Want Face-to-Face Intimacy With God? This is How

Whether Jewish or pagan, every priest in the ancient world knew he was to offer sacrificial prayer as a priestly function.

At the Temple in Jerusalem, priests knew they were to offer up prayers to God and that the “incense” of prayers would ascend to Heaven, where they would enter into the nostrils of God. Offering up sacrificial prayer was a paramount function of all priests, and it is likewise the honor of every believer-priest today to bring sacrificial prayer to God.

In Psalm 141:2, David refers to the sacrificial incense that is released when sacrificial prayer is offered to God. He said, “Let my prayer be set forth before thee as incense in and the lifting up of my hands as the evening sacrifice.”

Also, in Revelation 8:3 and 4, we read that the prayers of the saints ascend to Heaven, where God smells the sweet aroma of their prayers. Those verses say, “And another angel came and stood at the altar, having a golden censer; and there was given unto him much incense, that he should offer it with the prayers of all saints upon the golden altar which was before the throne. And the smoke of the incense, which came with the prayers of the saints, ascended up before God.…”

In Ephesians 6:18, Paul urges all believers to step into their priestly function of offering up prayer. He said, “Praying always with all prayer and supplication in the Spirit, and watching thereunto with all perseverance and supplication for all saints.” The word “always” tells us that offering prayers to God is a chief responsibility of every believer-priest, or every born-again believer in Jesus Christ.

In this verse, Paul used a form of the word proseuchomai when he wrote, “Praying always with all prayer....” Both “praying” and “prayer” are a translation of the Greek word proseuchomai. This word is a compound of pros and euchomai. The word pros means toward and implies closeness; the word euchomai means to offer a request. When compounded to form proseuchomai, it means to come near to offer a request. It refers to the prayer of consecration that is offered at an altar of sacrifice.

Face-to-Face Intimacy with God

When we take a closer look at the word pros — the first part of the word proseuchomai — we see that it is a preposition that actually in this context means face to face or eyeball to eyeball. It is the very word used in John 1:1 to describe the intimate relationship between Jesus and the Father. That verse says, “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.” The word “with” in this verse is taken from the Greek word pros.

By using this word to describe the relationship between the Father and the Son, the Holy Spirit is telling us that theirs is an intimate relationship. One translator has translated John 1:1, “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was face to face with God.” It is a picture of such close intimacy that God the Father and Jesus His Son could nearly feel each other’s breath upon their faces. Nearly everywhere the word pros is used, it carries the meaning of a close, up-front, intimate contact with someone else. And when it is used in connection with prayer, it means God is calling us to a place of face-to-face intimacy with Him.

The second part of the word “prayer” in Ephesians 6:18 — a form of the Greek word proseuchomai — is derived from the Greek word euche, an old Greek word that describes a wish, desire, prayer, or vow. The word euche was originally used to depict a person who made some kind of vow to God because of a need or desire in his or her life. This individual would come to an altar, and instead of offering the sacrifice of an animal, the person would vow to sacrifice or give something of great value to God in exchange for a favorable answer to his or her prayer. Such sacrificial offerings were called “votive offerings” (derived from the word “vow”).

A perfect example of this can be found in the story of Hannah, the mother of Samuel. Hannah deeply desired a child, but was not able to become pregnant. After being barren year after year, she cried out to God in great desperation and anguish of spirit. On one of her family’s annual trips to worship and sacrifice to the Lord in Shiloh, First Samuel 1:10,11 says: “And she [Hannah] was in bitterness of soul, and prayed unto the Lord, and wept sore. And she vowed a vow, and said, O Lord of hosts, if thou wilt indeed look on the affliction of thine handmaid, and remember me, and not forget thine handmaid, but wilt give unto thine handmaid a man child, then I will give him unto the Lord all the days of his life, and there shall no razor come upon his head.”

Notice that Hannah made a solemn vow to the Lord and said, in essence, “Lord, if You answer my prayer and give me a son, I will give him back to You to serve You all the days of his life.”

This is a vivid picture of the word proseuchomai. And we see God’s response to her prayer in just a few verses where First Samuel 1:19,20 tells us, “And they [Hannah and her husband, Elkanah] rose up in the morning early, and worshipped before the Lord, and returned, and came to their house to Ramah: and Elkanah knew Hannah his wife; and the Lord remembered her. Wherefore it came to pass, when the time was come about after Hannah had conceived, that she bare a son, and called his name Samuel, saying, Because I have asked him of the Lord.”

You must keep in mind that the majority of Paul’s readers were Greek in origin, but when they saw the Greek word proseuchomai in Ephesians 6:18, they, too, understood the ramifications of what was being said to them. They understood that prayer was intended to bring them face-to-face and intimately close (pros) to God. They also realized that prayer would bring them to an altar, where they would make a divine exchange — where they would consecrate and fully yield themselves to God and where He would respond by answering their request and providing them with what they needed.

Because the word proseuchomai has to do with these concepts of surrender and sacrifice, this tells us that God desires to do more than merely bless us. As believer-priests, we are called by God to the altar, where the Holy Spirit may convict our hearts concerning areas that need to be surrendered to His sanctifying power. He will never forcibly take these things from us; we must surrender them. Thus, we see that prayer points to a place of decision and consecration — it’s an altar where we freely vow to give our lives to God in exchange for His life.

When we as believer-priests “come to the altar” and offer prayer to God, our prayers arise like incense to His nostrils. The new naos Temple of God is to be filled with believers who carry out their priestly function to lift up the incense of prayer to God. As we do, the sweet aroma produced by prayers reaches the nostrils of God as a well-pleasing aroma that invites face-to-face communion, the blessing of His presence, and a divine exchange of our lives for His life in the particular thing we are praying about.