Praying With God, Not Only To Him

Praying With God, Not Only To Him

by Tommy Tyson

Transcribed from the original recording; may contain errors.

Gordon made a tremendous statement there in the closing that we really know who it is to whom we pray. That God is not some oblong blur and not just a gooey feeling and not just your higher nature. I hope you know that. You aren’t praying to yourself. This isn’t a do-it-yourself kit.

We’re really praying to someone. And His name is Jesus. Something else that I found to be very helpful when we pray, and that’s to know who we are. To know who we are by revelation. It makes all the difference in the world. Because this world, your idea concerning yourself, your understanding concerning yourself, will help determine your whole approach to God when you pray. Sometimes we come before the Lord as if we are thieves, are trying to snitch something from Him while He’s not looking.

And you’re not a thief, are you? God, this isn’t our purpose of coming to God. Sometimes we come to God and we act as if we’re just very insincere flatterers. And, you know, just have to flatter God. We’re so insecure in our approach to God. So I have found that there’s at least a two-fold confession that we make concerning our prayers. One is, we confess who He is before the altar of man, as we pray, outwardly. But we confess who we are before the inward altar, when you come to the altar of your own heart, that abiding place of the Almighty within you, and you knock on the door of heaven from within…

I always like church bells. Aren’t they good? Who is it that’s really coming to do business with God in here? And how do you know? So I go to the Word of God. I don’t take France’s idea concerning who I am when she’s not feeling good.

I don’t take my own idea about who I am. Because I have sometimes inflated ideas. And are they ever more inflated at times? But sometimes I have inferior ideas. I really am not a sound judge of who I am.

I take the revelation of God’s Word concerning who I am. I want to know the truth as revealed by God. I am, and who does He say I am? Well, what are some of the revelations that God makes concerning you?

He calls you beloved, doesn’t He? That’s a word He has from… you knock on the door on the inside… God, who is it? Lord, this is one of Your beloved. You see what a difference it makes? I’m beloved of God. You are, aren’t you? You know that, don’t you?

That’s right. Thank you for saying that. You know, I’m really asking you. I’m beloved of God. Another word that He uses to describe us is an heir, not hair, heir. A hair is a plate, but an heir, heir of God, a joint heir with Jesus Christ. So that’s a wonderful phrase. A joint heir with Jesus. Now, Jo Kimmel has three daughters. Let’s say Jo had an estate of $300,000.

And in this estate, she said to the girls, “You’re my heirs, and I want you each to share equally.” Then with that kind of estate they’d each get $100,000. But let’s say Jo said to the girls, “Girls, we have an estate of $300,000, and I want you to be joint heirs.”

Do you know they wouldn’t divide the estate? Joint heirs, joint heirs, don’t divide the estate. Joint heirs share equally in the undivided whole. Now, somebody ought to say glory. Glory. You know, you are a joint heir of God. A joint heir with Jesus Christ. This means that He doesn’t go around parceling a little bit out to you and say, “Have a bite.” You know, that all that He is, this is why the Word of God teaches it, all things are yours. All things. For you are Christ’s, and Christ is God’s. We share equally in the undivided whole. Who are you when you pray?

An heir of God. One who inherits everything God has. Now, if this is true, where do you draw a line and say, “I’ll not ask for this”? I was with a prayer group one day, and we were just praying for her as we were led, this really wasn’t at a CFO, though it could have been. And there was a little lady sitting across the circle from me, just a wonderful saint, a pillar of the church. And I saw that she really had a real need, you know, in fact, I saw she was in pain. And I asked her, she said, “Yes, I have a splitting headache.” And I said, “Well, don’t you want us to pray for you?” She said, “I don’t want to be selfish, let’s just pray for the whole world.”

And I said, “You unbeliever, aren’t you something? You believe God is so great that He can take care of the whole world, but it would be a burden for Him to take care of a little headache.” It’s amazing, you know, how we get all kinds of hang-ups and feel like we’re being selfish to ask and expect God to take care of our needs.

Really, you are honoring God when you learn to appropriate the provision of His grace. Promise… “Supper’s ready, children. Come on in.” Nobody comes. “Didn’t you children hear me? Supper’s ready. Come on in.” “Well, mama, we’re so unworthy…”

“We really don’t deserve… mama, let somebody else have it.” Boy, you know, what kind of family would that be? Could you hurt your mother more than to have that kind of attitude towards something she’s done for you? How do you think we make God feel? Out of our ignorance and unbelief, letting old false pride come between us and the provision of His grace. Who are you? I’m an heir of God. I’ve come to accept, gladly accept, that which He has provided for me. I come to accept without question and without unbelief. Who are you?

You getting the point? Who are you? Say it out loud. An heir of God. Well, how about a temple of God? How’s that for you? A temple of the Spirit of God. Not a shack. See, this gets you out of the shack business.

Your temple. You really are. And when you know this, what would give you a greater sense of dignity than to know that this is a temple of God, a royal palace? And in my Father’s house are many mansions. So when you pray, you don’t just level off in one little courtyard or, you know, one little drawing room. Have you learned to explore the depths of your being in your prayer life with Jesus?

See what a glorious adventure it makes when you realize you’re not just a one-room shack, but you are a temple of God and many rooms in that mansion. All right, Lord, I have thought processes that I haven’t even begun to tap. Thank You, Lord. Help me to explore the possibilities of my thinking when I pray. Help me to pay attention.

Do you know one of the reasons God was able to use Glenn Clark? For many different reasons, but if I had to name one, do you know what I believe it would be? Glenn Clark let the Holy Spirit explore his imagination. Marsha, wouldn’t you say that was one of the great things, among others, that Glenn didn’t have any concept of being a little old limited to before a human being? When he got before God within him, he realized that he was a temple of God and had unexplored areas within him. So when he came before the Lord, he would just ask and let the imagination just go beyond the boundaries that man could draw around. And like a little child, he just opened up in a new world. That’s why I read his book on the God in the Folklore. And all this came through divine imagination. And so much truth in it.

I think they’ve got that book back there. If they haven’t, they’ll get it for you. God in the Folklore by Glenn. Glenn had this tremendous capacity. And you’ve got all kinds of emotional developments, all kinds of mental imagery to be developed, all kinds of spiritual depths within you. You have areas of your life, you have dreams that you haven’t begun to dream yet locked up within you. Now sometimes it’s disturbing for the Holy Spirit to open up a new area within you. It makes you feel a little insecure because there are no maps drawn for this territory. And you get out on a big sea with no map. Billy and I had a map. But even if we hadn’t had a map the other day, we wouldn’t have felt quite as secure as we did. But we knew the Lord was in it anyhow. But here’s all this glorious realm. My body, my mind, my spirit has a palace of God, a temple. You see what a thrilling thing this makes. When you pray, who are you?

I’m beloved of God. I’m an heir of His promise. I’m a temple, a palace, a royal house for the Spirit of God. Who are you? I’m a co-laborer with God. You see, this makes me, in prayer, makes me God’s prayer partner.

You’re a co-laborer with God. The Word of God says, “Let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus.” You know, you’re made to think God’s thoughts. Isn’t that fabulous? Some of the preacher boys are here. I’ll love this story. They’ll appreciate it, at least. The bishop was going to dedicate this new church with this real young pastor. Sharp young boy. And on the way to the service, the bishop turned and said, “Young man, I’m really looking forward to hearing you preach this morning.” And the young preacher said, “Why, bishop, you’re the one that’s slated to preach. We’ve advertised it, and got it in the papers, all that, and the people be flocking in, and they’re really expecting you to preach. And besides, bishop, I didn’t prepare a sermon. I don’t have a note with me.” And the bishop said, “Young man, you ought to be as I am, and have your sermons written in your mind and in your heart.”

This bright young boy looked at the bishop and said, “Bishop, if one of my sermons ever got to your heart, I don’t know what it would do, but if they ever reached your mind, it’d blow it wide open.” Ha, ha, ha. Well, the young people talk about blowing your mind. We need to have some of that old mind fractured, you know. We need to have it blasted. And few things blast the thought concepts, as does the mind of Christ. For instance, so often in prayer, we’re so busy telling the Lord what we think and how we feel about somebody, trying, you know, really trying to influence God with our little old thinking and with our little feeling. It’s amazing, isn’t it? And really what it boils down to is, “God, now that You know the real insight on him, fix him up so I can stand him.” But what about if you realized in praying for me, you could have God’s thoughts concerning Tommy?

So you’d say, “Jesus, I’m Your prayer partner, and Tommy’s asked me to pray for him. What do You think concerning him? I want to send to Tommy the very best I can. So give me Your thought concerning him.”

And you know, I don’t mind you praying that way. You can have any thought you want concerning me if it came from Jesus. I’ll be willing for you to. “Lord Jesus, give me the way You feel about Tommy.” I’m God’s prayer partner. That means I can think His thoughts. I can love with His love. I can transmit with His power. I’m His partner. So it’s not so much praying to God as it is praying with God. Look how that revolutionizes your whole prayer life. So you’re sitting, you know, in a quiet time. And as you sit, all of a sudden, here comes Gordon Binning. You know, in your thought. Well, I used to say, you know, “Well, Gordon, get out of the way now. I’m being quiet.”

And I’d try to push everything and everybody out because I was having my little vertical relationship, you know. So now I’ve discovered I come in before the Lord. I’m having a good time with Him. And here comes Gordon. Oh, I say, “Hello, Gordon. Come on in. Sit down, buddy. Just join me in this.” And so, you know, I’ll just welcome him on in. Then I turn to Jesus and I say, “Jesus, You’re my door. And You let him in. Is there any special reason why Gordon came to me this morning?” And it may be… Yeah, Gordon has not felt that he’s been appreciated lately. His family’s been down on him a little bit.

He just needs to be encouraged. So when you get through praying, write him a letter and tell him how much you appreciate him. You know? Or it may be… No, I just wanted him to receive some love, so I just brought him in to love him a bit. So I just say, “All right, Gordon, just sharing this with me.” And it’s just beautiful. They need to be quiet and solid with you or else you can get a message concerning them.

Let me just share one experience and we’ll close with this. I was over in Portland, Oregon, oh, back in the wintertime. And I was having a day before I started with the church there. And I took a room in the hotel. And in that morning, I was just having a quiet time this way, just sharing with the Lord and letting Him share with me. Well, first, there trotted in my mind a fellow named Horace Hilton. Now, Horace told me I could tell this story. Both these people. I don’t call names if the people don’t tell me I can tell the story. Though there’s nothing wrong with the story. But Horace Hilton is a real mail carrier in Honey Grove, Texas.

And he’s just as sweet as the name of his town implies. Well, Horace just came to my mind and I said, “Lord Jesus, is there any particular word for Horace?” And I knew that somewhere I had heard that Horace’s mother had passed away. This was on a Monday morning. So I sat down and wrote Horace a letter and just told him how glad I was that he’d had his mother all these years and how grateful I was that now heaven was real and that she was going on with the Lord in the realm of the Spirit. I just blessed him. And I mailed the letter on Monday morning. He got it Tuesday morning about 10 o’clock. His mother passed away about 6 o’clock Tuesday morning.

Four hours before he got the letter, about 20 hours after I wrote it. And when he got it and there it was, you know, he realized that only the Lord could have been… See what a blessing it was to him? Much more than it was to me. But the Lord is just like the Lord was telling him directly all these things.

God’s prayer partner. That same morning, Nell and Houston Williams came to my mind. Nell had… Nell had been having a little back trouble and some other… She’d had to have surgery really sometime back. But that morning she came in so clearly and I said, “Lord Jesus, anything You want Nell to know from me?” Nell needs to know I love her. And Nell needs to know that I’m healing her. And so I just wrote that letter. “Nell, you came to me in prayer this morning. Jesus told me to tell you that you needed to know He loves you and you needed to know that He was healing you. And I thank Him and thank you for letting me tell you.” Prayer partner with the Lord. Nell got the letter on the day that I wrote it. It was the worst day she said she had ever had. She was in such pain that she felt as if God had deserted her. She tried to pray and couldn’t pray. People can be in that much pain. And she said, “When I got your letter and saw that it was dated on the day that I was having such a bad time, to think that all the way across the United States, since I was hurting so much, He couldn’t get to me directly and I just couldn’t quite hear Him.

He would reach across the country and tap another one of His children and use you as a funnel through which heaven could come and get to me.” God’s prayer partner. Do you know who you are when you pray?