The heart of Moses in prayer - a patient heart

The heart of Moses in prayer is a patient heart.

Moses was not a patient man to start with.

In his younger days, he was quick tempered and impatient. His impatience was obvious when he killed the Egyptian who was beating up  his people. His impatience was displayed when he rebuked the men of Israel who was fighting each other.

God had to work patience into the heart of Moses to make Moses the greatest prayer leader of all times. 

How did Moses became so patient? I believe he became patient because he had to deal with a group of negative, ungrateful, complaining, grumbling, unthankful people that he had to lead. He could not run away from the task as he had been assigned to it by God!

Deut 1:9 "And I spoke to you at that time, saying: "I alone am not able to bear you."

Deut 1:12 "How can I alone bear your problems and your burdens and your complaints?"

Problems, burdens and complaints. 

Sounds familiar? This spiritual malaise is also prevalent in our churches today. How do we as leaders deal with problems, burdens and complaints especially when they come from believers? The only way is to ask God to give us patience in counseling and praying for our people that they will find God and stop complaining!

Moses was not just the meekest man on earth, he was also the most patient man on earth! When it came to the criticisms against him by his own leaders and his family members, Moses did not react against them, hating them or despising them, he did only the one thing he knew to do - he prayed for them!

Numbers 12 - we read of Miriam and Aaron who spoke against Moses because of the Ethiopian woman who he had married; for he had married and Ethiopian woman.

Num 12:1-3

"Then Miriam and Aaron spoke against Moses because of the Ethipian woman he had married...So they said, "Has the Lord indeed spoken only through Moses? Has He not spoken through us also?" And the Lord heard it. (Now the man Moses was very humble, more than all men who were on the face of the earth)".

The Lord's anger was aroused and Miriam became leprous - Num 12:10.

Moses pleaded for Miriam to be healed in verse 13, "So Moses cried out to the Lord, "Please heal her, O God, I pray!"

At the Red Sea crossing, Moses found the greatest challenge of prayer. To go back, the Egyptians will certainly kill them all. To go forward was a human impossibility with drowning being  a certain outcome.

There was such a great outcry against Moses that could have tested the patience of any man. 

Ex 14:12 "Is this not the word that we told you in Egypt, saying, "Let us alone that we may serve the Egyptians? For it would have been better for us to serve the Egyptians than that we should die in the wilderness"

Can you imagine? After all the plagues and miracles, the children of Israel still did not see that it was God who had empowered Moses to deliver them out of Egypt! Even at such a critical time, they were not crying out to God for help but they were complaining against Moses!

I can almost feel the anger in Moses's voice as he shouted above the sound of the waters of the Red Sea in Ex 14:13-14 "And Moses said to the people, "Do not be afraid. Stand still and see the salvation of the Lord, which He will accomplish for you today. For the Egyptians whom you see today, you shall see again no more forever. The Lord will fight for you and you shall hold your peace"

I can also sense the resignation and the acceptance in Moses even though he pleaded with God to let him enter into the promised land.

Deut 3:23-25

"Then I pleaded with the Lord at that time, saying: "O Lord God, You have begun to show Your servant Your greatness and Your mighty hand, for what god is there in heaven or on earth who can do anything like Your works and Your mighty deeds? I pray, let me cross over and see the good land beyond the Jordan, those pleasant mountains, and Lebanon"

Deut 3:26

"But the Lord was angry with me on your account, and would not listen to me. So the Lord said to me" "Enough of that! Speak no more to Me of this matter"

Why was Moses not allowed to enter into the promised land? He lost his temper with the children of Israel and called them "rebels" when they complained about there being no water in the wilderness of Zin. God spoke to Moses to speak to the rock to bring forth water but instead of speaking to the rock, Moses struck it twice with his rod.

God was angry with Moses for doing so and refused to let him lead his people into Canaan.

Let us pray: "God give us a heart of patience like Moses in prayer that we may learn to deal with the people's problems, burdens and complaints in prayer"

The Heart of Moses in prayer - a god-centered heart & a word-centered heart

The heart of Moses in prayer is a God-centered heart.

What is a God-centered heart? It is a heart that prays for the things that matters to God. It is a heart that cries for the priorities of God's kingdom.

What is the priority of God's kingdom? His priority has always been for the salvation of the souls of men and for eternal fellowship with them.  

Unlike our prayers which can be rather inward focusing inward on our personal needs, God's heart is for the lost. His heart is to populate His kingdom and to show to the world through His church the love of the Father through the sacrifice of His Son.

His purpose is to draw the nations to Himself.

He chose Israel to demonstrate His love to the world. 

Ex 19:5-6 

"Now therefore if you will indeed obey My voice and keep My covenant, then you shall be a special treasure to Me above all peoples, for all the earth is mine. You shall be to Me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation. These are the words which you shall speak to the children of Israel"

Translating this to the present-day church, we are reminded that this promise is now given to the church, to all who believe in Jesus.

1 Peter 2:9 

"But you are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, a holy nation. His own special people, that you may proclaim the praises of Him who called our of darkness into His marvelous light"

Moses was so on fire with the love of God that he often reminded God of His purposes to save souls and to establish His kingdom on earth! Moses saw God's higher plan to bless and prosper Israel for the sake of the world. His prayer was not a prayer for worldly things or fleshly indulgence. His prayer was for spiritual things and to advance the kingdom of God.

Just think for a moment, if Moses had not prayed the way he prayed, today there might not be nation called Israel!


When the children of Israel worshiped the golden calf, God threatened to destroy them but Moses stopped Him by praying a prayer which was God-centered:

Ex 31:12-13

"Why should the Egyptians speak and say, 'He brought them out to harm them, to kill them on the mountains and to consume them from the face of the earth? Remember Abraham, Isaac and Israel, Your servants to whom You swore by Your own self, and said to them, 'I will multiply your descendants as the stars in heaven; and all this land that I have spoken of I give to your descendants, and they shall inherit it forever"

It happened again in Numbers 14. When the children of Israel refused to go into the promised land, God again wanted to destroy them and made an offer to Moses to make him a greater nation than the children of Israel.

Numbers 14:13-16. Moses reminded God again that He did all these acts to demonstrate His greatness and glory to the children of Israel and to the heathen nations as well.

Numbers 14:13-16

"And Moses said to the Lord, "Then the Egyptians will hear it, for by Your might, You have brought these people up from them and they will tell it to the inhabitants of the land. They have heard that You, Lord, are among these people; that You, Lord, are seen face to face and Your cloud stands before them, and You go before them in a pillar of cloud by day and in a pillar of fire by night. Now if You kill these people as one man, then the nations which have heard of Your fame will speak, saying, "Because the Lord was not able to bring these people to the land which He swore to give them, therefore He killed them in the wilderness"

Moses's prayer was driven by his concern for God and His glory. What would the pagan nations say if the people of Israel died in a day on their way from Egypt to Canaan? They would not assume that the people had angered Jehovah. They would assume that Jehovah was unable to do what He promised.

As a writer once said:

"I find it hard to believe that God had not already thought of what these foreign nations would think. I believe the heart of these narratives is not so much about God supposedly changing His mind, but about Moses bending to do God's will. Instead of thinking about the glory he could receive as the father of the nation, Moses thought about the glory that would be taken from God"

The problem is we all too often view prayer as the means by which we try to bend God to do our will. In reality the heart of successful prayer is to be found in this - discover God's will and pray for that. God will grant those requests.

A god-centered heart is also a word-centered heart. 

When Moses prayed in Exodus 32:13, he could pray with faith that God would grant his request because he knew the promises God had made to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. When Moses quoted these promises, he was not just speaking of these two specific promises, he was referencing all the promises God had made to his forefathers. All of those promises specially the ones made to the 12 sons of Jacob in Gen 49, could not be fulfilled if God started with Moses. 

Moses's prayer was  successful because it was based on God's word. When we pray, do we consider God's word? How much more effective our prayers would be if we would actually go to the scriptures first and find the promises of God and pray them!

May we have the heart of Moses in prayer - to pray God's word, God's purposes and God's priorities which is the salvation of the souls of man and the establishment of His kingdom in the hearts of men!

The Heart of Moses in prayer - A Surrendered Heart

A surrendered heart

Moses had a surrendered heart. What did he surrender until he became so powerful in his prayer life? What made his prayers so powerful that he could move the heart of God?

Moses surrendered his hurts to God. He was hurt because his people rejected him as deliverer in the first place. Rejection entered his spirit and he fled to Midian to hide from Pharaoh and from his own people.

Since the days of Egypt, he had been deeply hurt and rejected by his people. All he wanted was to help them but instead they rejected his help.

The hurt and rejection started when he acted on impulse by killing the Egyptian (Ex 2:12) who was beating up his people. At first Moses thought that no one knew what he did but he realized that the Hebrew children saw it and they must have made this matter known to Pharaoh!

Ex 2:13 -14 

"And when he went out the second day, behold, two Hebrew men were fighting, and he said to the one who did the wrong "Why are you striking your companion?". Then he said, "Who made you a prince and a judge over us? Do you intend to kill me as you killed the Egyptian? So Moses feared and said, "Surely this thing is known".

The words spoken to him brought upon him a spirit of rejection that stayed with him even after he had fled to Midian. 

What did he do in Midian? 

He actually entered into a comfort zone. He hid the rejection that he experienced at the hands of his own people by starting a new life in Midian, getting married and staring a family.

Ex 2:21 "Then Moses was content to live with the man (Jethro) and he gave Zipporah his daughter to Moses"

Years later the rejection manifested when God called him out of the burning bush to deliver the people out of Egypt. 

He wanted assurance from God before he approached the elders of Israel as he did not want to be rejected again by his people. 

In Ex 4:1 after God gave Moses the assignment to deliver his people out of Egypt, Moses asked for a sign from God, "But suppose they will not believe me or listen to my voice, suppose they say, 'The Lord has not appeared to you'".

Although two signs were given it was not enough. In Ex 4:10, the fear of rejection manifested again "O my Lord, I am not eloquent, neither before nor since You have spoken to Your servant; but I am slow of speech and slow of tongue"

Even though God assured him in verses 11 and 12 that God will give him words to say, he asked again in Ex 4:13 "O my Lord, please send by the hand of whomever else You may send".

The supernatural signs did not help, the assurance that God will give him the words did not help, Moses was still reluctant to go. It was either that he still felt the hurt of being rejected by his own people or that he was too contented in his comfort zone to make the move or simply both!

He refused to go until God got angry with him and had to finally assign Aaron to speak on Moses's behalf! Ex 4:14-15.

Then and only then did Moses agreed to take up the assignment. It was like a "no-choice" situation for Moses!

Moses had to continually surrender his fear of rejection to God. It was not just the fear of rejection but also the fear of not being able to bring his people out of Egypt just like the first time when he killed the Egyptian. He probably thought that he could help deliver his people out of the tyranny of Pharaoh by doing what he did. However it ended up that he had to flee like a fugitive from his own people!

Surrender to God is a continuous process of prayer from the depths of our heart and our soul. It is a genuine confession and cry to God:

1. Ex 5:22 "So Moses returned to the Lord and said, "Lord, why have You brought trouble on this people? Why is it You have sent me?"

2. Ex 17:4 ""So Moses cried out to the Lord, saying "What shall I do with this people? They are almost ready to stone me!" - The people thirsted for water at Rephidim and complained against Moses.

3. Nu 11:11-15 "So Moses said to the Lord "Why have You afflicted Your servant? And why have I not found favor in Your sight, that You have laid the burden of all these people on me? Did I conceive all these people? Did I beget them, that You should say to me, "Carry them in your bosom, as a guardian carries a nursing child, to the land which You swore to their fathers? Where am I to get meat to give all these people?...I am not able to bear all these people alone, because the burden is too heavy for me...." - the people complained and asked for meat at Taberah.

How was Moses able to deal with the spirit of rejection? I believe that he was set free when he realized that the rejection he felt was actually the people's rejection of God and not of him as a person. He was merely on God's assignment.

Numbers 14:11, God spoke clearly and firmly to Moses as follows:

"Then the Lord said to Moses; "How long will these people reject Me? How long will they not believe me with all the signs which I have performed among them?"

In the process of walking with God, Moses constantly surrendered his fear of rejection to God in prayer. 

Heart of Moses in prayer - A word centered heart

Heart of Moses in prayer

To be truly effective in prayer, we need to have a heart like the heart of Moses in prayer.

There are 4 attributes of his heart in prayer:

1. A pure heart
2. A surrendered heart

3. A god-centered heart

4. A patient heart

      ..........................................................

1. A pure heart

Moses had a pure heart. This is one of the reasons why his prayer was effective. Prayer from a pure heart is to pray always desiring the best for the person whom we are lifting up before the Lord.

This means that even though we are praying for our enemies or people we hate, we need to pray blessings for them and not to pray judgment on them.

Yesterday during extended prayer, there was a mention about a political leader bringing curses on our nation by declaring that there will be no forgiveness for those involved in the MH17 bombing. 

I felt in my heart to nullify that declaration of unforgiveness made by our leader over the nation by standing in the gap to declare forgiveness for those who brought down the plane. 

Unforgiveness brings with it a curse over the nation. I believe that the church has the power and the authority to nullify every curse spoken over the nation by our leaders. As our leaders make such negative declarations thus releasing curses in the spirit realm, may we as a church rise up to make the opposite of such declarations so that our nation will not come under a curse!

Moses prayed with a pure heart for his people. Being one who was treated badly by his own people, he kept the purity of his heart intact as much as he could in his intercession for his people:

1. Moses was cursed when Pharaoh asked the children of Israel to gather stubble instead of straw to make bricks - Ex 5:21

2. Moses was shouted at when the children of Israel were caught between 600 chariots and the Red Sea - Ex 14:11

3. Moses was complained against at the wilderness of Shur when they were 3 days without water - Ex 15:24

4. Moses and Aaron bore the brunt of the people's anger when there was no meat to eat - Ex 16:2-3

5. Moses bore the grumbling of the people at Rephidim when there was no water to drink - Ex 17:3

6. Moses and Aaron was scolded and complained against at the edge of entrance into Canaan when the children of Israel refused to enter the land despite God's command. So great was their anger that they wanted to stone Moses and Aaron  - Num 14:2 and 10

The children of Israel was in actual fact complaining against God because it was God's plan to take the children of Israel out of Egypt.

This was how God responded to their complaints:

Numbers 14:11-12

"Then the Lord said to Moses, "How long will these people reject Me? And how long will they not believe Me with all the signs which I have performed among them. I will strike them with a pestilence and disinherit them, and I will make you a nation greater and mightier than they"

How did Moses respond to this offer?


He responded with a pure & humble heart:

Numbers 14:19 "Pardon the iniquity of this people, I pray, according to the greatness of Your mercy, just as You have forgiven this people from Egypt, until now"

At a separate occasion, Moses prayed for Israel with a pure heart when he saw his people worshiping the golden calf. 

He went up to the Lord and prayed for them, this time willing to 'sacrifice' his own salvation.

Ex 32:31-31 "Then Moses returned to the Lord and said, "Oh these people have committed a great sin, and have made themselves a god of god! Yet now, if You will forgive their sin - but if not, I pray, blot me out of Your book which I have written"

Consider the sheer magnitude of that statement. Moses was saying that he would rather be blotted out for Israel's sin, than Israel be blotted out for it. I can hardly fathom that. We often get upset about all the things people get away with through God's forgiveness. Moses was praying for God to let it go, if necessary let him be the sacrifice for their forgiveness. This is humility and purity. 

None of Moses's prayers furthered his own agenda. In fact they did the opposite. God wanted destroy Israel and make a greater and mightier nation out of Moses. What an opportunity for Moses. Yet he did not capitalize on God's agenda to further his own place in history. Instead he used his prayer to further the interests of the Israelites and God.

Prayer

"LORD JESUS grant us to have a pure heart in our prayers. Cleanse us of all unrighteousness, unforgiveness, anger, bitterness and hurts over the leaders of our nation. Remove from us any woundedness, pain, grief that has hindered us in praying with a pure heart. IN JESUS NAME. AMEN"

.....to be continued in the next posting.............

If you don't know how to pray, it doesn't matter

“If we don’t know what to pray, it doesn't matter”

Oftentimes during corporate prayer, when we are taken into the depths of worship, beautiful tongues in unknown languages will flow out from us in songs and in verbal utterances.

This is praying in the spirit.

It is yielding ourselves to the Holy Spirit to allow Him to pray or sing through us in an unknown language. 

To pray/sing in tongues is to pray or sing in the spirit.

1 Cor 14:2 GNV

“Those who speak in strange tongues do not speak to others but to God because no one understands them. They are speaking secret truths by the power of the Spirit”

It is a “prayer language” capable of leading us into extended hours of prayer.

Romans 8:26-28 The Message

“Meanwhile the moment we get tired waiting, God’s Spirit is right alongside us all along. If we don’t know what to pray, it doesn't matter. He (the Holy Spirit) does our praying in and for us, making prayers out of our wordless sighs, our aching groans. He knows us far better than we know ourselves, knows our pregnant condition and keeps us present before God. That’s why every detail in our lives of love for God is worked into something good”

Praying in the spirit makes prayer a joy, not a task. 

Praying in the spirit is easy because it flows from our relationship with the Holy Spirit. 

Praying in the spirit plunges us into the depths of God’s love and keeps us under the shelter of His wings.

4 reasons to keep on praying in the spirit:

1.   Keeps us in the love of God – Jude 20-21 “But you, beloved, building yourselves up on your most holy faith, praying in the Holy Spirit, keep yourselves in the love of God, looking for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ unto eternal life.”

2.  Keeps us from false teachers/deception – Jude 19-20 “These are sensual persons, who cause divisions, not having the Spirit. But you, beloved, building yourselves up on your most holy faith, praying in the Holy Spirit….”

3.  Keeps us on the victor’s side – Ephesians 6:18 “Praying always with all prayer and supplication in the Spirit, being watchful to this end with all perseverance and supplication for all the saints”

4.   Keeps us edified in the Lord – 1 Cor 14:4A “He who speaks in tongues edifies himself”

How do we stay focus as “the mind is unfruitful”?

Picture the face of the person being prayed for or picture the global map of the nation or the name of the city  or simply “speak” the name of JESUS, JESUS, JESUS over and over again in your mind. 

Sooner or later, the Lord will download the face of the person or picture of the nation being prayed for.

However to be balanced in our prayer life, we need to know that although praying in tongues is needful, praying in understanding is equally important. 

Both are interdependent, not independent. 

Both are complementary, not competing. 

Both are integrated, not separated. 

Both enrich and enhance our prayer life.

It would do us well to pray both in the Spirit as well as in understanding.

1 Cor 14:14-15 “I will pray with the spirit and I will also pray with understanding. I will sing with the spirit, I will also sing in understanding”

 Testimony by Ruth

“I pray in the Spirit often in my office before work starts. I will visualize the work I have to do for the day and begin praying in the Spirit for wisdom.

There was one piece of work that had been a disaster from day one. Every time I produce the 30-page monthly report, the boss would scold me non-stop for producing an incoherent piece of work with numbers/calculations that did not jive.

I was so stressed out having to prepare this monthly report that I would break out in cold sweat just thinking of the task.  My heart would start pounding (panic attack) even before I could take up the pen to start drafting.  

I knew that she felt ashamed to present such a report that was full of so many mathematical and grammatical mistakes to the board.

100% of the assignment would have to be thrown out each time until the 3^rd or 4^th drafts. I was so fed up with being scolded that I determined to spend many hours just praying in the Spirit visualizing the report in my mind asking the Lord for help!

I asked the Lord to show me to the detail how to format and write the report. Yes, I (who am not good in Maths) even had to ask the Lord to help me churn out numbers that make sense!

Praise the Lord that the ideas came to me over a one-month period.

It was so clear (like a high resolution computer image) even to the pie-charts, the calculations and the diagrams! I quickly sought the help of my IT-savvy officer to put what I saw during my prayer 

time on paper.

It was so well done that for the first time (after 2 years of incessant scolding with regard to this assignment) my boss actually signed off the paper at first reading and even wrote a remark on the paper

“Good”.

Thank you Lord for downloading wisdom to me in my work-place while praying in the Spirit.

God is excellent in counsel and wonderful in His working!”