Acts 3 : 6-7 – Then Peter said, Silver and gold I do not have; but what I have I give you: In the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth rise up and walk. And he took him by the right hand, and lifted [him] up: and immediately his feet and anklebones received strength.
Revelation 5 : 8 – And when he had taken the book, the four beasts and twenty four elders fell down before the Lamb, having every one of them harps, and golden vials full of odours, which are the prayers of saints.
Revelation 8 : 4 – And the smoke of the incense, [which came] with the prayers of the saints, ascended up before God out of the angel’s hand.
When I was at school (in the old old days) they taught us in science about two different types of pump that you can use to pump water. If I remember correctly they were the lift pump and the force pump. Don’t ask me to remember what each did or what the difference is between them – I don’t think I even understood it then. But I recently found a plastic water pump to use in our large bottles of purified water and I was curious to see how it worked. I think it is probably a lift pump, because it lifts the water up out of the bottle. I imagine the pumps that they use to draw water up from boreholes are similar.
There is just one thing about the pump that is quite frustrating at times. When it has been standing without use, the water that is in the column of the pump seeps back out into the bottle, leaving it full of air. This means that if you want to pump water out you have to first fill the column of the pump by pumping out the air and filling it with water. Once the column is full of water, the water gushes out with each pumping action.
I began to realize that this is exactly the way it works with our spiritual underground stream. We have sunk our pipe down into the underground stream, but the water is deep in the earth. The column of our pump reaches down to the water, but when we try to pump no water comes out. The reason for this is that we have to cause the column to fill with water first before it begins to pump out. This is the same concept we looked at last time concerning ‘priming’ your pump. You see if the column is full, then it takes very little action to cause the water to gush forth. But if it is empty there will be a lot of pumping without any action.
Have you ever gone to the Lord in prayer and found that it feels like He is a thousand miles away? Well we know that He is not a thousand miles away, because He is in our hearts. But you see the evidence of His presence that is communicated by the Holy Spirit is in your underground stream. The presence of God is as far as your pump is from the water. If your pump is filled then you will see results the moment you start to pump. How do pump? Well what is the only gate you have through which data can be sent out from within your spirit to the world? Of course, it is your mouth.
You see there are five gates through which information may be received into your heart, but it is only via your words and your bodily actions that anything that comes out of your heart can be sent out into the world. So if you are going to draw water from your underground stream, you are going to have to ‘pump’ it out with speech. This is a complete subject in itself and we will be covering it in tomorrow’s Word.
What I would like to see today is how we can come to the place where our pump is continually ‘primed’ and the column continually full of water, so that when we need to draw out it is available immediately. Then I would like to consider how we could also build up a reservoir that would give a large supply and also increase the pressure. Have you noticed a windmill as you have driven through a country area? What has happened is that someone has sunk a pipe deep into the earth to an underground stream. They have set up a pump on it and they have attached this pump to a windmill.
Now when the wind blows, the windmill turns and it begins to pump water. This would be a problem if the wind were blowing all the time, because you would keep pumping out water even if you didn’t need it and it would be wasted. So the way to do it is to get the pump to fill a water reservoir, and when the water level reaches a certain point, the pump disengages from the windmill. (I think that’s how it works). Now you have an immediate water supply, and when it runs low, the pump starts pumping again with the wind.
What we have here is a beautiful picture of how we should set things up in our spiritual lives. You start by tapping into your underground stream with the Word. Then you attach a pump by learning to pray the kind of prayer that Jesus taught us to pray. In what has become known as the Lord’s pray, Jesus taught us to pray by starting out with two important processes. We start with praise and worship to the Lord – “Our Father who is in heaven, hallowed be your Name.” This causes the water to start pumping up from within.
If you want to consider the idea of producing a river from a source, you can see a similar principle here. Our prayers and worship we are told are like vapors rising up to the Lord. If you think of these as the mists that rise up in evaporation to form clouds, then the more you do it the more you create ‘clouds of blessing’ which start to come down in rain, forming streams that collect to create a river.
The second thing Jesus taught us to pray was, “Your Kingdom Come, Your will be done on earth as it is in heaven.” This statement is not a request but a command. It should say, “Come Your Kingdom. I command your will to be done on earth.” In other words it is a prayer that takes the water that has been drawn up through praise and pours it forth into the world, causing God’s power to bear upon someone in need or a situation in this world. It is the release in ministry of that which you have drawn from within the well of your spirit, from the indwelling Holy Spirit.
Many believers have failed to realize this and think that prayer involves us crying out to the Lord and then standing back to watch Him rain down from heaven. You need to realize that what God does in the earth He does through human vessels. You are His instrument in the earth. You are His hand extended. It is through you that He wants to pour forth His blessing. And if you expect to be an instrument for His glory, then you will need to recognize that this can only happen when you have learned to tap the power that is within your own spirit through the indwelling Holy Spirit.
So what you need to do is set up your windmill and get ‘prayed up.’ You need to fill your reservoir by spending time in the presence of the Lord, not crying out to Him, but drawing out of His resources in you through praise and worship. Instead of coming to Him with your request, come to Him in adoration. Soak up His glory like someone walking through a rain forest. Fill up your reservoir until it is so full you cannot take any more. Now go with that power and give it out to a world that is in need.
When Jesus heard that Lazarus was dying He prayed to the Father to find out what He should do. At that point He knew that His prayer was answered and He always done – filling up His reservoir. When He came to the graveside of Lazarus, he did not cry out to the Father to raise Lazarus. The prayer He prayed was not for His benefit, but for the people to hear. But then He took from the resources He had gathered in the presence of His Father, and He spoke to the dead body Himself. And when He did, that power went out and raised him from the dead.
Perhaps you are feeling too ‘humble’ to do something like that. You would rather cry out to the Lord to help someone when you pray for him or her. But Jesus and the disciples did not operate that way. Jesus had told them ‘freely you have received, freely give.’ So they took what they had received and gave it away. Peter said to the man at the beautiful gate, “I don’t have silver or gold, but what I do have I am giving you.” And that is exactly what he did. He obviously had his windmill in place and had filled his reservoir. He was already prayed up and could tap that power whenever it was needed.
It’s quite simple really. You don’t have to make any effort. All you need to do is ‘get in the wind.’ The Bible uses wind also as a type of the Holy Spirit. So you learn to let the Lord move on you by being available to Him at all times. You know then that when you come into His presence on a daily basis, the wind will blow, and your windmill will turn, and you will be filled and overflow until you have built up a resource that is available to meet the needs of others. If you cannot find the time to do this, then not only will there be no water in your reservoir, but also the column that goes down to the water will have drained. Then you will pray and nothing will seem to happen, and God will seem a million miles away.
The decision is yours. The river is there. The Word is there. The pump is there. All you need to do is put them together and get into the wind. As you do, your life will change and you will enter into a spiritual dimension that you did not know existed.