by David Falk | Download PDF | Purchase Hardcopy

Over the past couple of weeks, I’ve been considering the last days of Jesus’ life. Following His death, those who loved Him brought spices to the tomb. They came to anoint the body of their Lord. All these spices used to create sweet incense, are Hebrew symbols of prayer. We’ll recall that Mary Magdalene was the one who loved much because she had been forgiven much. The Scriptures say that she went out to the tomb ‘while it was still dark’. John 20:1. I think she learnt that from the Master. He regularly rose early, long before the sun came up, and went out to a solitary place to pray. Jesus had risen from the dead early that morning, but Mary came with no expectation of finding an empty tomb. She found the stone rolled away and her response was, ‘They have taken away my Lord’. John 20:13. Looking for her Lord, she had brought spices and anointing oil, the symbols of devotion and prayer.

We read in the Psalms of David, ‘May my prayer be counted as incense before You’. Psa 141:2. When we look at the incense used in the tabernacle of Moses, it consisted of four components. These four spices, once they were crushed and blended together, became ‘sweet incense’. After being applied to the coals of fire on the censer, this sweet incense ascended before God. I like to think of that sweet incense as the essence of our prayer. Mary Magdalene, along with Mary the mother of James, came to the tomb filled with prayer and worship. The Scripture doesn’t use that terminology, but it draws attention to the spices and their intention to anoint Him.   

I want to encourage you to prayer, and to another phase of your life. Remember, it doesn’t matter what we achieve, if we don’t love the Master. We must be given to anointing the Lord, loving Him and yearning for Him. I’m thinking of Mary Magdalene, Mary the mother of Jesus, John, and all of those who loved Him. They loved Him. They were continually and wholly devoted. They were continually offering up prayer. Waiting through the night watch and rising early to pray, they yearned to anoint Him. We need to have hearts for anointing oil and the spices of prayer. From the grinding and pounding of those spices, sweet incense is produced. If you’re going to become as sweet incense to Him; if your prayer is going to ascend as incense, then there will be some grinding. You’re going to be like those spices, sweet as they are, ground down, blended together, and then added to fire. Then your prayers ascend as a memorial before the Lord.

I like to think of those four spices being our petition, our supplication, our intercession, and our thanksgiving. I love the way supplication is referred to as ‘all prayer’. Eph 6:18. We need to come before Him with ‘all prayer’, petitioning Him. What faith is needed to petition Him! The summary of all our petition, supplication, intercession, and thanksgiving is worship. This is the ascending cloud of incense, a pleasing and fragrant aroma before the Lord. 

Again, I want to encourage you in the course of your life, to change your life. Not to change your life by anointing, but for anointing. Not to change your life by prayer, but for prayer. I want you to commit yourself to rise early. I remember the phase in my life when I decided to give myself less sleep. It took me a number of years to apply myself to this so that I could wait on the Lord. We read in the Psalms, ‘I waited patiently for the Lord and He inclined to me, and heard my cry. He brought me up out of the pit of destruction, out of the miry clay; and He set my feet upon a rock making my footsteps firm. He put a new song in my mouth, a song of praise to our God’. Psa 40:1-3. Would you change your lifestyle and become someone who waits patiently for the Lord? Will you think this way in the frenetic busyness of your life, in the organisation of your life, in the planning of your life? Perhaps you’ll need to think ‘outside the square’ in identifying times when you can pray.

For many years, I have modelled my life on the great prophet Daniel. Three times a day he set his face towards Jerusalem to pray. He came before God with all prayer, petition, intercession, and thanksgiving. And we find that the incense ascended. Daniel’s prayer was heard from the moment the supplication was made. A decree was made, an oath was sworn. ‘Do not be afraid, Daniel, for from the first day that you set your heart on understanding and on humbling yourself before God, your words were heard, and I have come in response to your words’. Dan 10:12. These were the words of the angel Gabriel after Daniel had persevered in prayer for twenty one days. In an interesting turn of events, Gabriel had been ‘held up’, so to speak, fighting against the Prince of Persia. Daniel had to wait, knowing that his prayer had been heard despite the delay.

If you are going to wait patiently in prayer and supplication, then you’ll need to pray with patience. Waiting on the Lord is just that: It is waiting. And it is firstly, waiting for the Lord. The Scripture says of Abraham, ‘Having patiently waited, he obtained the promise’. Heb 6:15. When Daniel set his face to pray, an oath was sworn. Would you give yourself to that kind of prayer? Would you become a person who believes for answered prayer? Will you be a person who believes that your petition is heard, a decree is passed, an oath is made, and your prayer will be answered?

Intercession is prayer for another. If you become a person of intercession it will ‘swamp’ and consume you. You will travail, you will cry, you will weep, and you will mourn. And you will ‘stand by night in the house of the Lord’. Psa 134:1. You will go through the night hours watching and praying. As Jesus went to Gethsemane, He said to Peter, James and John, ‘Wait here. Watch and pray’. He wanted them to wait on Him. We know Jesus went away with a soul deeply troubled and came back to find them ‘sleeping for sorrow’. Luke 22:45. In a similar way, the psalmist cried, ‘My prayer kept returning to my bosom’. Psa 35:13. As he prayed, it kept returning and returning. I know that experience and I’m sure you know it too. You are waiting on God in the early hours and through the day, but your prayer keeps returning to your bosom. And you begin to ‘sleep for sorrow’ because the burden of intercession is so heavy upon you. When the ladies took the anointing oil and the spices out to the body of Jesus, they were filled with sorrow and filled with confusion. We could say they were in trauma. They were experiencing what I’ll call the ‘trauma of prayer’. This is the grinding of sweet incense.  

The great King David said, ‘My steps had almost slipped … until I came into the sanctuary of God’. Psa 73:2,17. Are you like Martha, the sister of another Mary, who was busy? Or will you choose ‘the better portion’? Mary sat and waited at the feet of Jesus. Will you wait at the feet of Jesus? In the busyness of your programme, in the tumult of your season, in the phase of your disappointments, will you wait? Will you anoint Him? Will you not only offer incense, but will you become it? Will you convert the trial of your life, the pounding of your life, the crushing of your life, to sweet incense and let it ascend? Let it carry you into the Most Holy Place. And more than that, will you carry another into the Most Holy Place? Will you convert from being a person consumed by your needs to a person of prayer and intercession? ‘Bless the Lord, all servants of the Lord, who serve by night in the house of the Lord’. Psa 134:1. My heart is yearning for us to become people who wait upon the Lord. Wait on Him to find renewal of strength, access for petition, and ability to intercede. Bring thanksgiving, and come with all prayer and supplication. Let your life ascend as sweet incense.   

Author: David Falk | Toowoomba Christian Fellowship TCF
Published by Vision One at Toowoomba Christian Fellowship TCF
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