The Holy Spirit has left exquisite pearls of Wisdom in His Word.

The First Instructions About Prayer.

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There have been a number of my Medium buddies going through some tough times. I don’t pretend to know why God just doesn’t do a better job of things. But I know it must be the best way because it has cost Him so much.

But the Holy Spirit has left exquisite pearls of Wisdom in His Word, waiting to be found, which show that He is not a boring Teacher.

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He gives instruction on Prayer which show that He is the consummate Lateral Thinker.

How?

The Lord shows things first in the natural then in the spiritual so that we get some comprehension of what He is doing outside our spectrum of sight and sound — as is written in 1 Corinthians 15:46–47 || However, the spiritual is not first, but the natural, and afterwards the spiritual. The first man was of the earth, made of dust; the second Man is the Lord from heaven.

On the topic of Prayer, there are a number of verses which liken the Prayers of the Saints to being a Sweet Savour to the Lord. One example that the prayers of the Saints are Incense to the Most High is written in Revelation 5:8 ||Now when He had taken the scroll, the four living creatures and the twenty-four elders fell down before the Lamb, each having a harp, and golden bowls full of incense, which are the prayers of the saints.

The recipe for the incense is written in Exodus 30:34–35 ||And the Lord said to Moses: “Take sweet spices, stacte and onycha and galbanum, and pure frankincense with these sweet spices; there shall be equal amounts of each. You shall make of these an incense, a compound according to the art of the perfumer, salted, pure, and holy.

A teaching by a Messianic Rabbi (Orthodox trained), Dick Reuben, describes the constituents of the recipe given by God.

Stacte — it came from the resin of a pine tree. It was not difficult to collect — it came freely. This speaks of how God wants our incense to be given — freely and spontaneously.

Onycha — Came from a particular shellfish. The shellfish was located deep in the ocean, and the men had to let down their nets to collect it. This speaks of how our prayer, worship and praise must come from the very depths of our heart, not because we are being pressured from the worship leader, but because we want to.

Galbanum — Collected from the myrtle tree. The limbs were broken and the men would come back the next day to collect the sap that had issued forth from the broken area. This speaks of how our prayer, praise, worship, and intercession must come out of our brokenness.

Frankincense — Collected from a tree that is split in the twilight hours of the evening. Nothing happens during the night, but in the early hours of the morning the resin begins to weep. The resin is the Frankincense. Out of our piercing and sorrows in the early hours of the morning comes our prayer, praise and worship and intercession.

The Rabbi does an experiment to show that the chemistry is delicate. He grinds up the constituents (Of course, this is not exactly to the proportions given in Exodus 30. That is expressly forbidden by the Lord on the pain of death.) and tries to ignite the mix — to no avail, no matter how much heat is applied.

But there is a commonly unnoticed component which is sitting in plain sight in the Written Word of the Living Word of God — salt. When a critical amount of salt is introduced into the mix it ignites easily and the Sweet Savour rises to fill the room. Obviously it is a vital ingredient which must be present.

Salt –It is written in Matthew 5:13 || “You are the salt of the earth. But if the salt loses its saltiness, how can it be made salty again? It is no longer good for anything, except to be thrown out and trampled underfoot.”

Just as obviously, it is the prayers of salty Saints that attract God’s attention.

The chemical structure of common salt (the context of the scriptures make it clear that the compound NaCl is the material being mentioned) is such that if another element is added it is no longer NaCl. The only way for salt to lose its saltiness, therefore, is by dilution. Two polar extremes of dilution are pure rain water and raw sewerage. One of these is less palatable than the other but that makes it the least dangerous because it is immediately recognised and spat out. However it is possible to gradually dilute with more and more rain water until the saltiness is lost, unnoticed.

When the Disciples couldn’t cast out the demon, Mark 9:14–32, Jesus demonstrated that the way life is lived between prayer sessions is much more important than the eloquence of the prayers spoken — after all, He knows what you’re about to say before you do.

Often the salt comes from the trembling prayers spoken through tears. But remember it is written in Psalm 56:8–9 || You number my wanderings; Put my tears into Your bottle; Are they not in Your book? When I cry out to You, Then my enemies will turn back; This I know, because God is for me.

And in Joel 2:25–27 || So I will restore to you the years that the swarming locust has eaten. The crawling locust, The consuming locust, And the chewing locust, My great army which I sent among you. You shall eat in plenty and be satisfied, And praise the name of the Lord your God, Who has dealt wondrously with you; And My people shall never be put to shame. Then you shall know that I am in the midst of My Church: I am the Lord your God And there is no other. I will never reject My People.

Oh, the depth of the riches of the wisdom and knowledge of God!

The forgoing evidence has not been presented to convince any reader but to allow a personal decision to be made. There is much more to know about this subject. Perhaps you’ll pay another visit, sometime. If you have seen something you like, I encourage plagiarism.

So, always check everything I say first, then please re-cycle, re-brand, re-structure, re-issue, re-label, or regurgitate in any manner you please. No need to acknowledge me because it is the Holy Spirit Who holds the Intellectual Rights.

All Glory to the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.

(We all have a plank in our eye. It’s bigger than we think.)

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