After service one day a young lady quickly approached me and said, "Pastor, please pray that I can find a husband. I am looking for a husband." I paused for a moment, then I looked at her and asked, "Where exactly have you been looking?" She said, "Everywhere, Pastor. I've looked in the health clubs, the shopping malls and I've even searched here at church. I just can't seem to find him."
I looked at her and said, "There's the problem. You've been looking for love in all the wrong places. Your husband is not everywhere. He's locked up in your closet." She laughed and said, "Oh, Pastor, what are you talking about?" I said, "The truth is, you're not going to find your husband at the health club or at the shopping mall. You may not even find him in this church."
"Then where am I going to find him?" she asked. I replied, "You're going to find him in your closet-your prayer closet." Immediately she understood and left
dancing and praising God.
I teach our congregation that when searching for the will of God, if it's not in your closet, it probably doesn't belong to you! The word closet in this passage is the Greek word "tameion," which is a derivative of "tamias" (a dispenser or distributor). It also means secret chamber or storehouse. It doesn't necessarily mean your house closet, but it means someplace where you can share intimacy with God. It is a place where giving and receiving takes place with our Father.
It's interesting that this word describes a picture of a dispenser or a place of distribution. It is a place where in our private prayer time we receive the will of God in our spirit. It is a type of a spiritual shipping and receiving department. In reality, nothing is ever birthed in the natural or physical realm before it is conceived in the closet. Most of that which belongs to us in the predestined will of God is received in prayer long before we ever receive it in the natural. This is why so many Christians become frustrated, confused, depressed and are often misguided. They walk through life blindly guessing what the will of God is for their lives. They chance marrying the wrong person, living in the wrong houses, and might even struggle in ministries they were never called to. How tragic it would be to live your whole life groping around like a blind man, never really knowing the true will of God for your life.
It has been my observation that most people shop blindly with their hearts, and that gets them in deep trouble. Jeremiah 17:9 says, "The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked: who can know it?" It's dangerous to make a lifetime decision from your heart. I've often told the men and women in our congregation, "If you look for a mate with your heart, you might find a person whom you feel is the man or woman of your dreams, only to find out later that they are the monster of your worst possible nightmare." I've often told the single women in our church that if they are not careful, they could marry a man whom they believe in their hearts is Denzel Washington or Brad Pitt, only to find out that he's really the Nutty Professor or worse, Forest Gump.
The Scripture declares, "But as it is written, Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of man, the things which God hath prepared for them that love him" (1 Corinthians 2:9). Paul continues by saying, "But God hath revealed them unto us by his Spirit: for the Spirit searcheth all things, yea, the deep things of God" (v. 10).
So the principle is, illumination always precedes revelation and revelation always precedes the conception of a vision. Visionaries and leaders who have experienced the birth process of a dream or a vision, whether in their ministry or business, understand this spiritual law. In most cases, nothing is ever birthed in the natural before it is conceived in the spiritual. Many of God's eternal purposes for your life can be viewed in the Spirit (in your prayer closet) long before you ever view them in the natural realm.
You've been reading a small excerpt from Marks book .. "The Expecting Spirit".
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