How Do I Pray – Part 2

There’s reasons for that and we’re trying to uncover them in our study here.
It’s very natural for people to pray to God for things, but it’s not natural to understand the things of God and to know what to pray for as we ought. Those things have to be learned.
We learned last time that a good prayer might be, “Lord teach me to pray.” Teach me to pray so I can pray knowing what you’re doing.
It’s natural for people to pray prayers saturated with requests, a laundry list of things to ask God for relating to the life they’re trying to live, but there’s gaps and holes and questions and uncertainties.
Last episode we tried to change the perspective a bit to the perspective of knowing all that God’s already done for us. That change in our prayer perspective should move us from constantly praying to get to praying to give as Paul tells us in 1st Thessalonians 5:18,
In everything give thanks: for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus concerning you.
That’s a result of knowing what God’s done. If we don’t know what God’s given us, what He’s done for us, it’s hard to say thank you.
Not everyone in the Bible was able to pray prayers of thanksgiving. Many didn’t receive the same things God’s given us which puts us in a unique position in this dispensation to pray certain prayers of thanksgiving.

It’s normal not to know how to pray according to God’s Will and how His will affects our prayers in this dispensation.
It’s normal not to know how to pray and we’ve covered that before.
It’s normal to make requests in prayer. Paul even instructs us to in Philippians 4:6,
Be careful for nothing; but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known unto God.

It’s also normal to think that prayer is something that should work for us.
We say prayer is a tool God’s given us to submit our requests and suggestions and things because I need help and it’s all about my needing help.

But, what if it wasn’t entirely about that?
Now we wouldn’t know this unless God has revealed things in the scripture about what He’s doing and what His will actually is.

This is what we’ll explore today.
Prayer does not come naturally. We’re born with a spirit, we’re born with a conscience, we’re born with the knowledge that there is a Creator, and so praying to that creator for things is natural.
But prayer is not about making our voice heard before God even though some people think of prayer that way. They even talk about the number of people who join in prayer having a higher chance of getting that prayer heard by God. Almost like making a petition to the government or something, but that’s not how prayer functions, or how God wants it to work, especially in this dispensation of grace that we live in today.
If there’s just one person praying, God hears their prayer just fine.
It’s much less about how many people want a thing or what it is that we want and more about what God wants.
However, if we say prayers about God’s will and not ours then people tend to turn off. It’s not what they want to hear. They say well then what’s the point of me praying?
Well, now our heart is exposed for what it really is which is us wanting things according to our will.

God will hear our prayers, especially in this dispensation where we have access to God through Christ and everything we pray He hears. And that’s different from how it was before.
Prayer has the purpose of aligning our will with God’s will, that’s what prayer’s purposes is and when we go into prayer with that thinking then we’ll understand it instead of thinking that prayer is trying to get God to align with our will.
That’s how most people naturally pray and that’s normal for people to pray that way until we learn differently.

So, rather than thinking that I’m going to pray to tell God what’s up with me so that he can get on board with what I’m doing and help me out, we begin to realise it’s the opposite.
We pray so that the wills that we’re constantly using to do the things we do in life can be aligned in those moments of prayer with what God’s doing. That’s what prayer’s supposed to do.

When we do that, what tends to happen is our own will becomes very diminished. the things that we thought were problems don’t seem as big as before, because now we know what God’s will is.
So, having that perspective about prayer being about God’s will is important. We’ve already learned that God instructs us to pray in this dispensation, so we pray by the will of God, and we pray according to the will of God, with knowledge of that will, and then we pray for the will of God to be done.
We pray as God’s instruct us to pray and we pray with the knowledge of what He’s doing according to His will.
What do we pray for as we ought? Well, that requires us to learn some things and the thing we need to learn is exactly what the will of God is, so we know what to pray for. We’re going to pray for His will to be done.

People talk about prayer and how prayer it didn’t work for them and usually it’s because they want God to do something that they want, and it doesn’t matter whether it’s God’s will or not.
But that’s not what prayer is!
Prayer is us aligning with God’s will. Prayer will work for the will of God, but we have to know what the will of God is. If we don’t know the will of God we’re going to be stuck praying prayers that’re trying to get God to know our will and
it just doesn’t seem like He’s hearing us. He is but prayer doesn’t have that function. Prayer is trying to align us with His will and if we don’t know His will what are we being aligned with? It simply doesn’t work that way.

Let’s look at some men from the Bible who prayed in this way, prayed God’s will in their prayers. There’s a pattern in these scriptures that we should notice.
First, we should notice how they’re praying according to the will of God and for the will of God and secondly how what they’re praying for and how they’re praying according to the will of God changes in different dispensations.

Before the cross of Christ and before Grace, Grace being something that God’s dispensing right now, God operated through the law. He operated through Covenants and He operated through Israel, and this is the way God operated even through the day of the cross through to Pentecost as he was promising a future Kingdom.
And then we have this revelation of a mystery given to Paul by Jesus Christ Himself. It was never prophesied but was kept secret by God before the foundation of the world and then it was revealed to Paul.
It’s a new dispensation that would interrupt prophesy because of the nation of Israel’s rejection of the Messiah.
In this dispensation called the dispensation of Grace, God pours out grace, saving grace, to a wicked world and He’s no longer working through the law, Israel or Israel’s covenants. So, the way God’s operating now, or the will of God today has changed from what God was doing before. Before the law was given God was operating with people in a different way again, without the law and without covenants.
Remember, Abraham back there was not an Israelite. Israel hadn’t even been created yet until Jacob, whose name was changed to Israel. It was his twelve sons that became the tribes of Israel. Abraham was not under Israel’s covenants like the Davidic covenants, or the Mosaic covenants and he was not under the law. He wasn’t even circumcised at one point in his life when God made His unconditional promise of the land to him. The apostle Paul takes great pains to point that out in his epistle to the Romans.
And so, we have God operating with Abraham differently than how he’s operating here today.
And we can easily see this in the scripture and reflected in the prayers of men living in these different times of God’s operation.

Let’s look at Genesis chapter 20. We’ll start with Abraham and by this time, Abraham is circumcised, and he’s given a promise that he would have a seed, a son and his son would be a blessing and Abraham would be a blessing among the Nations, and if anyone blessed him they’d be blessed and if anyone cursed him they’d be cursed. It’s important to realise that this promise given to Abraham at this time is not with Israel being present.
This is for this man and his family. So, in Genesis 20 verses 1 and 2 we see this,
And Abraham journeyed from there to the South, and dwelt between Kadesh and Shur, and stayed in Gerar. Now Abraham said of Sarah his wife, “She is my sister.” And Abimelech king of Gerar sent and took Sarah.
This causes an ordeal. Abimelech thinks well she’s a pretty woman, I think I’ll take her to be my wife. Then God appears to him in a dream down in verse 3,
But God came to Abimelech in a dream by night, and said to him, “Indeed you are a dead man because of the woman whom you have taken, for she is a man’s wife.”

What’s interesting here is that many people come to the scripture and read these stories and they say well this must be how God deals with everybody.
But, it isn’t how God deals with everybody. These people we’re reading about are the exceptions to how God deals with people.
God gave Abraham a unique promise and Sarah was special because he gave her a promise as well to have a son, Abraham’s son, and so this is a big problem for God’s will being done.
This king of Gerar is going to take Sarah to be his wife. God interrupts and says you’re dead. Now that’s how you change the course of history!
So, Abimelech says whoa, hold on!
Genesis 20 verses 4 to 6,
But Abimelech had not come near her; and he said, “Lord, will You slay a righteous nation also?
Did he not say to me, ‘She is my sister’? And she, even she herself said, ‘He is my brother.’ In the integrity of my heart and innocence of my hands I have done this.”
And God said to him in a dream, “Yes, I know that you did this in the integrity of your heart. For I also withheld you from sinning against Me; therefore I did not let you touch her.

From down in verse seven God tells Abimelech to restore Abraham’s wife to him He’s a prophet and he’ll pray for you, and you’ll live. But if you don’t restore her you’ll die and everyone who is associated with you will die.

Abimelech then wakes up and calls Abraham and said, “Why’d you do this to me? Why’d you lie to me? God threatened me.
He goes back and rebukes Abraham, then down at the end of the chapter in verse 16 he tells Sarah behold I’ve given your brother a thousand pieces of silver, go and be at peace and leave me alone. Now in verse 17 we read and here’s the part that we want to see, it’s Abraham’s prayer,
So Abraham prayed to God; and God healed Abimelech, his wife, and his female servants. Then they bore children; for the LORD had closed up all the wombs of the house of Abimelech because of Sarah, Abraham’s wife.
You see, God gave a promise to Abraham.
Abraham and Sarah had a special Covenant with God and God actually intervenes to make sure His will gets done.
Abraham prays to God and God healed Abimelech so that his household could again bear children.
So, we see the healing of Abimelech’s household after Abraham prays.
He prays for the healing of Abimelech’s household, and it works, let’s look at how this occurs.
This praying for healing isn’t Abraham coming out of the blue saying you’re sick and I’ve got power from God, so let’s heal you.
It’s God having a purpose with Abraham, Abimelech’s interrupting this purpose and God’s the one that actually caused the sickness here, the barrenness in the wombs. Then he tells Abimelech that Abraham will pray for you.
What’s God’s will here? God’s will is that Abimelech gives Sarah back and for Abraham to pray for him Abimelech obeys the will of God.
Abraham obeys the will of God and says the prayer.
The passages don’t even tell us what Abraham prayed but God heals Abimelech’s household.
Does it even have anything to do with what Abraham prayed? It’s that he prayed in obedience to God and God’s will was already stated. He was going to heal Abimelech when Abraham prayed. That’s what he said!
So, this isn’t some desire of Abraham, it was God’s will for Abimelech’s household to be healed.
It was written in Scripture. Abraham did it and God’s will was done.
That’s how this prayer worked!

Now let’s go to Psalm 37 and we’ll see this pattern over and over again in the scripture, where people, men of faith, pray according to the will of God that’s already known to them and then God’s will’s done.
People tend to think they’re going to pray for their own will when prayer is really about God’s will being done.
People often use Psalm 37 to justify praying for what they themselves want.
Psalm 37 verses 4 and 5,
Delight yourself also in the LORD, And He shall give you the desires of your heart.
Commit your way to the LORD, Trust also in Him, And He shall bring it to pass.

Well, there it is in scripture! We take that verse and put it on a bookmark or a sticker on the fridge. But sadly, most people take the verse completely out of the context. When that happens, we see the verse as whatever the will of your heart is just pray and the Lord’ll give it to you.
Well, firstly, scripture cuts to the chase when speaking of the heart of man.
Jeremaiah 17:9,
The heart is deceitful above all things, And desperately wicked; Who can know it?
So, knowing that the heart is desperately wicked and knowing that we don’t know what to pray for as you ought. Knowing that we might desire things God doesn’t want us to desire it’s good advice to follow our heart.
But Psalm 37 verses 4 and 5 say God will give us the desires of our heart if we delight ourselves in the Lord.
So, what does it mean to Delight yourself in the lord? What does the Bible say about delighting in the Lord?
Is it that God gives me the desires of my heart and I really want the desires of my heart?
Well, David says in verse 5, commit your way to the Lord!
Now, David’s operating under the law covenants that God gave to Israel. Those covenants were that if you obey, I (God) will bless your field and bless your children and give you prosperity.
Everything that was part of the Covenant was already written down, and it’s the will of God.
So, God is saying here that He’ll give you the desires of your heart after he’s already told you to circumcise your heart and love God with all your heart.
Deuteronomy 10:16,
Therefore circumcise the foreskin of your heart, and be stiff-necked no longer.

Deuteronomy 30:6,
And the LORD your God will circumcise your heart and the heart of your descendants, to love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul, that you may live.

See how it fits with the good will of God already?
So, us saying well this is the desire of my heart even though I don’t love God very much, that’s breaking the Covenant.
Verse 5’s instruction to, “Commit your way to the Lord” means that your way has to be the Lord’s way. If our way is not the Lord’s way we’re not going to get anything. But what’s the Lord’s way? What’s the lord’s will?
He declared in the covenants keep my Commandments, and so verse five, “Trust also in Him and He shall bring it to pass”, does not in any way mean God’s going to do what I want. No! He’s going to do what He wants and when we get on board with what He’s doing, what He wants, that’s when Psalm 37 becomes a reality.
Let’s drop down to verse 9 of Psalm 37,
For evildoers shall be cut off; But those who wait on the LORD, They shall inherit the earth.
We can’t rip these verses out of context. The land was given to Israel. They had land covenants, earth covenants and by the way this this type of language here that they shall inherit the earth sounds familiar doesn’t it?
Look at Verse 11,
But the meek shall inherit the earth, And shall delight themselves in the abundance of peace.

Remember someone else saying this in the Bible? Jesus said it. He didn’t invent it, apart from the fact that He’s God and He did say it in this Psalm as well!
Jesus said this in Matthew Chapter 5 and 6 repeating prophecy about Israel’s land covenant and it’s fulfillment on the Earth. They’re going to inherit the earth is what God promised to them going right back to Abraham’s promise.
God’s will was known. It was in the law and the covenants. So, the promise God’s going to fulfill for them is what He’s already made known to them.
When they pray to inherit the earth and obey the terms of God’s covenant, God’s going to do what He wills to do. He’s going to keep His promise.

This is not willy-nilly stuff like someone saying, “I like that beachfront property on the Gold Coast, so God give it to me please.”
That’s just not the promise here. There’s nowhere where God said it’s His will for that.
But it was His will for Abraham, Isaac and Jacob and Israel to have a certain specific measured out piece of land.
Meanwhile in this same Psalm 37:23 David writes,
The steps of a good man are ordered by the LORD, And He delights in his way.
This is in the same chapter about delighting in the Lord. We shouldn’t read this like whatever I’m going to do he’s going to lead me mystically to do it.
God has given 613 Commandments to Israel from everything about what they wear to what they eat to where they go to what days they celebrate.
He’s ordered everything in Israel and in their society and how they’re to live.
The steps of a good man order by the Lord is that if you’re a good man in Israel you will keep the law. It wasn’t simply love your neighbour, even though that was the second Chief commandment, it was a whole range of very specific details.
They’re ordered by the Lord it says and He Delights in His way.
You see what that’s saying? Delighting yourself in the Lord in Psalm 37’s context is doing the law.

God already revealed what He wanted them to do and what it means to Delight in Him.
Then in Psalm 37:29,
The righteous shall inherit the land, And dwell in it forever.
There it is again. The righteous shall inherit the land! There’s a half a dozen times in this chapter it talks about the land the land the land. This is Israel! The righteous shall inherit the land and dwell therein forever.
Well, there goes Heaven if you’re going to be on the Earth forever. This is Israel!
Then down in verse 31,
The law of his God is in his heart; None of his steps shall slide.
The law of his God is in his heart. Delight yourself in the Lord and He’ll give you the desires of your heart. Well, what’s in his heart? The law of God!
What’s the law of God say? You’ll get the land forever.
Well, that seems like God’s only going to do what He wants. We come to prayer thinking we’re going to manipulate and change God to get him to do what we want. That’s not how prayer works.
We might say, “Well, God, a lot of us down here want something different than what you’re doing.”
However, it’s not going to convince Him.

Go to Psalm 40 verse 8,
I delight to do Your will, O my God, And Your law is within my heart.”
David’s talking about how to condition your heart under the law.
Delight yourself in the Lord’s law. They had to understand that the law of God wasn’t a suggestion or just something that ruled an earthly nation, it was divinely given. It was God’s will for them to do it.
It’s different from the laws of our country which were Man created. Even though many of them were originally influenced by the Bible they were not given from Heaven on Mount Sinai.
We follow laws in our society for various reasons and motivations but it’s not because God gave them from Heaven.
But the law of God that Moses was given was God given from Heaven.

See, the scripture’s clear about what’s the desires of the person’s heart in Psalm 37? The law of God! They delight in the Lord’s will. So, you see where we’re going here?
The prayer it’s not, “Oh goodie, I get to finally make my own request. God says you be good for a week I’ll give you whatever you want.”
No, it’s God saying, “I want to change your heart to do My will because although you don’t know it, My will is better than yours.”
That’s what the Bible’s trying to teach in a nutshell.
God knows better than us, but we think otherwise.

Now let’s look at Solomon.
Go to 2nd Chronicles chapter 7 verse 14,
…if My people who are called by My name will humble themselves, and pray and seek My face, and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin and heal their land..
God’s people here are of course the nation of Israel.
Humble themselves and Pray. In that context it says to Humble yourselves which means we’re not saying me, me, me.
First we have we have the “if” and then we have the “then”.
The “if” is humble themselves, pray seek God’s face, turn from their wicked ways.
The “then” is I will hear from heaven, forgive their sin and heal their land.
Question. Does God hear from heaven when they don’t turn from their wicked ways? Not according to this verse! If they’re not turning from their wicked ways God will not hear from Heaven.
This is why we don’t use this verse as a prayer in this dispensation today, because the unique thing about prayer in this dispensation is that if we’re in Christ, God hears all our prayers by Grace.
We’ve done nothing to be saved by grace. Nothing we’ve done or not done gets us access to God. Therefore, anything we utter in prayer God receives, unlike under the Covenant program and the law where God would only hear their prayers when they obeyed his Covenant. Obey first then I’ll listen to you says God.
Under grace today it’s, “I’ve saved you by My grace. You’re my child in Christ. Pray.” What an amazing privilege and benefit to have.

But back there with Solomon, God says forgiveness and healing of their land is received through humbling themselves, praying and seeking God’s face and turning from their wicked ways.

Forgiveness in this dispensation of grace we live in today is through the shed blood of Jesus Christ.
Colossians 1 verse 14,
…in whom we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of sins.
You see using this verse in 2nd Chronicles as a prayer denies the grace blessings you’ve been given by Christ today.
Forgiveness then was not yet being offered based on Christ’s shed blood.
They were under a covenant program which said you need to do the law then
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God’ll hear and then respond, and that’s what God promised. He’ll hear from heaven and forgive their sin and heal their land.

God’s talking about Israel in 2nd Chronicles 7:14. God’s speaking to Solomon privately in Solomon’s house in response to Solomon’s Prayer.
So we should go back and see exactly what Solomon prayed, because if Solomon can get a private response from God and some sort of prayer promise even though it’s not the dispensation you and I live in today, then maybe we should learn how Solomon prayed.
2nd Chronicles 6 verse one,
Then Solomon spoke: “The LORD said He would dwell in the dark cloud.
The context of what’s going on here is that Solomon is dedicating the temple that he built for God.
The prayer to which God is responding to in chapter 7 is this prayer of Solomon’s.
2nd Chronicles 6:2,
I have surely built You an exalted house, And a place for You to dwell in forever.”
He’s talking to God there saying I built you a house to dwell in forever.
2nd Chronicles 6:3,
Then the king turned around and blessed the whole assembly of Israel, while all the assembly of Israel was standing.

The notice what Solomon says next in 2nd Chronicles 6:4,
And he said: “Blessed be the LORD God of Israel, who has fulfilled with His hands what He spoke with His mouth to my father David,
See, Solomon is praying according to what God’s already said He’s going to do. look at verse 5,
Since the day that I brought My people out of the land of Egypt, I have chosen no city from any tribe of Israel in which to build a house, that My name might be there, nor did I choose any man to be a ruler over My people Israel.

Now verse 6,
Yet I have chosen Jerusalem, that My name may be there, and I have chosen David to be over My people Israel.’
This is what God promised David!

Verse 7,
Now it was in the heart of my father David to build a temple for the name of the LORD God of Israel.
Remember, David wanted to do that. He wanted to build a house. What did God say to David? No!
But what did he say to David instead?
Verse 9,
Nevertheless you shall not build the temple, but your son who will come from your body, he shall build the temple for My name.’
When David wanted to build God’s house, God said no but his son, Solomon would build it.
Now Solomon’s built the temple and He’s dedicating it.
See how all this was God’s will. Solomon’s prayer is that we did God’s will and he’s now praying according to that will!
You see a lot of background knowledge in all these verses. Solomon’s not just praying something like, “Well I built something for you God, even though you didn’t ask for it and I hope you can bless it even though you never promised you would, and I hope that if anyone comes in this building that you know they’ll have spiritual fulfillment even though you’ve never said that.”
That’s how many of us Christians pray.
We pray about things we do when there’s no biblical justification for it.
Solomon built this because God said to!
God made a promise to do it and to bless him for doing it. And he’s is praying to fulfill what God said he wanted him to do.
In verses 10 and 11, Solomon goes on,
So the LORD has fulfilled His word which He spoke, and I have filled the position of my father David, and sit on the throne of Israel, as the LORD promised; and I have built the temple for the name of the LORD God of Israel. And there I have put the ark, in which is the covenant of the LORD which He made with the children of Israel.”
So over and over again he’s talking about God’s fulfilling of what He promised Down in verse 17 and 18 he says,
And now, O LORD God of Israel, let Your word come true, which You have spoken to Your servant David. “But will God indeed dwell with men on the earth? Behold, heaven and the heaven of heavens cannot contain You. How much less this temple which I have built!
Solomon turns his attention to speak to God directly and this is in front of the congregation of Israel.

Do not make this house the house you go to for church.
This is a house God told Solomon to build specifically for Him.
No church organisation ever received that instruction.
Solomon goes on for the remainder of the chapter praying about the temple according to the will of God.

God responds to Solomon privately as Solomon goes home and tells him that he has heard his prayer and that, quote, “I will be in this house and if my people who are called by my name shall humble themselves and pray then I will heal their land I’ll forgive their sins.”

People don’t know what to pray for because often they’re not interested in learning what God will is.
That’s why it’s not easy to know what to pray for in this dispensation of today because knowing God’s will requires us to understand how His will has been revealed and how it has changed and now been revealed in this dispensation.
Christians, not understanding that not all the Bible is written to them and about them, take prayers from everywhere.
Whenever we hear Christians taking verses out of context and asking for
things contrary to God’s will, a red flag should go off in our mind.
If it’s not God’s will as clearly given tin the Bible, then there’s no way we can walk in that information or participate in it. It’s just simply outside God’s will and we should back away.
We saw Jesus in the last episode is teaching the disciples to pray in the so called Lord’s prayer and it was easy to see from prophecy that it was all according to God’s will, and the disciples knew that.

And as we pointed out last time also, to think that the church is to pray this prayer, especially as frequently as they do, is to say that in this prayer is the will of God for the church today and there’s a problem with that.
If this prayer is the will of God for the church today it doesn’t include the cross at all, or seeing all men saved, or the body of Christ, the creating of that new creature, or the church anywhere for that matter!
It’s eating every day to survive, being led on the earth to a kingdom come and forgiving others so you might receive forgiveness.
That is actually for the 12 tribes of Israel, it’s simply not the will of God for you and me today in this dispensation of grace.
But what that prayer does include, as Jesus taught it, was the will of God for Israel.
Jesus knew the will of God. Jesus knew He was God, but he also said He came to do the will of His father. That’s why He came to Earth to do the will of His father, to confirm the promise made in the covenants and also to die on the cross.
See the pattern of prayer? God’s will, God’s will, God’s will, not our partitions for things, for health, wealth and happiness that emerge from our own desires.

In Luke 18 verse 31 to 33 we hear Jesus say,
Then He took the twelve aside and said to them, “Behold, we are going up to Jerusalem, and all things that are written by the prophets concerning the Son of Man will be accomplished.” For He will be delivered to the Gentiles and will be mocked and insulted and spit upon.
They will scourge Him and kill Him. And the third day He will rise again.”

What He just said was that whatever God said before that He was going to do; He’s going to do. Is it a mystery here what Christ is going to do? No, it’s been revealed even though the disciples are kind of ignorant of it.
We see this in the next verse, verse 34,
But they understood none of these things; this saying was hidden from them, and they did not know the things which were spoken.
Like a lot of us Christians today, they just don’t know what the Bible actually says, but that doesn’t mean God hasn’t said it.
Now the disciples were not taught to pray about the situation, for Jesus’s work to die on the cross for the sins of the world.
That wasn’t even in that prayer the Lord taught them.
The disciples don’t understand anything he says here.
They didn’t know about his death and Resurrection, but Jesus did know. He
Knew He’d come to this earth to die. He also knew why.
In Luke 22, the night of His betrayal, and remember the disciples don’t understand anything about it, Jesus says this,
Likewise He also took the cup after supper, saying, “This cup is the new covenant in My blood, which is shed for you.
He hasn’t died yet. No one there that night understood the gospel preaching of the Cross, but Jesus says I’m going to shed My blood for the New Testament, I’m going to shed my blood for sins, I’m going to shed my blood for Israel’s promises being fulfilled.
Jesus knew what God’s will was for Him and why.
Now drop down to Luke 22 verse 42. It’s after the meal and they go out and sing a song then go to the Garden of Gethsemane. Peter, James and John are with Him and He’s told them to pray that you may not enter into temptation.
Jesus then prays saying,
“Father, if it is Your will, take this cup away from Me; nevertheless, not My will, but Yours, be done.”
Jesus knows why He came. It was to die. He knew He’d come to fulfill the promises and the prophets. He knew He’d come to die for the sin of the world. He knew even what was not yet revealed according to God’s will, which is that His death on the cross would accomplish something far greater, the creation of a new creature in the body of Christ. To perform His will for the ages and that’s why He says, “Nevertheless not My will but yours be done.”
Whatever pain and suffering and sorrow He’s feeling, whatever the resistance and temptation to not perform this thing, it needs to be accomplished because it’s God’s will, incidentally, the will He Himself purposed with the Father.
That’s Jesus’s prayer to the father. Should our prayers be any less according to God’s will?
However, for us to pray God’s will we need to know His will!

1st John 5 verses 14 and 15 is a popular prayer today, taught by Jon who was there in the Garden with Jesus on that dreadful night. John says,
Now this is the confidence that we have in Him, that if we ask anything according to His will, He hears us.
And if we know that He hears us, whatever we ask, we know that we have the petitions that we have asked of Him.

That’s what we’re trying to get across from the scripture.
When we pray it should be according to God’s will.
Then we have to recognise that God’s will relating to how he deals with mankind changes from age to age. God Himself never changes of course, but the way he deals with His human creation does.
John writes in this epistle of 1st John as a member of the remnant of Israel. One of those who’ve been promised a kingdom come.
He says we know we have confidence in him that whatever we ask we have the petitions we desired of Him.
That sounds like Psalm 37 which said,
Delight yourself also in the LORD, And He shall give you the desires of your heart.
As we saw at length He’ll give you the desires of your heart because your heart contains God’s will.
God’s not waiting for us to have a good idea. He has His will. We’re the ones that need to know it, for us to align with His will. In the circumstances of our lives, where sometimes it’s hard to see God’s will, we do our own thing anyway, but to do the things we need to do we must align ourselves, in that moment of prayer, to say God has a will and I’m supposed to be aligning with it. That helps us in how we walk day to day in this world.

According to Romans 8, we don’t know what to pray for, but the Holy Spirit helps but His words are not given to us in a supernatural inner voice today, they’re given to us in the scripture, which means we’ve got to open up the book and read and understand these things.
If we go back to 1st John 5 we see in verse 16 why they could ask anything according to His will and He hears, and they have the petitions they asked of Him.
See they’re talking about forgiving sins. The things that they’re asking God to do is forgiving sins.
In 1st John 1 verse 9 we see,
If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.
That’s what they’re ask Him. That’s why verse 16 says there’s some sins you shouldn’t pray for, which is another issue for another day, but they’re praying specifically for forgiveness.
Do we need to pray for forgiveness today? Is it our job to pray for forgiveness of someone else? No! Christ has shed his blood for all men’s forgiveness. Our pray today is that mankind, including the people we know and love, trust His completed work for the forgiveness of their sins.

In every prayer that we’ve just covered, and there are many, many more throughout the Bible, all these men prayed the will of God and their own will aligned with it.
None of them said, “Well that’s a good idea God but I have a better thought on how to do it.”
How do we get prayer to work? We need to know how God is working and what He wants. When we align ourselves with God’s will and His work then we see God working more clearly. Now we’re praying the same thing that God’s doing, His will for today.
Prayer works today according to how God works, what He’s doing in this dispensation, knowing full well that what He does changes throughout the scripture. Of course, God Himself never changes. Jesus is the same yesterday, today and forever, but how he deals with His precious creation, mankind, does change from age to age.
What He’s doing today is not what He’ll do in the future on the earth.
It’s not what He was doing at Pentecost or during Israel’s wilderness wanderings or when Israel conquered the land. And, when God changes his mode of operation with man, then prayer must change as well.
We know that The Body of Christ is not Israel. The body of Christ is neither Jew nor Gentile. We’re not under the law. As Romans 6:14 says,
For sin shall not have dominion over you, for you are not under law but under grace.
The body of Christ is a new creature created to serve God outside of the law.
2nd Corinthians 5:1,
Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; old things have passed away; behold, all things have become new.
Then in Galatians 6:15,
For in Christ Jesus neither circumcision (the Jew) nor uncircumcision (the Gentile) avails anything, but a new creation.
That doesn’t mean that we’re walking in sin. It means the law’s not the motivation for us to do right. We have a greater motivation which is God’s grace explained to us in the incredible book of Romans.
Not only are we not under the Mosaic law, we’re also strangers from the covenants relating to the earthly Kingdom.
Ephesians 2 says that we’re strangers from Israel’s covenants and when we join to God we don’t join to God through Israel’s covenants We join to God through the new man that he’s made, the new creature, the Body of Christ.

To fully understand God’s will for us today we need to understand the dispensation of grace that we’re now living in today.

We look to Romans 16 verses 25 to 26,
Now to Him who is able to establish you according to my gospel and the preaching of Jesus Christ, according to the revelation of the mystery kept secret since the world began but now made manifest, and by the prophetic Scriptures made known to all nations, according to the commandment of the everlasting God, for obedience to the faith—

Now, it isn’t just knowing that there was a mystery that was kept secret even though that’s important. It’s knowing that this mystery that God kept secret from the foundation of the world has now been revealed. It was revealed by Jesus Christ Himself through the apostle Paul.
The point of this verse is that Jesus Christ will establish us in the will of God that’s the point of the verse.
It’s so we might know God’s will according to that mystery.
How did this mystery period, which is the dispensation of grace come into being?
Ephesians 3 verses 1 to 7,
For this reason I, Paul, the prisoner of Christ Jesus for you Gentiles— if indeed you have heard of the dispensation of the grace of God which was given to me for you, how that by revelation He made known to me the mystery (as I have briefly written already, by which, when you read, you may understand my knowledge in the mystery of Christ), which in other ages was not made known to the sons of men, as it has now been revealed by the Spirit to His holy apostles and prophets: that the Gentiles should be fellow heirs, of the same body, and partakers of His promise in Christ through the gospel, of which I became a minister according to the gift of the grace of God given to me by the effective working of His power.

It’s hard to imagine that the apostle Paul, before he met Jesus Christ on the road to Damascus and was saved, was a violent and unrelenting persecutor of all who believed in Jesus Christ.

If you go through some of our other material you can find a more detailed explanation of the mystery revealed.
This dispensation that was revealed to Paul after being kept secret by God before the foundation of the world came into reality as an interruption, if you like, to the timeline of prophecy. This timeline included all the things that happened throughout Israel’s history and during Jesus’s earthly ministry when He came to earth to fulfill prophecy and the law to the letter. It also included the events of the day of Pentecost after the Lord had ascended back to heaven after His resurrection.
This is where the apostle Peter quotes the prophet Joel and refers to this time as the time that those events spoken of in Joel are actually happening. This certainly would have been the case but for one major factor, Israel rejected Jesus Christ, the Messiah. They rejected Him when He was on earth, and they continue to reject Him after He returned to heaven. The last straw for Israel was when they stoned Stephen in Acts chapter 7.
They had Rejected the Messiah, they’d rejected God and rejected the Holy Spirit and, as a result God rejected them, and Israel fell.
All that they were promised, the New Covenant, the Kingdom and the restoration of the nation to its former glory under King David and King Solomon were postponed and Israel entered a state of blindness which lasts right up till today.
So, in place of what should have happened, according to prophecy, God introduces this interlude that He knew about and knew would come, but kept it secret.
Every promise and prophecy relating to Israel was now on hold.
This period, this dispensation of grace, would be a time where God offered free Grace to a rebellious and wicked world. Grace that would be bestowed no longer through Israel, their priests and their religious systems, but directly from God by no other vehicle than faith in God’s Word, the gospel of grace. This gospel and salvation by grace is now open to every human, no matter how bad or good or whether he’s a Jew or a Gentile. The nation Israel has been temporarily sidelined as God’s priesthood that brings all nations to the knowledge of God. They’re sidelined until a day comes, which it will during the great tribulation, when they turn and realise that Jesus was the Messiah all along and they accept Him.
This incredible dispensation of grace has so far lasted for 2000 years.

So, now God has once again changed the way He deals with mankind. Now salvation is by grace alone, through faith, without works of the law or works of any kind. It’s through believing and nothing else!
Where do we find our instruction, our doctrine and what God’s will is for this incredible dispensation of grace today?
We find it in the 13 epistles written by the apostle Paul. The interesting thing with Paul is that in those 13 epistles Paul gives us both instruction in prayer and examples. He continually uses his own prayer life as an example of the instruction to pray.

In 1st Timothy 2 verses 3 and 4 we read about God’s overall will and therefore a baseline for our prayers,
For this is good and acceptable in the sight of God our Savior, who desires all men to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth.

So, we have salvation by the gospel of grace of God as Paul preaches and then coming to a knowledge of the truth. The truth of what? Of whom we are and what God’s doing today and what He’s accomplished by the cross and through his grace today.

In 1 Thessalonians 4 verse 1 and 2 Paul writes concerning our walk,
Finally then, brethren, we urge and exhort in the Lord Jesus that you should abound more and more, just as you received from us how you ought to walk and to please God; for you know what commandments we gave you through the Lord Jesus.
He says very clearly that this is the will of God concerning us that we should abound more and more. In what?
In the knowledge of God and His will as we see in Colossians 1 verses 9 and 10,
For this reason we also, since the day we heard it, do not cease to pray for you, and to ask that you may be filled with the knowledge of His will in all wisdom and spiritual understanding; that you may walk worthy of the Lord, fully pleasing Him, being fruitful in every good work and increasing in the knowledge of God;
When we read what Paul wrote in Romans and Corinthians and Galatians and his other epistles we’re reading what Paul taught these churches and we can
receive from Paul what they received from Paul, and we can know how we ought to walk.
If we don’t know we go back and learn. It’s that learning process that takes us from not knowing how or what to pray for as we ought to knowing what and how to pray.

1st Thessalonians 4 verse 3,
For this is the will of God, your sanctification:
Our sanctification or our purity is God’s will. To be who God made us to be, set apart for His purpose which means we have to know His purpose, which is Grace today.
Part of that’s, in fact a very big part, is being grateful. In 1st Thessalonians 5 verses 17 and 18 we’re told,
pray without ceasing, in everything give thanks; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you.

We’ve covered these verses before. Knowing the will of God is clear in these passages. In everything give thanks. That’s a prayer verse but what we’re talking about today is praying knowing the will of God and then praying for the will of God.
If we struggle praying from this perspective of grace today, maybe we need to pray to God to change our perspective.
If we constantly think that the only thing we can pray for is something that we need and we don’t respect what God’s already given us in abundance then maybe our prayer might be, “God please help me to be thankful because I know that’s your will.” See we’d no longer praying our will we’re praying His will.
We can pray, “Lord teach me what it means to be a member of the body of Christ and to be sanctified. What does it mean to walk according to what you told Paul because I’m still trying to learn that, but I know that’s your will because I can see it clearly in scripture.”
See, we’re praying according to His will and that should help inform our Prayers.
It’s sometimes easier to read these verses about God’s will and know the will of God than it is to practice the will of God in prayer.
It requires a heart change.

We have to believe that what God’s doing today is the best thing for today.
We can’t pray to God to ask Him to act like He did in another age, like start healing the masses or bring that Kingdom in because we think that’d be better. What God is doing today is what He wills to do today, and it will work when we pray according to His will.
We can clearly know the ministry God’s doing today and it’s different than what He was doing before. He’s dealing with the spiritual today. He wants to see Souls saved and be spiritually strengthened in our inner man.

Paul prays in Colossians 1 verses 9 to 12,
For this reason, we also, since the day we heard it, do not cease to pray for you, and to ask that you may be filled with the knowledge of His will in all wisdom and spiritual understanding;
that you may walk worthy of the Lord, fully pleasing Him, being fruitful in every good work and increasing in the knowledge of God; strengthened with all might, according to His glorious power, for all patience and longsuffering with joy; giving thanks to the Father who has qualified us to be partakers of the inheritance of the saints in the light.

This is God’s will for us.
Colossians 4 verse 2 to 4 is a great prayer of Pauls,
Continue earnestly in prayer, being vigilant in it with thanksgiving; meanwhile praying also for us, that God would open to us a door for the word, to speak the mystery of Christ, for which I am also in chains, that I may make it manifest, as I ought to speak.
This is for all those who strive to bring the whole counsel of God to people.

We’re trying to see how all these prayers even in the old Testament were patterned according to the will of God. We just have to discern what the will of God is for today.
The Colossians 4 prayer works by understanding what God’s doing then we pray accordingly and then we watch because when we know God’s will we know what to look for and as we pray according to God’s will we’re participating in that will.

We change our will to recognise we want God’s will being done not ours.
A good prayer to start with may be, “Lord, your will be done not mine.” And then go and learn his will and our prayers will align us with that will.
There’s reasons for that and we’re trying to uncover them in our study here.
It’s very natural for people to pray to God for things, but it’s not natural to understand the things of God and to know what to pray for as we ought. Those things have to be learned.
We learned last time that a good prayer might be, “Lord teach me to pray.” Teach me to pray so I can pray knowing what you’re doing.
It’s natural for people to pray prayers saturated with requests, a laundry list of things to ask God for relating to the life they’re trying to live, but there’s gaps and holes and questions and uncertainties.
Last episode we tried to change the perspective a bit to the perspective of knowing all that God’s already done for us. That change in our prayer perspective should move us from constantly praying to get to praying to give as Paul tells us in 1st Thessalonians 5:18,
In everything give thanks: for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus concerning you.
That’s a result of knowing what God’s done. If we don’t know what God’s given us, what He’s done for us, it’s hard to say thank you.
Not everyone in the Bible was able to pray prayers of thanksgiving. Many didn’t receive the same things God’s given us which puts us in a unique position in this dispensation to pray certain prayers of thanksgiving.
It’s normal not to know how to pray according to God’s Will and how His will affects our prayers in this dispensation.
It’s normal not to know how to pray and we’ve covered that before.
It’s normal to make requests in prayer. Paul even instructs us to in Philippians 4:6,
Be careful for nothing; but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known unto God.

It’s also normal to think that prayer is something that should work for us.
We say prayer is a tool God’s given us to submit our requests and suggestions and things because I need help and it’s all about my needing help.

But, what if it wasn’t entirely about that?
Now we wouldn’t know this unless God has revealed things in the scripture about what He’s doing and what His will actually is.

This is what we’ll explore today.
Prayer does not come naturally. We’re born with a spirit, we’re born with a conscience, we’re born with the knowledge that there is a Creator, and so praying to that creator for things is natural.
But prayer is not about making our voice heard before God even though some people think of prayer that way. They even talk about the number of people who join in prayer having a higher chance of getting that prayer heard by God. Almost like making a petition to the government or something, but that’s not how prayer functions, or how God wants it to work, especially in this dispensation of grace that we live in today.
If there’s just one person praying, God hears their prayer just fine.
It’s much less about how many people want a thing or what it is that we want and more about what God wants.
However, if we say prayers about God’s will and not ours then people tend to turn off. It’s not what they want to hear. They say well then what’s the point of me praying?
Well, now our heart is exposed for what it really is which is us wanting things according to our will.

God will hear our prayers, especially in this dispensation where we have access to God through Christ and everything we pray He hears. And that’s different from how it was before.
Prayer has the purpose of aligning our will with God’s will, that’s what prayer’s purposes is and when we go into prayer with that thinking then we’ll understand it instead of thinking that prayer is trying to get God to align with our will.
That’s how most people naturally pray and that’s normal for people to pray that way until we learn differently.

So, rather than thinking that I’m going to pray to tell God what’s up with me so that he can get on board with what I’m doing and help me out, we begin to realise it’s the opposite.
We pray so that the wills that we’re constantly using to do the things we do in life can be aligned in those moments of prayer with what God’s doing. That’s what prayer’s supposed to do.

When we do that, what tends to happen is our own will becomes very diminished. the things that we thought were problems don’t seem as big as before, because now we know what God’s will is.
So, having that perspective about prayer being about God’s will is important. We’ve already learned that God instructs us to pray in this dispensation, so we pray by the will of God, and we pray according to the will of God, with knowledge of that will, and then we pray for the will of God to be done.
We pray as God’s instruct us to pray and we pray with the knowledge of what He’s doing according to His will.
What do we pray for as we ought? Well, that requires us to learn some things and the thing we need to learn is exactly what the will of God is, so we know what to pray for. We’re going to pray for His will to be done.

People talk about prayer and how prayer it didn’t work for them and usually it’s because they want God to do something that they want, and it doesn’t matter whether it’s God’s will or not.
But that’s not what prayer is!
Prayer is us aligning with God’s will. Prayer will work for the will of God, but we have to know what the will of God is. If we don’t know the will of God we’re going to be stuck praying prayers that’re trying to get God to know our will and
it just doesn’t seem like He’s hearing us. He is but prayer doesn’t have that function. Prayer is trying to align us with His will and if we don’t know His will what are we being aligned with? It simply doesn’t work that way.

Let’s look at some men from the Bible who prayed in this way, prayed God’s will in their prayers. There’s a pattern in these scriptures that we should notice.
First, we should notice how they’re praying according to the will of God and for the will of God and secondly how what they’re praying for and how they’re praying according to the will of God changes in different dispensations.

Before the cross of Christ and before Grace, Grace being something that God’s dispensing right now, God operated through the law. He operated through Covenants and He operated through Israel, and this is the way God operated even through the day of the cross through to Pentecost as he was promising a future Kingdom.
And then we have this revelation of a mystery given to Paul by Jesus Christ Himself. It was never prophesied but was kept secret by God before the foundation of the world and then it was revealed to Paul.
It’s a new dispensation that would interrupt prophesy because of the nation of Israel’s rejection of the Messiah.
In this dispensation called the dispensation of Grace, God pours out grace, saving grace, to a wicked world and He’s no longer working through the law, Israel or Israel’s covenants. So, the way God’s operating now, or the will of God today has changed from what God was doing before. Before the law was given God was operating with people in a different way again, without the law and without covenants.
Remember, Abraham back there was not an Israelite. Israel hadn’t even been created yet until Jacob, whose name was changed to Israel. It was his twelve sons that became the tribes of Israel. Abraham was not under Israel’s covenants like the Davidic covenants, or the Mosaic covenants and he was not under the law. He wasn’t even circumcised at one point in his life when God made His unconditional promise of the land to him. The apostle Paul takes great pains to point that out in his epistle to the Romans.
And so, we have God operating with Abraham differently than how he’s operating here today.
And we can easily see this in the scripture and reflected in the prayers of men living in these different times of God’s operation.

Let’s look at Genesis chapter 20. We’ll start with Abraham and by this time, Abraham is circumcised, and he’s given a promise that he would have a seed, a son and his son would be a blessing and Abraham would be a blessing among the Nations, and if anyone blessed him they’d be blessed and if anyone cursed him they’d be cursed. It’s important to realise that this promise given to Abraham at this time is not with Israel being present.
This is for this man and his family. So, in Genesis 20 verses 1 and 2 we see this,
And Abraham journeyed from there to the South, and dwelt between Kadesh and Shur, and stayed in Gerar. Now Abraham said of Sarah his wife, “She is my sister.” And Abimelech king of Gerar sent and took Sarah.
This causes an ordeal. Abimelech thinks well she’s a pretty woman, I think I’ll take her to be my wife. Then God appears to him in a dream down in verse 3,
But God came to Abimelech in a dream by night, and said to him, “Indeed you are a dead man because of the woman whom you have taken, for she is a man’s wife.”

What’s interesting here is that many people come to the scripture and read these stories and they say well this must be how God deals with everybody.
But, it isn’t how God deals with everybody. These people we’re reading about are the exceptions to how God deals with people.
God gave Abraham a unique promise and Sarah was special because he gave her a promise as well to have a son, Abraham’s son, and so this is a big problem for God’s will being done.
This king of Gerar is going to take Sarah to be his wife. God interrupts and says you’re dead. Now that’s how you change the course of history!
So, Abimelech says whoa, hold on!
Genesis 20 verses 4 to 6,
But Abimelech had not come near her; and he said, “Lord, will You slay a righteous nation also?
Did he not say to me, ‘She is my sister’? And she, even she herself said, ‘He is my brother.’ In the integrity of my heart and innocence of my hands I have done this.”
And God said to him in a dream, “Yes, I know that you did this in the integrity of your heart. For I also withheld you from sinning against Me; therefore I did not let you touch her.

From down in verse seven God tells Abimelech to restore Abraham’s wife to him He’s a prophet and he’ll pray for you, and you’ll live. But if you don’t restore her you’ll die and everyone who is associated with you will die.

Abimelech then wakes up and calls Abraham and said, “Why’d you do this to me? Why’d you lie to me? God threatened me.
He goes back and rebukes Abraham, then down at the end of the chapter in verse 16 he tells Sarah behold I’ve given your brother a thousand pieces of silver, go and be at peace and leave me alone. Now in verse 17 we read and here’s the part that we want to see, it’s Abraham’s prayer,
So Abraham prayed to God; and God healed Abimelech, his wife, and his female servants. Then they bore children; for the LORD had closed up all the wombs of the house of Abimelech because of Sarah, Abraham’s wife.
You see, God gave a promise to Abraham.
Abraham and Sarah had a special Covenant with God and God actually intervenes to make sure His will gets done.
Abraham prays to God and God healed Abimelech so that his household could again bear children.
So, we see the healing of Abimelech’s household after Abraham prays.
He prays for the healing of Abimelech’s household, and it works, let’s look at how this occurs.
This praying for healing isn’t Abraham coming out of the blue saying you’re sick and I’ve got power from God, so let’s heal you.
It’s God having a purpose with Abraham, Abimelech’s interrupting this purpose and God’s the one that actually caused the sickness here, the barrenness in the wombs. Then he tells Abimelech that Abraham will pray for you.
What’s God’s will here? God’s will is that Abimelech gives Sarah back and for Abraham to pray for him Abimelech obeys the will of God.
Abraham obeys the will of God and says the prayer.
The passages don’t even tell us what Abraham prayed but God heals Abimelech’s household.
Does it even have anything to do with what Abraham prayed? It’s that he prayed in obedience to God and God’s will was already stated. He was going to heal Abimelech when Abraham prayed. That’s what he said!
So, this isn’t some desire of Abraham, it was God’s will for Abimelech’s household to be healed.
It was written in Scripture. Abraham did it and God’s will was done.
That’s how this prayer worked!

Now let’s go to Psalm 37 and we’ll see this pattern over and over again in the scripture, where people, men of faith, pray according to the will of God that’s already known to them and then God’s will’s done.
People tend to think they’re going to pray for their own will when prayer is really about God’s will being done.
People often use Psalm 37 to justify praying for what they themselves want.
Psalm 37 verses 4 and 5,
Delight yourself also in the LORD, And He shall give you the desires of your heart.
Commit your way to the LORD, Trust also in Him, And He shall bring it to pass.

Well, there it is in scripture! We take that verse and put it on a bookmark or a sticker on the fridge. But sadly, most people take the verse completely out of the context. When that happens, we see the verse as whatever the will of your heart is just pray and the Lord’ll give it to you.
Well, firstly, scripture cuts to the chase when speaking of the heart of man.
Jeremaiah 17:9,
The heart is deceitful above all things, And desperately wicked; Who can know it?
So, knowing that the heart is desperately wicked and knowing that we don’t know what to pray for as you ought. Knowing that we might desire things God doesn’t want us to desire it’s good advice to follow our heart.
But Psalm 37 verses 4 and 5 say God will give us the desires of our heart if we delight ourselves in the Lord.
So, what does it mean to Delight yourself in the lord? What does the Bible say about delighting in the Lord?
Is it that God gives me the desires of my heart and I really want the desires of my heart?
Well, David says in verse 5, commit your way to the Lord!
Now, David’s operating under the law covenants that God gave to Israel. Those covenants were that if you obey, I (God) will bless your field and bless your children and give you prosperity.
Everything that was part of the Covenant was already written down, and it’s the will of God.
So, God is saying here that He’ll give you the desires of your heart after he’s already told you to circumcise your heart and love God with all your heart.
Deuteronomy 10:16,
Therefore circumcise the foreskin of your heart, and be stiff-necked no longer.

Deuteronomy 30:6,
And the LORD your God will circumcise your heart and the heart of your descendants, to love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul, that you may live.

See how it fits with the good will of God already?
So, us saying well this is the desire of my heart even though I don’t love God very much, that’s breaking the Covenant.
Verse 5’s instruction to, “Commit your way to the Lord” means that your way has to be the Lord’s way. If our way is not the Lord’s way we’re not going to get anything. But what’s the Lord’s way? What’s the lord’s will?
He declared in the covenants keep my Commandments, and so verse five, “Trust also in Him and He shall bring it to pass”, does not in any way mean God’s going to do what I want. No! He’s going to do what He wants and when we get on board with what He’s doing, what He wants, that’s when Psalm 37 becomes a reality.
Let’s drop down to verse 9 of Psalm 37,
For evildoers shall be cut off; But those who wait on the LORD, They shall inherit the earth.
We can’t rip these verses out of context. The land was given to Israel. They had land covenants, earth covenants and by the way this this type of language here that they shall inherit the earth sounds familiar doesn’t it?
Look at Verse 11,
But the meek shall inherit the earth, And shall delight themselves in the abundance of peace.

Remember someone else saying this in the Bible? Jesus said it. He didn’t invent it, apart from the fact that He’s God and He did say it in this Psalm as well!
Jesus said this in Matthew Chapter 5 and 6 repeating prophecy about Israel’s land covenant and it’s fulfillment on the Earth. They’re going to inherit the earth is what God promised to them going right back to Abraham’s promise.
God’s will was known. It was in the law and the covenants. So, the promise God’s going to fulfill for them is what He’s already made known to them.
When they pray to inherit the earth and obey the terms of God’s covenant, God’s going to do what He wills to do. He’s going to keep His promise.

This is not willy-nilly stuff like someone saying, “I like that beachfront property on the Gold Coast, so God give it to me please.”
That’s just not the promise here. There’s nowhere where God said it’s His will for that.
But it was His will for Abraham, Isaac and Jacob and Israel to have a certain specific measured out piece of land.
Meanwhile in this same Psalm 37:23 David writes,
The steps of a good man are ordered by the LORD, And He delights in his way.
This is in the same chapter about delighting in the Lord. We shouldn’t read this like whatever I’m going to do he’s going to lead me mystically to do it.
God has given 613 Commandments to Israel from everything about what they wear to what they eat to where they go to what days they celebrate.
He’s ordered everything in Israel and in their society and how they’re to live.
The steps of a good man order by the Lord is that if you’re a good man in Israel you will keep the law. It wasn’t simply love your neighbour, even though that was the second Chief commandment, it was a whole range of very specific details.
They’re ordered by the Lord it says and He Delights in His way.
You see what that’s saying? Delighting yourself in the Lord in Psalm 37’s context is doing the law.

God already revealed what He wanted them to do and what it means to Delight in Him.
Then in Psalm 37:29,
The righteous shall inherit the land, And dwell in it forever.
There it is again. The righteous shall inherit the land! There’s a half a dozen times in this chapter it talks about the land the land the land. This is Israel! The righteous shall inherit the land and dwell therein forever.
Well, there goes Heaven if you’re going to be on the Earth forever. This is Israel!
Then down in verse 31,
The law of his God is in his heart; None of his steps shall slide.
The law of his God is in his heart. Delight yourself in the Lord and He’ll give you the desires of your heart. Well, what’s in his heart? The law of God!
What’s the law of God say? You’ll get the land forever.
Well, that seems like God’s only going to do what He wants. We come to prayer thinking we’re going to manipulate and change God to get him to do what we want. That’s not how prayer works.
We might say, “Well, God, a lot of us down here want something different than what you’re doing.”
However, it’s not going to convince Him.

Go to Psalm 40 verse 8,
I delight to do Your will, O my God, And Your law is within my heart.”
David’s talking about how to condition your heart under the law.
Delight yourself in the Lord’s law. They had to understand that the law of God wasn’t a suggestion or just something that ruled an earthly nation, it was divinely given. It was God’s will for them to do it.
It’s different from the laws of our country which were Man created. Even though many of them were originally influenced by the Bible they were not given from Heaven on Mount Sinai.
We follow laws in our society for various reasons and motivations but it’s not because God gave them from Heaven.
But the law of God that Moses was given was God given from Heaven.

See, the scripture’s clear about what’s the desires of the person’s heart in Psalm 37? The law of God! They delight in the Lord’s will. So, you see where we’re going here?
The prayer it’s not, “Oh goodie, I get to finally make my own request. God says you be good for a week I’ll give you whatever you want.”
No, it’s God saying, “I want to change your heart to do My will because although you don’t know it, My will is better than yours.”
That’s what the Bible’s trying to teach in a nutshell.
God knows better than us, but we think otherwise.

Now let’s look at Solomon.
Go to 2nd Chronicles chapter 7 verse 14,
…if My people who are called by My name will humble themselves, and pray and seek My face, and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin and heal their land..
God’s people here are of course the nation of Israel.
Humble themselves and Pray. In that context it says to Humble yourselves which means we’re not saying me, me, me.
First we have we have the “if” and then we have the “then”.
The “if” is humble themselves, pray seek God’s face, turn from their wicked ways.
The “then” is I will hear from heaven, forgive their sin and heal their land.
Question. Does God hear from heaven when they don’t turn from their wicked ways? Not according to this verse! If they’re not turning from their wicked ways God will not hear from Heaven.
This is why we don’t use this verse as a prayer in this dispensation today, because the unique thing about prayer in this dispensation is that if we’re in Christ, God hears all our prayers by Grace.
We’ve done nothing to be saved by grace. Nothing we’ve done or not done gets us access to God. Therefore, anything we utter in prayer God receives, unlike under the Covenant program and the law where God would only hear their prayers when they obeyed his Covenant. Obey first then I’ll listen to you says God.
Under grace today it’s, “I’ve saved you by My grace. You’re my child in Christ. Pray.” What an amazing privilege and benefit to have.

But back there with Solomon, God says forgiveness and healing of their land is received through humbling themselves, praying and seeking God’s face and turning from their wicked ways.

Forgiveness in this dispensation of grace we live in today is through the shed blood of Jesus Christ.
Colossians 1 verse 14,
…in whom we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of sins.
You see using this verse in 2nd Chronicles as a prayer denies the grace blessings you’ve been given by Christ today.
Forgiveness then was not yet being offered based on Christ’s shed blood.
They were under a covenant program which said you need to do the law then
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God’ll hear and then respond, and that’s what God promised. He’ll hear from heaven and forgive their sin and heal their land.

God’s talking about Israel in 2nd Chronicles 7:14. God’s speaking to Solomon privately in Solomon’s house in response to Solomon’s Prayer.
So we should go back and see exactly what Solomon prayed, because if Solomon can get a private response from God and some sort of prayer promise even though it’s not the dispensation you and I live in today, then maybe we should learn how Solomon prayed.
2nd Chronicles 6 verse one,
Then Solomon spoke: “The LORD said He would dwell in the dark cloud.
The context of what’s going on here is that Solomon is dedicating the temple that he built for God.
The prayer to which God is responding to in chapter 7 is this prayer of Solomon’s.
2nd Chronicles 6:2,
I have surely built You an exalted house, And a place for You to dwell in forever.”
He’s talking to God there saying I built you a house to dwell in forever.
2nd Chronicles 6:3,
Then the king turned around and blessed the whole assembly of Israel, while all the assembly of Israel was standing.

The notice what Solomon says next in 2nd Chronicles 6:4,
And he said: “Blessed be the LORD God of Israel, who has fulfilled with His hands what He spoke with His mouth to my father David,
See, Solomon is praying according to what God’s already said He’s going to do. look at verse 5,
Since the day that I brought My people out of the land of Egypt, I have chosen no city from any tribe of Israel in which to build a house, that My name might be there, nor did I choose any man to be a ruler over My people Israel.

Now verse 6,
Yet I have chosen Jerusalem, that My name may be there, and I have chosen David to be over My people Israel.’
This is what God promised David!

Verse 7,
Now it was in the heart of my father David to build a temple for the name of the LORD God of Israel.
Remember, David wanted to do that. He wanted to build a house. What did God say to David? No!
But what did he say to David instead?
Verse 9,
Nevertheless you shall not build the temple, but your son who will come from your body, he shall build the temple for My name.’
When David wanted to build God’s house, God said no but his son, Solomon would build it.
Now Solomon’s built the temple and He’s dedicating it.
See how all this was God’s will. Solomon’s prayer is that we did God’s will and he’s now praying according to that will!
You see a lot of background knowledge in all these verses. Solomon’s not just praying something like, “Well I built something for you God, even though you didn’t ask for it and I hope you can bless it even though you never promised you would, and I hope that if anyone comes in this building that you know they’ll have spiritual fulfillment even though you’ve never said that.”
That’s how many of us Christians pray.
We pray about things we do when there’s no biblical justification for it.
Solomon built this because God said to!
God made a promise to do it and to bless him for doing it. And he’s is praying to fulfill what God said he wanted him to do.
In verses 10 and 11, Solomon goes on,
So the LORD has fulfilled His word which He spoke, and I have filled the position of my father David, and sit on the throne of Israel, as the LORD promised; and I have built the temple for the name of the LORD God of Israel. And there I have put the ark, in which is the covenant of the LORD which He made with the children of Israel.”
So over and over again he’s talking about God’s fulfilling of what He promised Down in verse 17 and 18 he says,
And now, O LORD God of Israel, let Your word come true, which You have spoken to Your servant David. “But will God indeed dwell with men on the earth? Behold, heaven and the heaven of heavens cannot contain You. How much less this temple which I have built!
Solomon turns his attention to speak to God directly and this is in front of the congregation of Israel.

Do not make this house the house you go to for church.
This is a house God told Solomon to build specifically for Him.
No church organisation ever received that instruction.
Solomon goes on for the remainder of the chapter praying about the temple according to the will of God.

God responds to Solomon privately as Solomon goes home and tells him that he has heard his prayer and that, quote, “I will be in this house and if my people who are called by my name shall humble themselves and pray then I will heal their land I’ll forgive their sins.”

People don’t know what to pray for because often they’re not interested in learning what God will is.
That’s why it’s not easy to know what to pray for in this dispensation of today because knowing God’s will requires us to understand how His will has been revealed and how it has changed and now been revealed in this dispensation.
Christians, not understanding that not all the Bible is written to them and about them, take prayers from everywhere.
Whenever we hear Christians taking verses out of context and asking for
things contrary to God’s will, a red flag should go off in our mind.
If it’s not God’s will as clearly given tin the Bible, then there’s no way we can walk in that information or participate in it. It’s just simply outside God’s will and we should back away.
We saw Jesus in the last episode is teaching the disciples to pray in the so called Lord’s prayer and it was easy to see from prophecy that it was all according to God’s will, and the disciples knew that.

And as we pointed out last time also, to think that the church is to pray this prayer, especially as frequently as they do, is to say that in this prayer is the will of God for the church today and there’s a problem with that.
If this prayer is the will of God for the church today it doesn’t include the cross at all, or seeing all men saved, or the body of Christ, the creating of that new creature, or the church anywhere for that matter!
It’s eating every day to survive, being led on the earth to a kingdom come and forgiving others so you might receive forgiveness.
That is actually for the 12 tribes of Israel, it’s simply not the will of God for you and me today in this dispensation of grace.
But what that prayer does include, as Jesus taught it, was the will of God for Israel.
Jesus knew the will of God. Jesus knew He was God, but he also said He came to do the will of His father. That’s why He came to Earth to do the will of His father, to confirm the promise made in the covenants and also to die on the cross.
See the pattern of prayer? God’s will, God’s will, God’s will, not our partitions for things, for health, wealth and happiness that emerge from our own desires.

In Luke 18 verse 31 to 33 we hear Jesus say,
Then He took the twelve aside and said to them, “Behold, we are going up to Jerusalem, and all things that are written by the prophets concerning the Son of Man will be accomplished.” For He will be delivered to the Gentiles and will be mocked and insulted and spit upon.
They will scourge Him and kill Him. And the third day He will rise again.”

What He just said was that whatever God said before that He was going to do; He’s going to do. Is it a mystery here what Christ is going to do? No, it’s been revealed even though the disciples are kind of ignorant of it.
We see this in the next verse, verse 34,
But they understood none of these things; this saying was hidden from them, and they did not know the things which were spoken.
Like a lot of us Christians today, they just don’t know what the Bible actually says, but that doesn’t mean God hasn’t said it.
Now the disciples were not taught to pray about the situation, for Jesus’s work to die on the cross for the sins of the world.
That wasn’t even in that prayer the Lord taught them.
The disciples don’t understand anything he says here.
They didn’t know about his death and Resurrection, but Jesus did know. He
Knew He’d come to this earth to die. He also knew why.
In Luke 22, the night of His betrayal, and remember the disciples don’t understand anything about it, Jesus says this,
Likewise He also took the cup after supper, saying, “This cup is the new covenant in My blood, which is shed for you.
He hasn’t died yet. No one there that night understood the gospel preaching of the Cross, but Jesus says I’m going to shed My blood for the New Testament, I’m going to shed my blood for sins, I’m going to shed my blood for Israel’s promises being fulfilled.
Jesus knew what God’s will was for Him and why.
Now drop down to Luke 22 verse 42. It’s after the meal and they go out and sing a song then go to the Garden of Gethsemane. Peter, James and John are with Him and He’s told them to pray that you may not enter into temptation.
Jesus then prays saying,
“Father, if it is Your will, take this cup away from Me; nevertheless, not My will, but Yours, be done.”
Jesus knows why He came. It was to die. He knew He’d come to fulfill the promises and the prophets. He knew He’d come to die for the sin of the world. He knew even what was not yet revealed according to God’s will, which is that His death on the cross would accomplish something far greater, the creation of a new creature in the body of Christ. To perform His will for the ages and that’s why He says, “Nevertheless not My will but yours be done.”
Whatever pain and suffering and sorrow He’s feeling, whatever the resistance and temptation to not perform this thing, it needs to be accomplished because it’s God’s will, incidentally, the will He Himself purposed with the Father.
That’s Jesus’s prayer to the father. Should our prayers be any less according to God’s will?
However, for us to pray God’s will we need to know His will!

1st John 5 verses 14 and 15 is a popular prayer today, taught by Jon who was there in the Garden with Jesus on that dreadful night. John says,
Now this is the confidence that we have in Him, that if we ask anything according to His will, He hears us.
And if we know that He hears us, whatever we ask, we know that we have the petitions that we have asked of Him.

That’s what we’re trying to get across from the scripture.
When we pray it should be according to God’s will.
Then we have to recognise that God’s will relating to how he deals with mankind changes from age to age. God Himself never changes of course, but the way he deals with His human creation does.
John writes in this epistle of 1st John as a member of the remnant of Israel. One of those who’ve been promised a kingdom come.
He says we know we have confidence in him that whatever we ask we have the petitions we desired of Him.
That sounds like Psalm 37 which said,
Delight yourself also in the LORD, And He shall give you the desires of your heart.
As we saw at length He’ll give you the desires of your heart because your heart contains God’s will.
God’s not waiting for us to have a good idea. He has His will. We’re the ones that need to know it, for us to align with His will. In the circumstances of our lives, where sometimes it’s hard to see God’s will, we do our own thing anyway, but to do the things we need to do we must align ourselves, in that moment of prayer, to say God has a will and I’m supposed to be aligning with it. That helps us in how we walk day to day in this world.

According to Romans 8, we don’t know what to pray for, but the Holy Spirit helps but His words are not given to us in a supernatural inner voice today, they’re given to us in the scripture, which means we’ve got to open up the book and read and understand these things.
If we go back to 1st John 5 we see in verse 16 why they could ask anything according to His will and He hears, and they have the petitions they asked of Him.
See they’re talking about forgiving sins. The things that they’re asking God to do is forgiving sins.
In 1st John 1 verse 9 we see,
If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.
That’s what they’re ask Him. That’s why verse 16 says there’s some sins you shouldn’t pray for, which is another issue for another day, but they’re praying specifically for forgiveness.
Do we need to pray for forgiveness today? Is it our job to pray for forgiveness of someone else? No! Christ has shed his blood for all men’s forgiveness. Our pray today is that mankind, including the people we know and love, trust His completed work for the forgiveness of their sins.

In every prayer that we’ve just covered, and there are many, many more throughout the Bible, all these men prayed the will of God and their own will aligned with it.
None of them said, “Well that’s a good idea God but I have a better thought on how to do it.”
How do we get prayer to work? We need to know how God is working and what He wants. When we align ourselves with God’s will and His work then we see God working more clearly. Now we’re praying the same thing that God’s doing, His will for today.
Prayer works today according to how God works, what He’s doing in this dispensation, knowing full well that what He does changes throughout the scripture. Of course, God Himself never changes. Jesus is the same yesterday, today and forever, but how he deals with His precious creation, mankind, does change from age to age.
What He’s doing today is not what He’ll do in the future on the earth.
It’s not what He was doing at Pentecost or during Israel’s wilderness wanderings or when Israel conquered the land. And, when God changes his mode of operation with man, then prayer must change as well.
We know that The Body of Christ is not Israel. The body of Christ is neither Jew nor Gentile. We’re not under the law. As Romans 6:14 says,
For sin shall not have dominion over you, for you are not under law but under grace.
The body of Christ is a new creature created to serve God outside of the law.
2nd Corinthians 5:1,
Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; old things have passed away; behold, all things have become new.
Then in Galatians 6:15,
For in Christ Jesus neither circumcision (the Jew) nor uncircumcision (the Gentile) avails anything, but a new creation.
That doesn’t mean that we’re walking in sin. It means the law’s not the motivation for us to do right. We have a greater motivation which is God’s grace explained to us in the incredible book of Romans.
Not only are we not under the Mosaic law, we’re also strangers from the covenants relating to the earthly Kingdom.
Ephesians 2 says that we’re strangers from Israel’s covenants and when we join to God we don’t join to God through Israel’s covenants We join to God through the new man that he’s made, the new creature, the Body of Christ.

To fully understand God’s will for us today we need to understand the dispensation of grace that we’re now living in today.

We look to Romans 16 verses 25 to 26,
Now to Him who is able to establish you according to my gospel and the preaching of Jesus Christ, according to the revelation of the mystery kept secret since the world began but now made manifest, and by the prophetic Scriptures made known to all nations, according to the commandment of the everlasting God, for obedience to the faith—

Now, it isn’t just knowing that there was a mystery that was kept secret even though that’s important. It’s knowing that this mystery that God kept secret from the foundation of the world has now been revealed. It was revealed by Jesus Christ Himself through the apostle Paul.
The point of this verse is that Jesus Christ will establish us in the will of God that’s the point of the verse.
It’s so we might know God’s will according to that mystery.
How did this mystery period, which is the dispensation of grace come into being?
Ephesians 3 verses 1 to 7,
For this reason I, Paul, the prisoner of Christ Jesus for you Gentiles— if indeed you have heard of the dispensation of the grace of God which was given to me for you, how that by revelation He made known to me the mystery (as I have briefly written already, by which, when you read, you may understand my knowledge in the mystery of Christ), which in other ages was not made known to the sons of men, as it has now been revealed by the Spirit to His holy apostles and prophets: that the Gentiles should be fellow heirs, of the same body, and partakers of His promise in Christ through the gospel, of which I became a minister according to the gift of the grace of God given to me by the effective working of His power.

It’s hard to imagine that the apostle Paul, before he met Jesus Christ on the road to Damascus and was saved, was a violent and unrelenting persecutor of all who believed in Jesus Christ.

If you go through some of our other material you can find a more detailed explanation of the mystery revealed.
This dispensation that was revealed to Paul after being kept secret by God before the foundation of the world came into reality as an interruption, if you like, to the timeline of prophecy. This timeline included all the things that happened throughout Israel’s history and during Jesus’s earthly ministry when He came to earth to fulfill prophecy and the law to the letter. It also included the events of the day of Pentecost after the Lord had ascended back to heaven after His resurrection.
This is where the apostle Peter quotes the prophet Joel and refers to this time as the time that those events spoken of in Joel are actually happening. This certainly would have been the case but for one major factor, Israel rejected Jesus Christ, the Messiah. They rejected Him when He was on earth, and they continue to reject Him after He returned to heaven. The last straw for Israel was when they stoned Stephen in Acts chapter 7.
They had Rejected the Messiah, they’d rejected God and rejected the Holy Spirit and, as a result God rejected them, and Israel fell.
All that they were promised, the New Covenant, the Kingdom and the restoration of the nation to its former glory under King David and King Solomon were postponed and Israel entered a state of blindness which lasts right up till today.
So, in place of what should have happened, according to prophecy, God introduces this interlude that He knew about and knew would come, but kept it secret.
Every promise and prophecy relating to Israel was now on hold.
This period, this dispensation of grace, would be a time where God offered free Grace to a rebellious and wicked world. Grace that would be bestowed no longer through Israel, their priests and their religious systems, but directly from God by no other vehicle than faith in God’s Word, the gospel of grace. This gospel and salvation by grace is now open to every human, no matter how bad or good or whether he’s a Jew or a Gentile. The nation Israel has been temporarily sidelined as God’s priesthood that brings all nations to the knowledge of God. They’re sidelined until a day comes, which it will during the great tribulation, when they turn and realise that Jesus was the Messiah all along and they accept Him.
This incredible dispensation of grace has so far lasted for 2000 years.

So, now God has once again changed the way He deals with mankind. Now salvation is by grace alone, through faith, without works of the law or works of any kind. It’s through believing and nothing else!
Where do we find our instruction, our doctrine and what God’s will is for this incredible dispensation of grace today?
We find it in the 13 epistles written by the apostle Paul. The interesting thing with Paul is that in those 13 epistles Paul gives us both instruction in prayer and examples. He continually uses his own prayer life as an example of the instruction to pray.

In 1st Timothy 2 verses 3 and 4 we read about God’s overall will and therefore a baseline for our prayers,
For this is good and acceptable in the sight of God our Savior, who desires all men to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth.

So, we have salvation by the gospel of grace of God as Paul preaches and then coming to a knowledge of the truth. The truth of what? Of whom we are and what God’s doing today and what He’s accomplished by the cross and through his grace today.

In 1 Thessalonians 4 verse 1 and 2 Paul writes concerning our walk,
Finally then, brethren, we urge and exhort in the Lord Jesus that you should abound more and more, just as you received from us how you ought to walk and to please God; for you know what commandments we gave you through the Lord Jesus.
He says very clearly that this is the will of God concerning us that we should abound more and more. In what?
In the knowledge of God and His will as we see in Colossians 1 verses 9 and 10,
For this reason we also, since the day we heard it, do not cease to pray for you, and to ask that you may be filled with the knowledge of His will in all wisdom and spiritual understanding; that you may walk worthy of the Lord, fully pleasing Him, being fruitful in every good work and increasing in the knowledge of God;
When we read what Paul wrote in Romans and Corinthians and Galatians and his other epistles we’re reading what Paul taught these churches and we can
receive from Paul what they received from Paul, and we can know how we ought to walk.
If we don’t know we go back and learn. It’s that learning process that takes us from not knowing how or what to pray for as we ought to knowing what and how to pray.

1st Thessalonians 4 verse 3,
For this is the will of God, your sanctification:
Our sanctification or our purity is God’s will. To be who God made us to be, set apart for His purpose which means we have to know His purpose, which is Grace today.
Part of that’s, in fact a very big part, is being grateful. In 1st Thessalonians 5 verses 17 and 18 we’re told,
pray without ceasing, in everything give thanks; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you.

We’ve covered these verses before. Knowing the will of God is clear in these passages. In everything give thanks. That’s a prayer verse but what we’re talking about today is praying knowing the will of God and then praying for the will of God.
If we struggle praying from this perspective of grace today, maybe we need to pray to God to change our perspective.
If we constantly think that the only thing we can pray for is something that we need and we don’t respect what God’s already given us in abundance then maybe our prayer might be, “God please help me to be thankful because I know that’s your will.” See we’d no longer praying our will we’re praying His will.
We can pray, “Lord teach me what it means to be a member of the body of Christ and to be sanctified. What does it mean to walk according to what you told Paul because I’m still trying to learn that, but I know that’s your will because I can see it clearly in scripture.”
See, we’re praying according to His will and that should help inform our Prayers.
It’s sometimes easier to read these verses about God’s will and know the will of God than it is to practice the will of God in prayer.
It requires a heart change.

We have to believe that what God’s doing today is the best thing for today.
We can’t pray to God to ask Him to act like He did in another age, like start healing the masses or bring that Kingdom in because we think that’d be better. What God is doing today is what He wills to do today, and it will work when we pray according to His will.
We can clearly know the ministry God’s doing today and it’s different than what He was doing before. He’s dealing with the spiritual today. He wants to see Souls saved and be spiritually strengthened in our inner man.

Paul prays in Colossians 1 verses 9 to 12,
For this reason, we also, since the day we heard it, do not cease to pray for you, and to ask that you may be filled with the knowledge of His will in all wisdom and spiritual understanding;
that you may walk worthy of the Lord, fully pleasing Him, being fruitful in every good work and increasing in the knowledge of God; strengthened with all might, according to His glorious power, for all patience and longsuffering with joy; giving thanks to the Father who has qualified us to be partakers of the inheritance of the saints in the light.

This is God’s will for us.
Colossians 4 verse 2 to 4 is a great prayer of Pauls,
Continue earnestly in prayer, being vigilant in it with thanksgiving; meanwhile praying also for us, that God would open to us a door for the word, to speak the mystery of Christ, for which I am also in chains, that I may make it manifest, as I ought to speak.
This is for all those who strive to bring the whole counsel of God to people.

We’re trying to see how all these prayers even in the old Testament were patterned according to the will of God. We just have to discern what the will of God is for today.
The Colossians 4 prayer works by understanding what God’s doing then we pray accordingly and then we watch because when we know God’s will we know what to look for and as we pray according to God’s will we’re participating in that will.

We change our will to recognise we want God’s will being done not ours.
A good prayer to start with may be, “Lord, your will be done not mine.” And then go and learn his will and our prayers will align us with that will.