March 2022

How To Go From Selfish Prayers To Spiritual Prayers

The Apostle James wrote: “You ask and do not receive, because you ask wrongly, to spend it on your passions.” (James 4:3 ESV) In other words, selfishness is a major hindrance to effective prayers. When your prayers are seemingly centred upon what you think you want, you deviate outside the true purpose of prayers. For a prayer to be truly spiritual, it has to go glove in hand with purity of soul, and no matter how noble your intentions might seem, selfishness will eventually lead you to sin. Prayer is not to be simplified into meaning a way to get what we want. God is not some wish-granting Genie.

When prayers are offered from an exclusively personal perspective, such prayers are selfish. When we do things (anything at all) without any consideration for God or other members of our community, we are clearly in the wrong. Selfishness corrupts. Selfishness will eventually lead to full-blown lust and greed fuelled by hedonistic pleasures. When you pray from a lust-filled heart, you commune with yourself and such activities will steer you towards exalting yourself above everything and anyone else, including God. This was not your original motivation, but overtime, you might no longer recognize the difference. These things can be subtle, but the sincere person is able to discern. 

So, prayers should be offered from a pure heart untainted by lust, greed or ambitions. It should be offered in faith and moulded by love, selflessness and taking responsibility for others. You have to ensure you are actually reflecting the mind of God in your prayers. And you do that by knowing the will of God. Jesus famously lambasted the religious leaders in his days, “You are wrong, because you know neither the Scriptures nor the power of God.” (Matthew 22:29 ESV) 

The will of God can be understood by reading the Bible. When you read, you get better perspectives on issues and will be able to pray in a manner worthy of a true watchman.

Understanding Prayer As A Spiritual Activity

Prayer is a spiritual activity. Prayer is not intellectual or even emotional, it is something spiritual and must be approached spiritually. Please note that “spiritual” does not mean ignorance, on the contrary, spiritual activities should lead to enlightenment. And we all know that without this enlightenment, no learning, creativity or exploits is possible. Prayer is not something you reason out, it is something you express from the hidden man of the heart. You pray effectively when you add knowledge to your faith, yet you do not allow your intellect to lead the conversation. And no matter how you feel about an issue, discard your emotions whenever you engage in prayers. Keep it spiritual. 

If prayer is a spiritual activity, then it is bound by spiritual principles and is greatly enriched when we observe such principles. Three major core values of spirituality are love, selflessness and taking responsibility for others. When you engage in spiritual activities without giving any thought to these nuances, you soon misuse or abuse the activity. Prayer has been cheapened and even bastardized because it has been separated from its true roots as a spiritual activity. Effective prayers require you to maintain a state of mind that is fully devoted to God and a heart that is shaped by spiritual love, selflessness and taking responsibility for others. 

We greatly cheapen and bastardize prayers when we reduce our understanding of it to mean a way to get what we want. This makes prayers an expression of our emotional wants at the moment and not a proper communion with God, the father of all spirits. Prayer as a way to get what you want brings you into communion with yourself and your selfish, greedy wants. When your prayers are driven primarily by your current circumstances, mood or sentiments, you are more likely to drift away from divine counsel and might. You must rise above your emotions and go beyond your intellect when you pray, prayer is spiritual. Keep it spiritual. 

Keeping A Proper Prayer Watch

When you get really serious about your assignment as a watchman, you would realise that most of your prayers should centre upon your watch. You need to realise that in order to function effectively as a light of the world, you have to pray for your world. Changing the world is not just about designing and executing projects, prayer is a big part of it. You have to constantly pray, meditate and contemplate about the change you want to see. Your work as a watchman tasked with steering us towards a better future encompasses both spiritual and intellectual activities, you have to cover both bases.

You can have the spiritual power required to change anything. The Amplified Bible phrases James 5:16 this way: “…The heartfelt and persistent prayer of a righteous man (believer) is able to accomplish much [when put into action and made effective by God—it is dynamic and can have tremendous power]”. The next verse (James 5:17) goes on to illustrate this principle using the Prophet Elijah as a case study. His prayers were so powerful that it brought down a severe drought that lasted three years and six months. A watchman can accomplish great things for God if they realise that prayer is one of the greatest weapons available for getting the job done.

Are you really hungry for results? Do you strongly desire a change in your world? Do you want it enough to serve selflessly? Greater love has no one than this, that someone lay down their life for their friends. Picking up the baton to watch your world (community, industry, town, or city) requires you to do more than pay lip service to selflessness. Selflessness must truly become your core value and you have to pray more over matters of your watch than you even pray for yourself. So, take up your stand at your watchpost, adopt a proper posture in your heart and mind. Keep a watch.

Whether your interest lies in business, education, technology, media, arts or governance, it makes no difference. You need a serious prayer discipline. Keep a prayer watch over your world.

Understanding The Deep Side Of Prayer

If you desire to mature unto the deeper side of prayer, the key is to understand that prayer is an outflow of your knowledge and devotion to God. Prayer is not just an activity, it is more like an expression of something deep within your soul. We find some of the most profound prayers in the Book of Psalms, you see the Psalmist giving voice to, and expressing something deep within. You cannot pray effectively or get into the deeper side of prayers if your soul is empty. A merely religious obsession with prayer without giving thought to some of these nuances leads to shallow, powerless, useless and often misleading prayers. 

One of the most important characteristic of deep prayers is that it is driven by deep knowledge. Prayers, meditation and contemplations are not the forte of the ignorant person. There is nothing to pray about because they do not know what to pray about. You cannot pray effectively from a place of ignorance. This is why the disciples famously asked the Master to teach them how to pray; they were clueless as to what to pray for and how to pray for it. The Holy Spirit does help us to pray when we do not have enough knowledge as to understand what to utter, nevertheless, as you pray in the spirit, you would be led into the Word and better knowledge.

So, you should study more than you pray, and to keep an effective watch, you should never pray for less than an hour every day. A watchman that spends time reading, studying and thinking through issues is like a shotgun that is locked and loaded, ready for action.  

The good person out of the good treasure of his heart produces good, and the evil person out of his evil treasure produces evil, for out of the abundance of the heart his mouth speaks.

Luke 6:45 (ESV)

Deep, effective prayers are not determined by how much you shout, but by the quality of your mind. You should be ready to mature and grow enough potency within your spirit to spend 2 to 3 hours everyday praying, meditating and contemplating over matters of your watch. 

The Deep Side Of Prayer

There is a shallow side of prayer and a deep side of prayer. Prayer works when done correctly. There is no rational reason to turn your back on prayer because one can see the force of prayer in action over the course of human history. It is a good idea to take the time to understand what prayer really is, and how it works. People pray for different reasons and at varying intensity. A watchman must mature and grow into the deeper end of prayer. That place where you go beyond prayer-as-a-religious-obligation and truly begin to draw upon the power of God to help you. The shallow side of prayer might be ineffective, but there is a deeper end you need to grow into. 

There is a need to learn how to pray as a watchman tasked with steering your world towards a better future. Someone who prays at the shallow end of prayer can never understand how it is possible to spend hours in the place of prayer. However, when you begin to observe the crucial role prayers could play in your enterprise and begin to pray with better conviction and understanding, you would get into the experience in no time. You would begin to consciously pray and contemplate the challenges, problems, demons and principalities that stand in your way. If you think none stand in your way, you are probably mistaken. There is always some spiritual warfare to be won before you can record any tangible progress with your work, business or organization. 

Deep prayers require a willingness to totally believe that prayer is a critical activity that when done right could make all the difference. These kinds of prayers require you to build capacity. You generally need to develop capacity to the point whereby you have enough knowledge about the situation, enough knowledge about what the Word of God says about the situation, and you are willing to pray for as long as it takes to get the job done.

Why Prayer Matters To The Watchman

The importance of trusted spiritual practices like thanksgiving, prayer and meditation must never be in doubt. There should not be a time when the validity and relevance of such ancient practices are called to question. A critic might be quick to suggest prayers don’t do anything, it is taking practical actions that cause changes. While such a line of thinking might appear reasonable, it is misguided. The spiritual realm is higher than the physical realm, and it is the former that controls the latter. Spiritual practices like prayer open us up to the possibilities that exist and provide the much-needed guidance, spiritual energy and strength required to carry on. 

A true change agent realizes the enormous challenge ahead and understands clearly that, “This kind cannot be driven out by anything but prayer.” At the same time, they understand that changing the world requires careful planning, strategizing and flawless execution. For a true watchman, it is not this or that, it is this and that. If you are truly working on steering the world towards a better future at a scale that matters, you would need to constantly pray. A business or organization that changes the world doesn’t just happen. You pray as if prayer is the only activity required, and then execute your thoughtful plans as if you can make a difference primarily through your efforts.

Thinking that praying is not a “practical action” towards progress is a misguided mode of thought. Prayer is work, hard work. It is the first step in a long line of steps a Watchman needs to complete. There is a need to sensitize people to the need to understand that spiritual activities and prayer is merely the first step on the path to socio-economic transformation. These are the activities that make the grace to get things done available. Grace is as important and tangible as any other asset or resources required to get things done. We need to stop thinking prayer is unnecessary at worst, a religious obligation at best. Nope. Prayer is THE KEY, prayer is the master key.

Does It Start And End With Prayer?

We can seemingly summarize the religious mind-set as “cast your cares upon your god” and go to sleep. The idea that you simply pray about everything and anything and expect a miracle. A miracle in this case would refer to some important developments that just happened without any human intervention. This mind-set is actually dangerous as it places all the responsibility on God and completely absorbs the person of the need to do anything. The time has come for you to no longer be content to merely pray about issues, but also signal to heaven that you are willing to become empowered in order to deal with it. 

You might have heard the saying: “there is no free lunch in Freetown”. There is nothing that happens on the earth without the need for God to use a person. The Almighty God is not simply some wish granting Genie that exists to give us anything we want, when we and how we want. Prayer is not really about us praying for what we want, it should be more about praying to find out the judgement of God over every matter and then, get into alignment with it. Any serious minded person must understand that part of our prayers should be prayers for wisdom in order to understand how to act. 

You cannot continue to merely pray and sit still doing nothing. That is an unproductive thought that is actually unbiblical. You don’t pray for socio-economic miracles and go to sleep. So, do you really want to watch the world? Do you really want to steer us towards a better future? Are you the light of the world we have been waiting for? Then you have to understand the need to put aside your personal interests first and make the common good of the society your top-most priority. Are you willing to become empowered to cause the change in the society, or are you content to merely pray about it?

The Spirituality Question

There will never be any progress or advancement in a community until they have a critical number of Spiritual people. This is because spiritual people understand what it means to work with God for the common good of everyone. They are driven by selflessness, love and taking responsibility for others. A religiously minded person can not be an effective light of the world or watchman, they must become more spiritual.  Are you truly spiritual or merely religious? 

To explain the concept further, here’s an extract from my book: UNLEASH YOUR INVENTIONS: THE SECRET ORIGIN OF CREATIVITY AND INVENTIONS: 

The easiest way I have found to distinguish between both is captured in the following sentence. The religious mind-set says “God will do it for me”. The spiritual mind-set says, “God will empower me; make tools available for me to get it done”. 

Religion says there is something out there, incomprehensible and completely beyond us. Let us try to be on their good side, appease them with gifts and sacrifices, stay in line and all will be well. The mind-set being, “How do I please God and stay in his good books?” Spirituality says there is something out there. I am one with that force, I am in union with that force. Spirituality leads you to critical thinking and excellence. The mind-set being, “How do I channel more of God? How do I improve my performance today than I did yesterday?” 

The religious person declares “Jesus will do it” and goes to sleep, but the spiritual person understands clearly that it is human beings on this plane of existence that enforces every mandate of heaven on the earth. God requires someone to keep watch over their world. Someone to “stand in the gap” and look out for the collective interest of the community. Even though God is all-powerful and sovereign, it is very clear that there is a role human beings have to play. Our prayers matter, our works matter, and if nobody steps up to do the work, nothing gets done. 

Watching the World begins with that commitment to lead with selflessness, love and taking responsibility for the advancement of your world. This is true spirituality.

Does God Need Anyone To Watch The World?

If GOD is all knowing, all powerful, and truly sovereign, why would he need anybody to take responsibility to “watch the world”? God is clearly in control of the universe, and he will do whatsoever he wants. He does not need anybody to do anything. This mode of thinking that shifts total responsibility to God is a major cause of slothful behaviour amongst people of faith. If God knows everything and can do everything, then we don’t matter, our work doesn’t matter… and why do we even pray? However, we know for a fact that reality is different. Our work matters. What we do matters. 

If God knows everything and everything is all predetermined, then we would have no choice. There would be no stakes and nothing would matter. You do not need to study the bible too deeply to see the many flaws with this mindset. The Bible is full of stories and circumstances about things changing in response to people’s prayers and action. Adam and Eve chose to sin. Gideon was summoned and commissioned to raise an army. Jesus charged his disciples to preach (angels can not get people born-again!). The Bible contains stories of how people’s actions caused a setback to divine plans. Think about Genesis 6:5 – 8 or Tower of Babel or even King Saul. 

If what we do doesn’t matter, then what is going on at: 

And I sought for a man among them who should build up the wall and stand in the breach before me for the land, that I should not destroy it, but I found none.

Ezekiel 22:30 ESV 

God would not steer the world without being in partnership with someone. God would not heal the world without being in partnership with someone. It is a partnership of the divine working through human agents. Your actions matter, you have to take responsibility.

The World Cannot Save Itself

The world; the human society we have created, has seemingly lost its way. When you take a look around your society and reach a conclusion that the levels of injustice, poverty and illiteracy observed are not fair. You have identified that there is a problem here that needs solving. Problems with the world’s systems, whether they be economical, governmental, religious or cultural, can be solved. The only important point to note is that you do not solve a problem with the same level of consciousness that created it. 

That is why the world cannot save itself. 

You do not need to think or research too deeply before you realize that today’s world and its economic, governmental, religious and cultural systems are all man-made. Someone proposed them at some point with good intentions (presumably), but over time, those ideas might have peaked or got corrupted over time. To solve these problems, one needs to channel a higher intelligence than the one that created the problems in the first place. It takes God working through a yielded vessel. A watchman realizes that it is time to dig deeper and, yes, save the world. The world can be redeemed by anyone who is selfless enough to take on the responsibility. 

16 “For thus God loves the world (the universe; the ordered arrangement; the organized system [of life and society]; or: = all mankind), so that He gives His uniquely-born Son, to the end that all (or: everyone) – the one habitually believing, putting confidence and trusting into Him – would not lose or destroy himself, or cause himself to fall into ruin, but rather can continuously have eonian life

17 “For God does not send forth His Son as an Emissary, or Representative, into the world (or: System; aggregate of humanity) to the end that He should continuously separate and make decisions about the world, but to the contrary, to the end that the world would be delivered (or: that the System could be healed and made whole; that the ordered arrangement should be restored to health; that the aggregate of mankind may be saved – rescued and re-established in its original state): through Him! 

John 3:16-17 (JMNT)

This portion of scripture is Jesus stating clearly his mission to deliver the world, heal the world and make it whole again, restore the world to health. Some may think that these are things that would happen after rapture, but they are simply misguided, as anyone can investigate the scriptures themselves and see that Jesus never mentioned that saving the world happens after rapture. Not at all. I think the bible makes it clear enough that you are expected to function as a salt and light of the world right now, not after the rapture. This is the true mission of Jesus. 

It is up to us; you and me, to take responsibility and fix this world. The world cannot save itself. Where are the stewards of the Almighty God?

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