnabas for My work." When you really serve God, then you are going to hear God's words.
whoo~ another awesome article by Dr Cho. Yes, its not easy. but lets us really PRAY PRAY PRAY for a greater breakthru! as we pray for one hour, we will break the barrier and enter into the spiritual realm. so keep on n keeping on! :]Go n399! love, von:]
Labels: prayer really works
4:13 AM, & i live by faith and not by sight for you
