We’ve all heard messages concerning how to pray, what to pray, when to pray and that we need to pray. It’s probably the most written about and talked about subject of anything that the Bible talks about and yet, there is always more to know and understand.

Prayer is basically talking to and with God and just like anything else we do there, are different approaches to this.

Ephesians 6:18 “Praying always with all prayer and supplication in the Spirit.”

The term “all prayer” is translated in some Bibles as “all kinds of prayer”. This would be accurate, because there are many kinds of prayer.

This verse said “prayer and supplication” and so does this one.

Phil. 4:6 “Be careful for nothing; but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your request be made known unto God.”

The word “supplication” is often translated “petition”.

In this day of public input to government policies, we all know what a petition is.

Across the top we write what we are looking to have done and then everyone signs his or her name to it.

This kind of petition style prayer can be called “praying the solution and not the problem.” We come to the Father with His covenant promises, and we pray His solutions as recorded in the Word. It’s a somewhat formal kind of praying.

Just like there is more than one way to address individuals there is more than one way in which we approach God.

If I was having a personal conversation with my wife and all that I did each time we talked was to quote back to her our marriage vows, it would lose a lot of its intimacy.

Many people don’t know about intimate conversations with God because all that they ever hear are more formal public prayers. If your pastor were to ask you to stand and lead the meeting in prayer, some of you might have a cardiac arrest. You’d be worrying if you said all the right things, did you cover all of the topic, did I say “O Lord” too many times, etc.

The reason you’d be so conscious of your words is because it was more like a speech for us to hear rather than what you really wanted to say to Father God.

When a person has only heard others pray like this, they might begin to think that you always have to be super formal with God. But that is not so.

Our prayer life needs to be primarily spiritual.

John 4:24 “God is a Spirit: and they that worship him must worship him in spirit and in truth.”

Prayer is an act of worship.

I like the direct Greek rendering of this verse:

“Worship”: motion towards; to kiss; to adore.

Intimate prayer is not a formal experience it is an intimate and personal experience.

This experience is to be so intimate, that the verse we read in Ephesians 6:18 said we are to pray “always in the spirit”.

So prayer is not just a mental process, it’s spirit-to- spirit intimacy.

If you come away from a time of prayer and you have not enjoyed it at all. If it was a religious exercise to you, something you felt like you had to do, then you don’t know intimate prayer. You likely have things that are blocking you from enjoying prayer and the wonderful experience it is meant to be.

One of the reasons that many people don’t have intimate prayer is what we began with. They’ve only heard formal public praying and have never known anything different. This is not likely the case with most people, but this next reason is a more likely one.

We need to see ourselves as God sees us. He sees us like He has made us to be.

2 Corinthians 5:21 “For he hath made him (Jesus) to be sin for us, who knew no sin, that we might be made the righteousness of God in him.”

“Righteousness” is an old English term meaning: God’s quality of rightness. One of my commentaries said that this verse is saying, that, “we are by faith, forensically made right with the demands of the law by the atonement of Christ.”

The what of the what?

Forensic means something that is used in the courts of law. In the courts of the laws of God, we have not just had right standing applied to us, like a title, we have actually been made into a person who is in perfect standing with the laws of God.

A few verses back, Verse 17, it says, “Therefore if any man be in Christ he is a newcreature; old things are passedaway; behold, all things arebecome new.” This is where some folks get a bit confused. They get the process of sanctification, which means to be separated from, or progressively separating ourselves from, a life style or the actions of sin.

They think that if they can just stop doing this or that or if they can do more of this or that, that they will be more righteous or more acceptable to Father God. The fact however is, we have been made acceptable to God, through what Jesus did for us. Not through our actions. 2 Corinthians 3:17-18

So there is liberty or freedom to be intimate with God when we know who we are in Christ Jesus.

As we look into the mirror of the spirit, we see Jesus looking back at us. Here is the progressive part. As we continue to look into that mirror our image changes into the image that is in the mirror.

Firstly, when we are born again we become one with Him in spirit, thus we are in His image. We are righteous in our position.

James 1:23-25 (Philips) “The man who simply hears and does nothing about it is like a man catching the reflection of his own face in a mirror. He sees himself, it is true, but he goes on with whatever he was doing without the slightest recollection of what sort of person he saw in the mirror.

But the man who looks into the perfect mirror of God’s law, the law of liberty, and makes a habit of so doing, is not the man who sees and forgets. He puts that law into practice and he wins true happiness.”

When I look in the mirror in the morning and see that my hair needs combing and my beard needs shaving then I see what needs doing and I do it.

But if I looked and saw what needed doing and then walked away without doing anything about it, that would not be a very pretty sight after a few hours.

We apply that Word and then we start to look, to those around us, like the finished product, the face in the mirror. We look like Jesus. That’s the progressive side of this analogy.

From the positional point of view God sees us as the finished work, because of the finished work of Calvary. He sees us with our hair combed and our face clean and all of that. From his side of the mirror he sees us perfect – all cleaned up. He sees Jesus.

What we need to do is to not walk away from the mirror of God’s Word that tells us we are the righteousness of God, and

forget it. We need to remember it and act and live like it, living and doing what is right.

In the context of our subject today, we also need to remember that when we are talking to our Father God. Don’t forget how He sees you in the mirror.

Remember that, when He looks at your reflection in the mirror, He sees Jesus.

He is not judging your lifestyle He is just accepting you for who you are – one who is complete, “in Christ Jesus.”

Under the Old Covenant, when the people made their annual sacrifices of bulls and goats, they went away still conscious of their sins because the blood of those animals couldn’t take away that memory. If it could, then they wouldn’t have had to go back year after year.

A guilty of sin conscience will rob you of intimacy.

It’s difficult to have intimate fellowship with someone if you feel guilty when you are with him or her.

If you had promised to do something for me by such and such a time and then you didn’t do it, the next time you saw me you might feel a bit embarrassed. You really would rather not sit down and have an hour-long chat with that on your mind.

Have you ever told someone a lie and then you found out that they knew that you had done that? What did you do? You would either avoid that person or you would apologize.

Some folks think that God has this great long list of sins that you have committed and that every time you talk to him you have to hand him an eraser.

“Oh did you remember to scratch that one out yet?”

Even under the old covenant, David knew better.

Psalm 130:3-5

 If You, Lord, should mark iniquities, O Lord, who could stand? 4 But there is forgiveness with You, That You may be feared. 5 I wait for the Lord, my soul waits, And in His word I do hope.

My paraphrase: “Lord, if you marked down every one of our sins, who would be left standing? But you have provided forgiveness so that you could be held in awesome respect, by us.”

He hasn’t forgiven us so that we’ll be afraid of Him. But the fact that he has forgiven us leaves us with a sense of awesome respect.