Most people end their prayers with amen. Amen is one of the most familiar words in human speech, used in virtually every language worldwide.
Amen is not another way to say “the end” or “over and out.” It does not announce to God and/or the audience that the prayer is now officially over. Some of our prayers, and our many amens, are perceived by passive worshippers as liturgical filler for our public services, and therefore lack value. But the use of amen is incredibly significant. It means “let it be so” or “so be it.”
This meaning lends so easily to the point I am trying to make.
Is saying amen all the time some kind of liturgical bad habit, something that only God should be able to say? It seems that the using of amen might be considered the most arrogant thing you can say at the end of prayer because you are actually assuming that not only is God hearing you, but also that you are praying something God wants to hear. Your declaration of amen is your proclamation to God and to everyone within earshot, including the High Priest of our confession, that what you just prayed should now actually come to pass.
But that is exactly how God wants us to pray.
Amen is the most apropos declaration you could possibly make, as prayer and confession are to be an exercise in faith-based and Word-based praying, believing you have received when you pray. Amen says that you believe that God’s Word is returning to Him right then and there. The prayer you just said amen to directly relates to the accomplishment of what pleases God when He initiated the sending of His Word in the first place.
If we are going to be so courageous as to pray—hopefully praying the will of God by praying the Word of God—then we should be praying in faith. We should not only be saying audibly so be it, but the very essence of our praying should be permeated with the spirit of amen. In other words, we should fully believe at the very moment we are opening our mouth that something originating from God (the things we ask) is coming in, while something originating from God (His Word) is going out.
If you intend to use the word amen when you pray, you should intend to use the Word of God as the guidepost and the source of your praying and confessing. This is important because we do not want to be found saying amen to something that does not have a basis in God’s Word, which has been sent to accomplish what He pleases and to prosper in the thing for which He sent it.
Though we cannot play God, we can, however, tap God’s Word in our praying and therefore be confident that we are on the right track. God doesn’t want us just to pray; He wants us to know what to pray. Having the Word of God in our hearts is the handle we need to pray effectively, even when our humanness is all too evident.
God’s promise to watch over His Word to perform it is crucial to bringing His purposes to pass in an individual, a church, a community, a nation, and the world. Perhaps just as crucial, we must commit ourselves to returning God’s Word to where it originated so He can respond accordingly as only He can and will.
The next time you pray or declare God’s Word, put your praying to an amen test. Instead of saying amen by rote, move out of your comfort zone and make proclamations which are in agreement with the concept of amen without actually using the word amen. This demands that you focus on the true meaning and purpose of amen and not just the expression itself.
For instance, at the end of your praying—or even during the course of your praying—put your prayer a little differently. Say instead, “I believe that those things which I say (and pray) shall come to pass.[1] I believe that I have received and I shall have them.[2] Lord, let what I pray actually come to pass. God, this is the confidence that I have in You that if I ask anything according to your will, You hear me, and if You hear me whatever I ask I know that I have the petitions that I desired of You.[3] I believe that these words, which I base on Your Word, do not return to You void, but they accomplish that which pleases You and prosper in the thing for which You sent them in the first place.”[4]
In spirit, this is the same as saying amen and is not asking you to do anything more than what the Scriptures are asking you to do.
The first time we see God speaking in Scripture, He says in the midst of darkness, “Let there be light.”[5] Among other important practices in prayer, like thanksgiving, praise and worship, doesn’t this model give direction for what our praying should become? Having become keenly aware of darkness in an area of our life, we petition the Lord with “Let there be light.” With the presence of sickness and disease, we say “Let there be healing and health.” With the presence of economic pressure, we pray, “Let there be provision and increase.”
God’s first proclamation in Genesis is the first amen. In essence, He said, “Light, let it be so!” This proclamation then becomes a pattern for our praying and therefore the essence of how we all should find ourselves interceding. Examples might be “Let there be money to pay the bills;” “Let there be favor on my job;” “Let there be grace to handle difficulties;” “Let there be power and strength where there has been weakness;” “Let there be wisdom when I don’t know what to do;” “Let there be workers sent into the harvest;” “Let there be increased preaching of the gospel in nations[6] of the world.”
God did not encounter the darkness and say, “Wow, it sure is dark!” He wasn’t in denial about darkness, just like we should not be in denial about pressures, struggles, or negative circumstances. In the face of darkness—and in spite of the darkness—God said, “Light, let it be so!” This does not mean that we take the place of God; it only means we step into the world in which He has planted us and exercise the authority given through His Son’s name.
I refer you to our family’s story in a book my wife wrote entitled Seeing Beyond: Choosing to Look Past the Horizon.[7] There you will notice an incredibly honest portrayal that included many of the complexities of life staring us in the face, including disease, life-threatening medical complications, miscarriage, blindness, and pressure from doctors to abort one of our babies. These stories provide further evidence that the message of this book is void of the contrived and the artificial. Instead, it gives testimony that this is the victory that overcomes the world, even our faith.[8] Overcoming faith assumes something must be overcome, and when such faith—and all its accompanying principles—is applied, victories will be obtained.
I am happy to announce that as faith in God was applied, He mercifully preserved our firstborn’s life and thwarted the signing of a death certificate. I also rejoice in the fact that our five children are testimonies of God’s deliverance as medically we were told having children would not be possible.
I rejoice in the grace released into our lives when a doctor tried to bully my wife into an abortion. Those moments in that doctor’s office were characterized by the presence of God’s Word that gave my wife the fortitude and guidance to choose life—and to say so. That baby was born and years later delivered our first grandchild. In addition, my wife lives now more than two decades past the year a doctor predicted her death.
I know God involved Himself in these acts of mercy, and in the middle of it all we called on His name and declared His Word over our circumstances. Where are the deliverances and salvations that we expect yet to be accomplished? Must we ascend into heaven and descend into an abyss in search of them? Or are they incredibly near us, so near us they are in our mouth and in our heart, for whoever believes in Him will not be put to shame and whoever calls on the name of the Lord shall be saved.[9]
If you want to navigate successfully through realities that must be overcome, then begin to say in the very face of all that counteracts, “In the midst of my captivity, let there be release. In the fog of not seeing all the details, let there be focus. In the dimness of foolishness, let there be wisdom. In the darkness of fear, let there be courage. In the reality of my incapabilities, let there be grace.”
Let it be….let it be so…amen.
Plants do it.
In a season of storms, or erratic weather patterns, no matter the climate, no matter the temperature or the conditions surrounding them, plants continually open their stomata proclaiming, “Let there be growth; let there be fruit.” Their stomata activity, an analogy of proactive prayer, is exercised long before fruit becomes a reality. They call those things which do not exist as though they did.[10]
What happens through the stomata in a plant’s leaves in its here-and-now has everything to do with what kind of harvest it will experience in its future. What happens through our mouths in prayer and confession in our here-and-now has everything to do with the kind of harvest we will experience in our future.[11]
Just like the future fruit of a plant is undeniably connected to the stomata, so our mouth is intricately connected to the fruit and productivity that is delivered to our future.
However, the meaning and spirit of amen has been basically lost as it sadly has evolved into just a way to close a prayer. If we embrace all that amen means and implies, we must, first of all, be in touch with the concept of Bible-based praying and with God’s desire to use us to accomplish what pleases Him, for it is through us that God wants to work.
The use of amen then, in simplest terms, is the acknowledgement that we believe we have received.
God mandates that we be a kingdom-focused people, addressing our realm of influence by not just preaching and declaring His Word into our world, but declaring over everything we say and pray in His name that His Word be so. This penetrating responsibility results in a fruitful prayer life.
Remember my story about painting the peony bush against the garage wall when I was a young boy? We concluded that, when you paint the leaves of a plant and thereby paint the stomata, you have successfully destroyed that part of the plant since the stomata openings have now all been glued shut. The water inside the leaf cannot make its egress into the atmosphere. Therefore, no life-sustaining carbon dioxide can make its way into the plant. The picture we have is a plant full of water and dying.
This is what we have in many Christians. They are full of God’s Word, or at least have the privilege of gleaning great amounts of God’s Word through churches, television, audio media, Internet, Bible schools, and personal study. A breakdown occurs when all this intake ends up as just so much information puffing heads up with increasing quantities of knowledge but falling short of practical application for daily living.
There is already evidence enough from those annoyed with our religious arrogance that we have given more attention to academic advancement of our minds than to Holy Spirit development of our inner being. This doesn’t leave academic process without place or without value. However, we must always stay assured that academic thought did not invent the Holy Spirit, but that the Holy Spirit authored the concepts and wisdoms of the Scriptures and then enlightens us[12] as we, Bible in hand, seek to know His ways.
The same is true in spirit of those who put great value on emotional or soulish dynamics, but oftentimes, at the expense of Holy Spirit processes. As a conservative personality, I have had to learn the value of honest emotional response. I must encourage myself and others to not overlook things which are truly spiritual and which find their foundation in God’s Word,[13] whether my emotions respond or not.
The Holy Spirit inspired the Word of God.[14] Jesus authors and finishes our faith.[15] And faith comes by hearing the Word of God.[16] Such faith finds its deepest and most effective fulfillment in our lives when we let it have a voice.
We desperately need mouths which begin to open in prayer, declaration and petition to a God who gives incredible promise to and through those who do. Without this kind of practical application, we create, instead, a prayer life that is inert and sluggish, falling far short of the concept of believing we have received and petitions actually coming to pass. As a result, not only does no Word of God return to heaven to work on our behalf and others, but also nothing comes in either. These trees of the Lord have very little to no fruit or beauty to offer a hurting and ugly world. In reality, this picture is a reflection of Christians full of water and dying.
What an incredible and ugly irony. Full of God’s Word but guilty of stopping the flow of God’s Word to return to heaven where God promises He will accomplish that which pleases Him. These Christians are full of the water of God’s Word but, in the final analysis, have no fruit to offer the world they hope to reach.
With this in mind, I suggest that Satan is really only concerned about getting people to be quiet. If he can convince them to just keep silent and feel smug about what and how much they know, if he can keep them busy with countless other things, then he has made successful effort in diminishing the effect of God’s Word on this earth.
Obviously, Satan couldn’t stop the sending of God’s Word to the earth, but he is doing all he can to stop its return.
Just take note of the culture that discourages people to pray, to praise, to worship, to shout, or to call on the Lord. Even some religious traditions, to say nothing of rising political and cultural philosophies, deride the Christians when they confess, declare, preach, or witness, all of which demand verbal release and are only a natural result of absorbing God’s Word, including the good news and the manifold wisdom it contains.
Mockery is made of their proclamations and their decrees in private and in public. Yes, even Christians scorn and ridicule another Christian who is trying to apply himself or herself to these vital life-changing and world-changing Biblical concepts.
This is not unlike the people who followed Jesus and told the blind to be quiet so as to stop them from crying out to the Lord. This book represents, hopefully, the response of those blind people—and all other people in need of mercy. They have been told to be quiet, but they cry out even more, only to capture the healing attention of Jesus.[17] This kind of faith expressed in verbal form made them well.[18]
But, if you were a plant, what would you do?
First of all—make no mistake—you are the planting of the Lord, and the botanical kingdom is replete with your greatest and most faithful accountability partners. Accountability partners help hold you to certain standards of behavior.
Void of hypocrisy and dedicated daily to processes placed there by the Creator, the 350,000 species of plants on the globe are a formidable group to which we must give an account, and to which we must give serious consideration to what they teach us. Both their intake of water at foundational levels and their release and return of water through their botanical mouths witness how we too must learn to live.
Of necessity, the stomata of plants are the focal point of this issue and must be active, allowing the water inside leaves to come out, and letting in the essential carbon dioxide simultaneously. This results in growth and productivity.
That’s the botanical spirit of amen.
Of necessity, also, the mouths of people, who have received the Word of God in their hearts, must open them in confession to declare this Word and let the spirit of faith believe they have received.
That’s the Biblical spirit of amen.
And then we give the glory to God as He brings growth and productivity to and through the life of those who faithfully return His Word to Him.
[1] Mark 11:23
[2] Mark 11:24
[3] 1 John 5:14-15
[4] Isaiah 55:11
[5] Genesis 1:3
[6] Name the nation that is on your heart.
[7] http://www.GailMcWilliams.com.
[8] 1 John 5:4
[9] Romans 10:6-13
[10] Romans 4:17-18
[11] Because I do not apologize for the analogous comparisons I make here with plants and humans, I will leave this paragraph as is. However, I would not be wrong in saying that many times God works and displays mercy in spite of us. However, because I am trying to point us to the model of plants and to the self-same responsiveness which should also characterize our relationship with the Creator, I decided to leave the paragraph as is. My hope is that we understand how incredibly vital opening our mouths in a spirit of faith really is and how such a concept has its own intrinsic value.
[12] Ephesians 1:17-19
[13] John 6:63
[14] 2 Timothy 3:16
[15] Hebrews 12:2
[16] Romans 10:17
[17] Matthew 20:30-32; Mark 10:46-52; Luke 18:35-43
[18] Luke 18:42
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