Being People of Incense who Inwardly Contact the Lord and Pray one with Christ

All believers in Christ are priests to God, and one of the most important things in serving as a priest is to spend time with the Lord. We all know that we need to have such a time with our dear Lord Jesus, but again and again, as things press upon us, this time is the first thing we tend to sacrifice. Without a personal, intimate, and spiritual time with the Lord every day, the Bible is full of teachings, and being a priest is something merely outward.

We need to maintain our time with the Lord every day, and in this time we need to forget about knowledge, work, movement, etc and focus our entire attention to be in the Lord’s presence, touch Him in our spirit, and listen to His speaking in His living word. The first thing we need to do in the morning is spend time with the Lord in which we don’t exercise our mind too much but simply exercise our spirit to pray over God’s word and pray His word back to Him.

What is needed the most in the church life is not many outward things that are so necessary but spending time in the presence of the Lord. Spending time with the Lord takes time, and it may not seem “efficient” to us to spend 30 minutes or so every day with the Lord – but there’s NO shortcut to the matter of spending time with the Lord.

As priests to God we need come to His word with an unveiled face to behold Him and be shined by Him, and we need to have His fresh enlightening within. Continually we need to contact Him, daily we need to maintain our contact with the Lord, and perpetually from morning to evening we need to touch the Lord and open to Him.

Our charge as priests is to light the lamps and burn the incense; we need to touch the Lord in His word, let Him speak to us in our personal time with Him, be enlightened by Him, and pray the Christ from within our being to the Christ in the heavens as the incense.

When others meet us they shouldn’t be impressed with how much of the Bible we know but how much we pray; as priests we are persons of incense, that is, we are men of prayer. We need to be those who spend much personal and intimate time with the Lord to touch Him, be enlightened by Him, confess our sins, and apply His precious blood to have His fresh living word and shine with Him as the light within.

As Priests we are People of Incense: we Inwardly Contact the Lord Daily and Pray

Our primary work as priests is to burn the incense; to burn the incense is to pray. Our job as priests is not primarily to do things for God but to spend time with God, go to Him and pray and contact Him again and again.

When the Lord Jesus came to this earth among the Jews, not many were real priests; there were many scribes and Pharisees, and their head was filled with teachings – so they rejected the Lord. Today the Lord doesn’t need theologians or Christians who know a lot of Bible teachings and doctrines; He needs priests, people of incense, people who day by day pray.

Such was Zechariah, the father of John the Baptist; such was Peter after the Lord ascended, and such was the Apostle Paul both in prison and as he was preaching the gospel. What God desires to have from the very beginning to the end of the Bible, is a priestly people, a people who contacts Him inwardly. We need to seek to live in an inward way to contact the Lord through prayer.

We should not focus on outward activity or on doing things for God “in the name of God”; we should focus more on our daily contact with the Lord in an inward way to burn the incense in the Holy of Holies. We shouldn’t be merely those who offer the offerings in the outer court by applying and enjoying Christ as the reality of all the offerings; we should not just be enlightened and supplied by the Lord in the Holy Place, but we should go on into the Holy of Holies, our mingled spirit, to daily contact the Lord and minister to Him.

As priests to God we are people of incense, that is, people of prayer. When people meet us they shouldn’t be impressed with how much Bible teachings we know, how good a way we have to meet, and how sweet the atmosphere is among us; what should be most visible about us is that we are men of prayer, “people of incense”, those who contact the Lord daily and spend much time in prayer before Him.

We need to learn how to burn the incense in a fine way to offer a sweet-smelling odor to God. This is what God needs the most today among His people. May we come to the Lord every day to contact Him, have set times with Him, and spend adequate time with the Lord to just be infused with Him and filled with Him, and live in the inward contact with the Lord every day by unceasingly praying to offer Christ to God as the incense.

May we all learn day by day to burn the incense by going to the Lord to pray and contact Him so that we may fulfill His purpose by being priests to God in reality.

Lord Jesus, make us people of incense, those who inwardly contact You day by day and pray. Lord, we don’t want to merely know the Bible and understand what the Holy Word speaks: we want to be priests, persons of prayer, those who burn the incense daily! Oh Lord, we seek to live in an inward way to contact You by praying. We don’t want to focus on outward activities or works but have set times of prayer to burn the incense for the fulfillment of Your purpose! Oh Lord Jesus, we want to learn how to burn the incense in a fine way to offer sweet savor to God!

Praying in the Way of Expressing Christ by Letting the Christ within Pray in us

Burning the incense signifies prayer – but this kind of prayer is not any prayer, anything from our thoughts being uttered to the Lord; burning the incense refers specifically to our being so one with Christ and filled with Him that when we pray we allow the Christ in us to pray to the Christ in the heavens, thus uttering on earth the prayers He prays in the heavens.

We need to spend adequate time in the Lord’s presence being infused with Him and shined on by Him through His word so that we may express something of Christ from deep within our spirit in prayer. This expression of Christ from deep within is the sweet incense ascending to God, bringing us into God and God into us and causing us to be mingled with God and God to be mingled with us.

This kind of prayer needs time: we can’t be quick about it, and there’s no shortcut to burning the incense. We need to daily practice the priestly office, and the whole situation in the church will be changed. We need to convert our time of discussion and chatting into burning the incense. We need to not only pray but burn the incense, and encourage one another to spend time with the Lord.

May we not sacrifice our time with the Lord for anything else, but stay in the Lord’s presence to enjoy Christ for a time, feed on Him as our spiritual nourishment (the bread of the presence), let Him shine on us (experience the lampstand), and allow Christ to be assimilated into us. This takes a certain amount of time; it cannot be done in a fast way.

We need to have a daily time with the Lord to be revived, and as we spend time with Him we will fulfill our priestly service. Our priestly service is to spend time with the Lord; it is in this time that He trims the charred wicks (anything negative or natural) and adds the oil (the Spirit as the fresh oil). All these happen in our many transactions with the Lord in our personal time with Him in which we ask and listen in His presence, waiting in the secret place.

When we pray in this way of being mingled with God, we are one with Christ in our prayer; the Christ us ascends as incense to the Christ in the heavens, and God is satisfied. The more we pray by offering the Christ within to God, the more He is satisfied and His glory descends upon us. This is the real fellowship: prayer as incense ascends to God, and the glory (the light of God) shines on us until it saturates us and fills us with the shekinah glory of God.

May we be those who learn to utter and express something of Christ from deep within our spirit and not from our mind so that sweet incense would ascend to God to please Him and cause His glory descend upon us in the church!

Lord Jesus, we want to learn to utter and express something of Christ from deep within our spirit, not from our mind, so that this expression of Christ would be the sweet incense ascending to God! Lord, mingle Yourself more with us and mingle us with You until it is no longer we praying but Christ within us is praying to the Christ in the heavens! Oh Lord, keep us in Your presence, touching You and conversing with You, having many transactions with You and being fully mingled with You until we pray Christ to God to burn the incense for His satisfaction!

References and Hymns on this Topic

• Inspiration: the Word of God, my Christian experience, bro. Andrew Yu’s sharing in the message for this week, and portions from, Collected Works of Witness Lee, 1965, vol. 3, “Enjoying Christ as the Word and the Spirit through Prayer,” ch. 2, as quoted in the Holy Word for Morning Revival on, The Recovery of the Priesthood or God’s Building, week 4 / msg 4, Lighting the Lamps and Burning the Incense.
• All Bible verses are taken from, Holy Bible Recovery Version.
• Hymns on this topic to strengthen this burden:
  # Pray to fellowship with Jesus, / In the spirit seek His face; / Ask and listen in His presence, / Waiting in the secret place. (Hymns, #784)
  # Thou art the incense unto God, / In Thee acceptance is complete; / I want to pray yet more and more, / To offer up this fragrance sweet. (Hymns, #813).
  # Let us the incense burn / Of prayer before the Lord; / The lamp we’d light, through day and night / Our praise to Him outpoured. (Hymns, #791)