Keep the Pressure On

Jesus explained regarding prayer:

“Then He spoke a parable to them, that men always ought to pray and not lose heart.”

Luke 18: 1

So, we are called to pray always and not lose heart. It is therefore necessary that we understand how to pray, and we must be committed to a life of prayer. Sadly, for most people, they have a religious opinion of prayer, which is a painful and boring experience. But prayer, real prayer, is a living relationship.

If you are in a relationship and your fellowship time is painful and boring, then you need to repent and address issues. A healthy relationship requires genuine fellowship, and the more genuine that fellowship, the deeper the relationship. If there are areas off limits, then it will impact the depth of your relationship.

In the Secret Place, we must be vulnerable to the Lord and give Him full access to every part of our lives. This is part of the commitment to prayer. We think of prayer time as us constantly speaking to the Lord. But the best communicators understand they must focus on active listening and listening more than they talk. So, do we give the Lord a word in edgewise?

If we are to pray correctly and pray His perfect will, it would behoove us to take time to listen. Jesus spent a lot of time praying, and He also said:

“I speak what I have seen WITH My Father…”

John 8: 38

Did you catch that? As He spent time with the Father, Jesus watched and listened to hear the Father. His prayer life enabled His effective ministry life. If it was necessary for Jesus, then how essential is it for us?

Part of prayer is all about listening and watching to hear from Heaven. The Lord will impregnate us with fresh vision and strategies. But there is still more to our prayer life. We typically think of prayer as simply asking the Lord for what we want or need. Well, as we can see, the Lord will guide us and impart to us precisely what we are to ask so that we receive. But there is still more, and we must understand the stages of prayer so that we keep the pressure on.

Building upon this commitment to prayer, one of the most important things to do is keep the pressure on and don’t take your foot off the pedal. How do we do this? When you pray, there are stages to your prayer:

• Ploughing up the field
• Preparing the Field
• Sowing the Seed
• Tending the Field
• Watering the Seed
• Harvesting

It is critical that we understand each stage and don’t quit too early. I don’t know how many times the Lord has spoken to me and said, “You were this close to your breakthrough, and you quit.” Well, I struggled trying to understand what I was doing wrong. The problem was that I didn’t understand prayer and its stages.

Many quit early and fail to pray through every stage. When we are praying, we can know or sense the release that our prayer has been answered, but this is not the time to quit. We must shift and turn to worship as well as listen to His voice, and if He calls to pray about something else.

“To you it has been given to know the mysteries of the kingdom of God, but to the rest it is given in parables, that ‘seeing they may not see, and hearing they may not understand.”

Luke 8: 10

Jesus is about to explain the Parable of the Sower, but before He does, He makes this strange statement. In John’s Gospel, chapter 12, we see a reference to the above statement, and then Jesus explains:

“And if anyone hears My Word and does not believe…”

John 12: 47

In other words, Jesus explained that there are those who hear exactly what Jesus said and know what He meant but refuse to believe. It is these people who hear and understand and refuse to believe what Jesus was talking about in Luke 8 as well.

“…for assuredly, I say to you that many prophets and righteous men desired to see what you see, and did not see it, and to hear what you hear, and did not hear it. Therefore HEAR the parable of the sower. When anyone HEARS the Word of the kingdom, and does not understand it….”

Matthew 13: 17- 19a

If you follow the Parable of the Sower in all cases, the seed was sown and the problem was either no work was done to prepare the soil for the seed, or nothing was done to protect the seed, that is, tending the field and watering it. There is a time gap, and during the time gap, the enemy, the world, and our flesh will create problems that can hinder or destroy the harvest.

We read here that the first problem was that they did not understand. Why didn’t they understand? We are told these are the ones by the side of the road, well-traveled. They were assimilated into the ways and thinking of the world. Many backsliders find themselves in this place. It is a place of frustration where they question their faith because they never see results. But the problem is they never allowed the Lord to plough open the heart and to prepare the field.

We tend to want to walk into the courts of Heaven, pray, and thereby ask for our wants and needs and leave. There is no relationship built, and they see prayer as boring and long because they fail to know Him.

“And this is eternal life, that they may know You, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom You have sent.”

John 17: 3

If we move on in the parable, we read:

“But he who RECEIVED the seed on stony places, this is he who hears and immediately receives it with joy; yet he has no root in himself, but endures only for a while. For when tribulation or persecution arises because of the Word, immediately he stumbles.”

Matthew 13: 20- 21

Now we have shown before how in the Aramaic Old Testament that they read at the time, we see this term “the Word,” and it was a Name referring to the Lord God that interacted with man. It was the Word that spoke to Adam and Eve, Abraham, and Moses. John explains that Jesus is the Word and that the Name the Word was Him preincarnate.

These people had the seed sown, and it found soil to build roots, but it was not good soil. These are people who respond emotionally to everything. They receive this touch from Heaven with joy, but the seed can build strong roots because of the issues of the heart. There are already roots of bitterness, stones of offense, and hardness because they seek the validation of people.

Notice the attack comes not because of the “seed” but the “Word.” They were focused on the need or want. In a moment of desperation, they drew close to the Lord, and He answered them. But they never fully received the Word. They know about Him but never take time to know and be known by Him.

People don’t mind you praying, but it is when you start talking about Jesus that they get offended because now you have gone too far. If we are not taking the time to learn to be patient and endure long in the Secret Place of His Presence, we will never be patient and endure long in the trials and attacks.

Unless we invest time and effort to draw near Him, spend time getting to know Him, and assimilate in the ways and thinking of Heaven, our prayers will often stall. If we are to keep the pressure on, then it is a commitment.

“Now he who received the seed among the thorns is he who hears the Word, and the cares of this world, and the deceitfulness of riches choke the Word, and he becomes unfruitful.”

Matthew 13: 22

In this case, the person received the Word. This is where most believers abide and never fully overcome. They start strong but take the foot off the pedal. These people have spent time to have their hearts worked on and issues addressed, but after they have prayed for an issue, they move on.

We need to know what stage we are at and act accordingly. Do we take time to allow the Lord to work on us, correct us, and address issues first? Many times, we wonder why it seems our prayers are not hitting the mark, and it is because we are in the wrong stage.

We need ears to hear so we can tell what the Spirit is saying to us.  There are many times the Lord wants to answer our prayers, but He can’t because of issues in our lives. Sometimes, if He did, it would destroy us or damage us.

Ploughing the field is where the Lord is allowed to do work on our hearts to break them open. This is where we allow Him to correct and speak to any area of our lives.

Preparing the field is where we continue to develop our walk with the Lord. We feed upon the Word and focus on worship. In this stage, we get a bigger vision of Jesus, and we understand who He is, who we are in Him, and our inheritance in Him.

Sowing is where we plant that promise by hearing and mixing it by faith.

Tending the field is where we stay in worship and refuse to allow our circumstances, feelings, etc., to capture our hearts.

Watering is where we keep feeding on the Word so that the promise grows in us.

Harvesting is when the time comes and the promise manifests.

Looking at these people, we see that they failed because they continued to tend and water the field. Remember, there is a time gap between sowing and reaping. We have land that was once farmland, so the soil is good. Normally, when you buy a house, in your garden, you have a few inches of compacted good soil. But we have at least a foot of awesome, rich topsoil. So, we see to plant and grow wildflowers and vegetables.

We plough or rototill the ground so that the soil looks great. There are no rocks or issues like that, so once you till the land, you can plant. However, it takes time for the seedlings to grow and become established enough so that they compete and dominate against the weeds. During this time, the weeds pop up and grow like they are on steroids. It is a lot of hard work, and in years like this one, where the heat indexes were over 100, day after day, it becomes impossible to tend and keep.

At the same time, if you don’t water during the vulnerable days, you can stunt the growth. You may have prayed, but if we don’t understand the stages and keep the pressure on, we can fail to see the harvest or only see a lackluster one.

“But he who received seed on good ground is he who hears the Word and understand it, who bears fruit and produces; some a hundredfold, some sixty, some thirty.”

Matthew 13: 23

The Greek word for good here means: admirable, precious, useful, surpassing, precious, and beautiful to look at. Let me ask you, do you see yourself as any of these words? In Him, you should! I am not talking about walking arrogantly and in pride, but in humility and gratefulness, knowing that because of Him, you stand precious.

If you spend quality time with Him, you start to think and walk like Him. You will also see yourself through His eyes and understand your validation comes from Him, and it is in Him. Will you linger longer and understand the various stages and keep the precious on until the harvest comes? The King James reads “…which also beareth fruit…” and the Greek word for “also” means emphatically, or it is a statement of fact.

The seed must produce fruit, and the harvest is always greater than what was planted. If you will hold fast and keep pressing forward in Christ, you will emphatically bear much fruit.