1. Lesson One of the Book of Daniel, Introduction to the Book of Daniel

The Necessity of Prayer – Lesson XVII, Prayer and Desire 

Paul had a hunger for the things of God and he expressed how a realization of a need brought that hunger.

He wrote in Romans 7:21-25.  I find then a law, that, when I would do good, evil is present with me. For I delight in the law of God after the inward man:  But I see another law in my members, warring against the law of my mind, and bringing me into captivity to the law of sin which is in my members.  O wretched man that I am! who shall deliver me from the body of this death?   I thank God through Jesus Christ our Lord. So then with the mind I myself serve the law of God; but with the flesh the law of sin. 

Who shall deliver me from the body of this death? 

Paul saw the great need to be delivered. 

This need created a hunger, it created a desire to be delivered from the body of this death.

Paul knew that each day his flesh battled his spirit and he desired that his spirit overcome his flesh.

The desire drove Paul to God who thru Jesus Christ by his grace daily delivers him.

Paul, by the study of the scriptures, found that he had desperate needs. 

This drove him to his knees for deliverance. 

God was his only refuge, his only help in his time of need. 

As long as we walk in this body we have great need which if realized should give us great desire to seek the grace of  God. 

Only God’s word can reveal to you your wretched condition and your need of deliverance. 

This is not only true at the new birth but it is true all along the way of the Christian walk. 

As long as we occupy this old body we have desperate spiritual needs which can only be satisfied by God. 

As long as we occupy this body there ought to always be a desire to pray.

Man’s pride always covers himself with the white robes of hypocrisy so as to disguise the reality of the natural man.   

But spiritual desire is evidence of a new man.

Peter in 1 Pet 2:2, declares “As newborn babes, desire the sincere milk of the word, that ye may grow thereby.”  

If you do not have this desire to grow spiritually perhaps  the new birth has never taken place.

Matt 5:6,  Blessed are they which do hunger and thirst after righteousness: for they shall be filled.  

Physical appetites are the proof of a living body. 

A dead man or a dead woman never asks “What’s for supper!”

A dead man or a dead woman never hungers and thirsts. 

Spiritual desires belong to a soul made alive to God.  

And as the soul made alive to God hungers and thirsts after righteousness, these desires break out into earnest, supplicating and imploring prayer. 

Spiritual hunger is only satified by spiritual food served by God through Jesus Christ. 

Edward M. Bounds in his book “The Necessity of Prayer” writes this: 

In prayer, we are shut up to the Name, merit and intercessory virtue of Jesus Christ, our great High Priest. Probing down, below the accompanying conditions and forces in prayer, we come to its vital basis, which is seated in the human heart. It is not simply our need; it is the heart’s yearning for what we need, and for which we feel impelled to pray. Desire is the will in action; a strong, conscious longing, excited in the inner nature, for some great good. Desire exalts the object of its longing, and fixes the mind on it. It has choice, and fixedness, and flame in it, and prayer, based thereon, is explicit and specific. It knows its need, feels and sees the thing that will meet it, and hastens to acquire it. 

Proper desire is energized by study and meditation on God’s word.  

Study God’s word, it will reveal your spiritual needs. 

It will reveal the predicament that you are in without the grace of God.  

It will reveal God’s readiness and ability to meet your needs.  

Take time to engage in serious thought about your need before praying because it will increase desire. 

It will bring more determined or importunate desire, and will keep your mind focused and lessen the danger of your mind wandering.  

It is so easy to keep the form or ritual of prayer while true desire fades or almost dies.   

By the loss of desire we become lukewarm and feeble in our praying.   

The Laodicean Church had need of nothing and knew not that they “were wretched, and miserable, and poor, and blind.”   

They had the greatest of needs but their riches blinded their eyes to their true needs and thus corrupted their desire.   

They equated satisfaction of their needs to their riches, to physical things.   

But man’s true need is spiritual and only God can meet man’s need. 

The Laodicean Church engaged in ritual and form but they had no need, so desire was absent. 

God is working a work in you, but the success of that work is connected to your desire.   

How much do you want God to work in your life?   

What is your will in the matter? 

In Phil 1:6, Paul writes:  Being confident of this very thing that he which hath begun a good work in you will perform it until the day of Jesus Christ.   

We can count on God to do his part.   

He will perform his part until the day of Jesus Christ. 

But your will is a factor in how deep this work goes.    

Jesus said, Ask and it shall be given, seek and ye shall find, knock and it shall be opened unto you.   

This instruction of Jesus Christ cries out the message for fervency of heart in prayer.   

Desire is all important in prayer.   

You are a participant in the work of God in you.   

It is as if you are to awake God to your need by the expression of holy desire.  God says knock.   

As on many occasions it requires repeated knocking, and more knocking. 

The desire to knock and to continue knocking in God’s child moves God to work for that child.   

God’s interest is captured by fervent and enthusiastic desire from his children.

Desire is what taps into the exhaustless riches of God’s  grace. 

Desire tells God that you are serious about your need. 

Desire puts you into the hot category and places you far from the lukewarm which God despises.