Praying Until You Pray Through

When I was first converted to Christ there was a saying in the Classical Pentecostal churches, “Have you prayed through today?” Every believer was encouraged to not let one day pass that they did not pray until they touched Heaven. Believe me, I quickly learned what it meant to pray through. I remember the location on the old farm where this unlearned school dropout would go alone, usually after dark, and pray until my soul knew the touch of Heaven. The joy of the Lord would wane as I lived among the farm hands and labored in the tobacco field until sunset. But then, after a country supper, I would go and find my secret place; and I never remember one time that grace did not show up and “restore my soul.”

Your soul cannot survive spiritually without the constant touch of His presence. All the promises of God are fixed and cannot be altered. The Bible is an undisputable covenant between God and His saints. Our God has proven that He is a covenant-keeping God. But every promise and every explicit part of His covenant must be “prayed through” by His children. One of the greatest examples of this fact is found in the beautiful story of Daniel and God’s promise to Israel after the Babylonian captivity.

God had judged Israel because of their Sabbath breaking for a period of four hundred ninety years. Every stolen Sabbath had to be repayed. Four hundred and ninety years meant seventy years of Babylonian captivity. Daniel was waiting before the Lord and was reading the Scripture when his eyes fell upon JeremiahÂ’s prophesies (Jeremiah 25:11,12; 29:10; 2 Chronicles 36:21) and Daniel then set himself to prayer. Please note this carefully. God has made this covenant to Jeremiah that when the seventy years were complete, Israel was to be restored to their own nation. But GodÂ’s method to keep a promise and covenant is to touch a heart to pray the covenant through until the answer comes. “For we are labourers together with God: ye are God’s husbandry, ye are God’s building.” (I Cor. 3:9) He does nothing in keeping His covenants without His partners.

More often than not our part is mainly the duty to pray it through and then God sovereignly acts to fulfill every word. Then He anoints and uses His saints in the process of the fulfillment, but He must receive all the glory or the miracles stop. The angel Gabriel appeared to Daniel after a time of great repentance and a beautiful prayer of glory and exaltation of His God. The angel said, “At the beginning of thy supplications the commandment came forth, and I am come to shew thee; for thou art greatly beloved: therefore understand the matter, and consider the vision.” (Daniel 9:23)

The great prophecy that resulted from Daniel’s experience in praying through the covenant that was given hundreds of years earlier should fill our souls with excitement. God has not changed and the Bible is filled with similar promises and prophecies that relate positively for our day. We have often heard the words, “If my people, which are called by my name, shall humble themselves, and pray, and seek my face, and turn from their wicked ways; then will I hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin, and will heal their land.” (2 Chronicles 7:14) But where is the answer? The covenant is set and God is waiting for the saints to pray it through. More prophecy is being fulfilled right now in our generation than was fulfilled in all of Daniel’s life.

Every godly parent that reads the “Salty Saints” has been promised “…Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved, and thy house.” (Acts 16:31b) Every pastor has the promise of Holy Ghost revival in his congregation. Every statesman has the promise that God exalts the nation that keeps His commandments and His precepts. The Bible is loaded with promises. It is a Book that has been given as His covenant undisputable to each generation that will “pray it through” to fulfillment. Every promise is awaiting someone to “pray it through.”

James, the Lord’s brother and servant gave some of the Bible’s greatest promises to the effectual, fervent prayer warriors. “…The effectual fervent prayer of a righteous man availeth much.” (James 5:16b) The Spirit, speaking by James, said “But let him ask in faith, nothing wavering. For he that wavereth is like a wave of the sea driven with the wind and tossed. For let not that man think that he shall receive any thing of the Lord. A double minded man is unstable in all his ways.” (James 1:6-8)

Jude, his brother, added to these paramount truths, “Beloved, when I gave all diligence to write unto you of the common salvation, it was needful for me to write unto you, and exhort you that ye should earnestly contend for the faith which was once delivered unto the saints.” (Jude 1:3)

Heaven is set on ready. The promises are undisputable and unfailing. The world is waiting for saints that will hide themselves with God and pray as the saints of old prayed until angels are dispatched, the wicked spirits that inhabit the spirit realm are defeated, until God can say, “Thou art a man/woman greatly beloved”, and then this vile and sin-loving generation will tremble again. It’s going to happen because God always has His remnant. Every Word of His infallible Book will be fulfilled.