Prayer is what allows us not only to access God but to absorb God’s presence as we get quiet before Him and fellowship with Him.  Remember the definition we’ve given; prayer is practicing the presence of God.  Prayer isn’t just articulation; it’s not just petitioning.  It’s not just declarative.  Prayer is just absorbing, imbibing, His majesty, His very essence, as it flows into us.  Just those glimpses that Moses had, that—at the hinder parts—that caused that glory to emanate from his face with such great majesty that the people couldn’t even look upon him; he had to cover his face.  I don’t see any reason why we can’t come out of our prayer closets with that same glory.  Amen?  Why do I say that?  Because our fellowship with Him through His Word—we are changed from glory to glory, praise God!

You know, when in the last days they start hunting Christians down to kill them, I hope they can find me just by looking and knowing there’s something different.  “He’s one of those shiny guys!  There’s just something about their countenance; they look different.”  Almost like the fact that we would be a new creation.  We’re not like them.  We don’t talk like them; we don’t dress like them.  We don’t pursue their gods.  Their treasures are not our treasures; ours are being laid up in heaven, praise God!  That’s what we’re living for.  We don’t look for—in fact, we should shun their praises.  “Come out from among them… saith the Lord, and touch not the unclean thing; and I will receive you unto Myself.”  Amen?  “I’ll be your Father; you’ll be my children.”

So, prayer, then, is that attitude of wanting to come into His presence and wait there in His presence, and in the process, allow the Holy Spirit to pray through you.  We come in just talking, too often, to God.  Get quiet and let the Holy Ghost pray through you.  Amen?  Not just in tongues, but that supernatural unction of making God big.  Supernaturally, all of a sudden, we’re there in His presence, and now these Scriptures begin to pour out of your heart, and you begin to articulate back to God His greatness and majesty that He’s revealed to us through His Word.  That’s what prayer is about.  Prayer is about saying back to God what He said to us.  True prayer is initiated and consummated in God.  We’ve talked about His prevenient grace.  God is always before; He’s the Author.  We can’t pray effectively if it’s not Him praying through us.  His ears are open to the cry of the righteous.  Who are the righteous people?  That doesn’t have to do with our behavior, though our behavior should be pleasing to God.  It should be moral; it should be separate from the world’s definition of truth, wisdom, morality.