Monday 28 November 2016

Awe

It is easy to take God lightly - in prayer as in anything else.

But our God is awesome and sometimes terrifying.

Jesus touches on this in the words "hallowed be your name" in the model prayer he gave his followers.  We believers are to worship him in awe.

John White, Christian author, pastor and psychiatrist, writes that Job learned how great God is in an encounter with the Lord Almighty in the Book of Job in the Bible.  It changed him dramatically.

In his book on prayer - Daring to Draw Near - White recounts the story of Job's suffering and his call to God to justify him as an innocent man.  The Book of Job tells how God permitted Satan to take Job's wealth and his children while sparing the man's life.

Much of the rest of the Book of Job is taken up with Job's wrestling with why God would allow this.  He can't understand why he is suffering and he complains to the Lord.  His friends tell him he needs to repent.

Finally, God speaks "out of the storm" in Job 38.  He begins with the intimidating words: "Brace yourself like a man; I will question you and you will answer me."

He asks: "Were you there when I laid the earth's foundation?  Tell me if you understand."

God hammers home the point again and again in the following verses.  In effect, he is saying that God knows far more than any man or woman can conceive and his reasons are just.

Then, God says: "Will the one who contends with the Almighty correct him?  Let him who accuses God answer him."

"Would you discredit my justice?" God continues.  "Would you condemn me to justify yourself?"

Job reacts the way I would - completely overcome.

"My ears had heard of you but now my eyes have seen you," he says.  "Therefore I despise myself and repent in dust and ashes."

White says these words indicate Job had gained a new vision of who God is and of his great power and wisdom.

God does not explain to Job why he suffered.  But he does see that Job's view of the Lord has been transformed.  And he even leads Job to intervene on behalf of friends and blesses him with family and material goods.

White urges us to contemplate this great God who loves us and yet is so great that outstanding men in the Bible fell before him in terror and awe.

In prayer, the author says, we should tell God that we know he is holy and that there is no one like him.

"Tell him that you owe him your allegiance, your body, your time.  Tell him that you recognize that his mercy to you is far more than you ever deserve."

Then, he says, we should ask the Holy Spirit to take us further into a deeper understanding of the overwhelming greatness of God.




Monday 21 November 2016

Attack!

Beni Johnson, author of The Happy Intercessor, says prayer warriors are to fight Satan's kingdom in prayer, not hold back in fear and confusion.

She says we are like football players out to score a touchdown by marching down the field with a definite plan.  We each know what we are to do because we have been given the plan by our coaches.

Her point is that we must stay in touch with God and understand his plan.

"A lot of intercessors spend all of their time worrying about what the enemy will do next," she writes, "but their job is to focus on God and to partner with his plans."

She says prayer warriors are to "pray according to God's plans and . . . pray from a place of victory."

We should not be afraid because Christ won the ultimate victory over Satan by his death on the cross and his resurrection from the dead.

She tells the story of her third grandchild, Haley, who was on the verge of death after being born in an emergency operation because her mother had an infection.  The doctors told the Johnson family that the baby was not responding well.  She had an Apgar test result of 2 which usually means the baby will die.

Johnson remembers sitting in the waiting room and asking God what was going on.  She felt God telling her that this was spiritual warfare and she must simply say "No!"

The whole family prayed and 10 minutes later, a nurse came to tell them that the Apgar reading was up to 7 and the baby would be fine.

The author recommends prayerful reading and meditation on scripture to equip ourselves for spiritual battle.

For example, she turns often to the Psalms for prayer.  She suggested the following approach:

  • Read and ponder and "get Holy Spirit understanding" of the scripture segment;
  • Begin to pray the scripture passage;
  • Stop and listen to God's promptings;
  • As you listen, God will tell you more; and
  • Begin to pray what he is telling you.
As you do this, you "become targeted to the purpose of God," say says.

"Your spirit and your mind have become one with heaven.  You have become on offensive prayer warrior."

Satan is a master at distracting us.  We need to keep our eyes on what God wants.

Tuesday 15 November 2016

Persistent prayer

Jim Glennon tells a wonderful story of God's miracle-working power through persistent and faith-filled prayer in his book Your Healing Is Within You.

He says Graeme, the adopted son of Mark and Dorothy Bailey of South Australia, began developing rounded shoulders as a very young boy.  It became worse as he grew older, approaching his teen-aged years.

They took him to a specialist who told them several vertebrae were collapsing and ultimately his heart would be affected as he grew progressively stooped.  He said the boy's future was hopeless.

But the parents were convinced from their reading of scripture that God could do what seemed impossible.  They believed that if healing did not come immediately, it would come over time.

So they prayed.

"At first nothing seemed to happen," Glennon writes.  "Yet they were not discouraged - they just went on believing."

Gradually, they began to see what seemed to be change.  Then, it became more obvious.

After three years, "their boy had grown completely straight".  His chest and heart were normal and his hump was gone.

He is now married with three children and a job as a mechanic.

I acknowledge that not all stories turn out as well despite our faith.  It is a mystery why some are healed and others are not.

But Jesus does call us to pray persistently, believing that God is good and will work for our good (Luke 18: 1-8).  

Sometimes we receive answers in our lifetime - and sometimes hereafter.  As Hebrews 11 indicates, many great men and women of the Bible died before seeing the Messiah, but they were to see their hopes and prayers answered in the long run.

In her book The Power of Persistent Prayer, Cindy Jacobs says that she is confident her prayers will be answered if they are based on God's will as made clear in scripture.  She points to the apostle John's words in 1 John 5:14-15:

"This is the confidence we have in approaching God: that if we ask anything according to his will, he hears us.  And if we know that he hears us - whatever we ask - we know that we have what we asked of him."

The great 19th century Christian, George Muller, had a remarkable prayer life, feeding and housing thousands of orphans despite having no money of his own.  Repeatedly, he did not know in the morning whether he would be able to feed the children later in the day but money would come in at just the right moment.  He never issued an appeal for funds but they kept rolling in.

He outlined his approach to discovering the will of God in this way:

  • He began by surrendering himself completely to what God wanted in a particular matter;
  • He sought the will of God through and in connection with the word of God;
  • He took into account "providential circumstances" which pointed to what God wanted;
  • He asked God to reveal his will to Muller; and
  • Having taken these steps, he would decide what he believed to be God's direction.
This teaches me that I must really seek God's will in a particular situation and then pray persistently.



Tuesday 8 November 2016

Battling the enemy

Cindy Jacobs knows that prayer is a mighty weapon against the evil one.

In her book Possessing the Gates of the Enemy, Jacobs tells of waking up at 2 a.m. with the sense that God wanted her to pray.  She and her husband were attending a major U.S. prayer conference in Bradenton, Florida, at the time.

After asking God whether someone was in trouble, she received a mental picture of two friends and their three children as they drove to the conference.

"All of a sudden, in the vision, the van's right front wheel rolled off and the van careened wildly into a horrible accident," she writes.

She spent the rest of the night praying that the wheel bearings would hold until the Jacobs could see their friends after safe arrival, and warn them about the wheel bearings.

Jacobs told them about her vision and urged them to check the van.  Cindy's husband, Mike, and their friend David Barton drove the van to a garage,

The mechanic was amazed because the wheel bearings were shot.  He said there was no way they could drive the car without the wheels coming off.

This is a typical experience in Cindy Jacobs' life.

Jacobs' life as an intercessor started when she would wake up at night regularly and wonder why.  She finally decided God was waking her up to pray.

"As I began to seek his guidance, names would come to me and specific thoughts about what to pray . . .  So I would pray those thoughts that came to me."

At first, she did not have confirmation that her prayers were being answered.  But that changed when she felt led to pray one night for a minister named Todd in her church.  She did not know him well.  She looked at the clock and noticed it was 3:10 a.m.

The following night at a church service Todd stopped her at the church door and told her that he had cancer and had been feeling desperately alone when he prayed during the night.  He said that God let him know that Cindy Jacobs was praying for him right then.  It was 3:10 a.m.

Todd was subsequently healed of cancer.

Why does Cindy Jacobs have such a powerful ministry?

Early on, she told God: "God, use me in the way you see fit.  I will do anything you want me to do; go anywhere, anyhow."

God will use anyone that committed.

Satan, beware!