THE FELLOWSHIP OF PRAYER – PASTOR CHRIS OYAKHILOME.

Anyone who wants to have a good standard for praying ought to emulate Jesus. Studying His prayer life, I observed what He did that the religious people of his day didn’t do, for which reason He had such outstanding results in prayer: He separated the labour of prayer from the fellowship of prayer. There’s such a thing as “prayer labour” or “prayer work”; you can literally count the number of times Jesus prayed this way. However, His prayer fellowship is what we really need to emulate; that’s what was different about His prayer life.

His prayer labour wasn’t different from that of the great prophets who came before Him. Moses, Joshua, Elijah, Elisha, David, etc., all prayed, and their prayers are chronicled for us in Scripture. But there was something that they didn’t have, which the Lord Jesus brought in: living in the Father’s presence in continual fellowship. This was different; this was new. Jesus lived in the Father’s presence, in continual fellowship.

The early prophets didn’t have this, because they couldn’t. If they could, they would have, because they loved God. Nevertheless, the reason they couldn’t was that they didn’t have the enablement of the Holy Spirit. Jesus did. No one can walk in such extraordinary fellowship with the Father except by the Holy Spirit. It’s His ministry and delight to bring us into that place of constant and continual fellowship with the Father.

That’s why the Apostle Paul, by the Spirit, prayed thus in our opening verse. That wasn’t given to us just to recite as closing benediction during our church services and meetings. It was a revelation. The Father is in heaven, the Lord Jesus is in heaven, but the Holy Spirit is here with us on earth. He’s in us and with us. In Him, we have the presence of Jesus and the Father. He doesn’t come and go; we have become His dwelling place. He lives in us and has become part of our dayto- day existence. He talks to us all the time. As we listen to Him, we’re guided, instructed, led in the path of excellence, glory, dominion, and power.