There is no denying that the lack of prayer is the misfortune of the individual member of the body of Christ.
Jesus was a man of prayer.
He taught prayer, not as a legalistic duty, but as a glorious privilege.
He took His human place and lived the human life.
I have a conviction that He didn’t draw upon the secret resources that belonged to Him, more than it is possible for us who live and walk in His name.
Jesus’s ministry in healing illustrated what our prayer life should be.
He didn’t exercise His divine privileges during His three and a half years’ ministry any more than any child of God may exercise them.
He had a human body.
He had the limitations that go with the incarnation.
The believer is a new creation, created in Christ Jesus. He is brought into the family of God. He is an heir of God and a joint heir with Jesus Christ.
He is a child of God.
The Spirit that raised Jesus from the dead dwells in his body. Plus, this, Jesus has given him the power of attorney to use His name.
The more that I study the life of Jesus, I am convinced that He did not exercise divine power more than what every intelligent child of God possesses today.
The difference is that Jesus knew what belonged to Him and Jesus used His rights.
We do not really know what belongs to us in Him. Not knowing what ours is, we cannot use our rights.
When Jesus cast out demons, He used authority that He has delegated to the church.
He said, “In my name, you shall cast out demons.” (See Mark 16:17.) The forces of hell could not touch Him or injure Him; He was simply using the divine ability that is delegated to us.
Jesus said, “You shall take up serpents, and they shall not injure you.” (See Mark 16:18.)
The poison of vipers has no power over the Christian’s body, who knows his placement in Christ.
The apostle Paul loosened the deadly fangs of a viper that had fastened itself into his hand and shook the thing off without injury.
Paul simply illustrated what Jesus had promised.
I am convinced that the children of the Lord, filled with the knowledge of the Lord can walk in the same life and power and divine liberty as Jesus walked, if they understood their privileges.
He said, “If you drink any deadly thing, it shall not harm you.”
Poison could not be administered to the Lord Jesus and take effect.
It cannot be administered to the body of Christ and take effect if the members of that body walk in the knowledge and liberty of the sons of God.
This is not extreme.
It is simply walking in the realm of divine life.
We have been translated out of the realm of darkness; that is, the kingdom of weakness, darkness and ignorance.
We have been translated into the kingdom of the Son of His love, which is the realm of wealth, of life, of light, joy, of peace, and of faith.
Jesus in His earth walk, as the incarnate Son of God, beginning with His baptism, lived exactly as every child of God should live today.
YHVH wasn’t any more His Father than He is ours.
He said, “The Father loves you even as He loves me.”
He was the Son of God.
You are a son of God.
He was the Deity.
You are a partaker of the divine nature, “that is Deity”.
He had the Holy Spirit dwelling in Him.
You have the Holy Spirit dwelling in you.
The difference is that Jesus gave the Holy Spirit right of way, an experience of which we have never yet learned.
He took advantage of the God-life within Him in a way that most of us have never yet been able to appropriate the life of God within.
But, you say, Jesus was not mortal as we are.
That is true. He was neither mortal nor immortal, but lived in a body like Adam, which when he came to about the age of 30 or maturity would no longer age.
The only difference was that God created Adam as a mature man, if Adam had eaten of the tree of life, he would have been immortal, and may have attained a glorified body like Jesus now has, and we may also attain one if we-
Phillippians 3: 12 Not that I have already attained or am already perfected; but I press on, that I may lay hold of that for which Christ Jesus has also laid hold of me. 13 Brethren, I do not count myself to have apprehended; but one thing I do, forgetting those things which are behind and reaching forward to those things which are ahead, 14 I press toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus.
Prize (brabeíon) Metaphorically (symbolize, another thing), refers to the rewards of virtue (made visible in outward grace) in the future life.
The glorified body is a reward, not a gift. A glorified body allows us to live on earth and in heaven, like Jesus did before he ascended to sit on the right hand of the Father. Jesus is the only person who has a glorified body right now, the cloud of witnesses will not attain one until the finial harvest, which I will teach on at a later time.
Hebrews 11: 39 And all these, having obtained a good testimony through faith, did not receive the promise, 40 God having provided something better for us, that they should not be made perfect apart from us.
This epistle was written to the Hebrews, but it also applies to us because we are still in the kingdom age, the next age will be called perfection.
The kingdom age started when Jesus received his coronation as king of kings and sat down at the right hand of the Father and then poured out the Holy Spirit which was the beginning of the kingdom and the first harvest (the former rain), but there will be a final harvest, which will usher in the age of perfection.
The cloud of witnesses surrounds us, like the angels but we cannot see them, because they live in the spirit realm, but can manifest in bodies that appear human, but they don’t live here in the physical realm.
Romans 8: 10 And if Christ is in you, the body is dead because of sin, but the Spirit is life because of righteousness.
The body is dead. The word is (μέν) it is a primary particle; properly indicative of affirmation or concession (in fact).
The body is in fact dead. This refers to the legal aspect of our redemption, and we must look at the prior verse to understand the context.
YHVH sees the beginning and the end at the same time. So, from his point of view, we have already lived our life on earth. That is why I am teaching on the legal aspects of our redemption, so that you can see yourself the way the Father see’s you, which establishes your identity, so that you can live out vitally who you already are in heaven here on earth, it is sort of like when David received his first anointing as a king when Samuel prophesied over him, and because of that anointing of identity he was able to kill the giant Goliath, and as our identity is established we to will kill the giants in our own lives. And then eventually David received his coronation as king over Israel and Judah, this is what enabled Jesus to live the way he did because he knew who he was. The problem with most Christians is that they do not know who they are, so they try to do things in the flesh instead of allowing, Christ to live through them.
Romans 8:9 But you are not in the flesh but in the Spirit, if indeed the Spirit of God dwells in you. Now if anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, he is not His. (NKJV).
Now if anyone does not have the spirit of Christ, he is not His.
The New King James should not have Capitalized the word “spirit”. To have the spirit of Christ, means our spirit is the spirit of Christ when we are born again. I will use an interlinear bible so that you can better understand this next verse.
1 Corinthians 6:17 The one but joining himself to the Lord one spirit is.
The word one (heis) means one numerically, one and the self-same spirit.
When our spirit is born from above it is the spirit of Christ. Not two different spirits, but one spirit.
When Jesus said John 10: 30 I and My Father are one.
The word one (Hen) means one essence, but two different personalities.
Our bodies shall not have dominion over us as we walk in the realm of our spirit. (Galatians 5:16)
Paul says that our bodies are dead (legal redemption) and have lost their mortal effectiveness in reigning over our spirits. (Romans 8:10)
I believe that God has planned that we should walk in the fullness of the divine life; that we should dare to take our legal positions as sons and daughters of God; and that the hour is soon coming in which a remnant of the body will rise and walk before God the Father in the fullness of the new creation life, and do the works Jesus did and even greater.
Disease will not be able to lay hold upon us.
Ignorance and fear will be displaced, because the wisdom that comes from above, will lead us into the full dream, desires and purposes of our Father.
God has made Jesus to be our redemption.
Ephesians 1:7, “In whom we have redemption.”
1 Corinthians 1:30, “Of him are ye in Christ Jesus, who of God is made unto us wisdom, and righteousness, and sanctification, and redemption.”
We cannot set limits on that!
The limits of that redemption are the limits of Jesus.
Jesus was made unto us wisdom from God.
The limits of that wisdom are the limits of the eternal Son of God.
Jesus is made unto us sanctification.
The limits of that sanctification are the limits of Jesus.
He is our life, and the limits of that life are the limits of the life of the Son of God.
You see, our ineffective reasoning has blocked our faith from manifesting upon the earth.
The devil can fight successfully against our reason, because our brain has been programed from the outside in, this is why the renewing of our mind is so important.
But if faith takes the place of physical sense reasoning, Satan is placed under our feet.
The great body of the most advanced Bible teachers today are still held in the bondage of physical sense knowledge.
Their interpretations are often evasions of the truth, because they have not experienced the reality of it.
They are limited to the physical realm, because they have not experienced the spiritual realm, eyes that do not see into the realm of the Spirit and ears that do not hear the Holy Spirit.
Because of the opinions of men, they dare not take their real position in Christ.
Consequently, the Word of God has little effect.
Let us humbly and fearlessly take our place, in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ.
If we are new creations created in Christ Jesus, let us ask the Father to set the limits of that new creation instead of allowing theologians to do it for us.
Faith will lead you where reason cannot walk.
Reason has never been a mountain climber; it has never soared on the wings of eagles.
Faith, like a deer with hinds’ feet, can scale the loftiest mountain peaks without fear.
I offer this as a subject for meditation, not controversy.
I know it is not in the realm of reason, but I know it is where faith walks; and God is challenging us in these days to get the light and the knowledge that will fit us for the closing of this dispensation.
The message that John Wesley brought was truth, but it was only part of the truth.
John Calvin had only a little of the light.
There have been revelations continually from the Word during these hundreds of years.
It is time that we passed out of the baby stage into the stature of the perfect man or woman in Christ Jesus.
So, let us climb the heights of God.
Let us say without fear, “I am what He says I am. I can do what He says I can do, because He strengthens me”.
This makes our life rich and wonderful.
This makes us worthwhile to Him!
This will make us partners with Him.
We will be in that prized inner circle with Him, one of the trusted ones.
When He has a difficult mission, He will call on us.
You see, He will find it easy to reach us as we constantly visit Him, in prayer.
Take your place!
Enjoy your rights!
ALL KINDS OF PRAYER
Ephesians 6: 13 Therefore take up the whole armor of God, that you may be able to withstand in the evil day, and having done all, to stand.14 Stand therefore, having girded your waist with truth, having put on the breastplate of righteousness, 15 and having shod your feet with the preparation of the gospel of peace; 16 above all, taking the shield of faith with which you will be able to quench all the fiery darts of the wicked one. 17 And take the helmet of salvation, and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God; 18 praying always with all prayer and supplication in the Spirit, being watchful to this end with all perseverance and supplication for all the saints.
The object of the Christian soldier’s coat of armor is that they may enter the prayer fight.
This is not only offensive and defensive armor, but also prayer armor.
Preaching and personal work are God-honored and ministries are blessed mandates, but prayer is the foundation of them all.
A man might preach with great eloquence and be the most skilled of ambassadors as a soul winner, but they will fall short of their ministry in both fields if they are not backed up by a life of prayer, and prayer warriors.
The failure of all Christian endeavors is a prayer failure.
Prayer alone gives success.
There are many kinds of prayers.
There is simple petition, lifting your requests in Jesus’s name to the Father.
There is persistent, tenacious prayer that will not yield until the answer comes.
There is prevailing prayer that overcomes every obstacle and finally lands the answer.
There is battle prayer, with its tears and agony, its intense desire.
There is the quiet prayer of faith whose voice is never lifted above a whisper, but whose persistent faith touches the throne of heaven.
There is prayer without ceasing that seems to fragrance every act of the one who prays persistently.
Then, there is the unconscious prayer attitude.
Paul says, “Praying at all times in the Spirit with all manner of prayer” (Ephesians 6:18).
How desperately the nation needs it.
How desperately the church needs it.
Nothing can take the place of prayer.
Every believer should go into the school of prayer with Christ and learn the secret of prayer, the precious ministry of intercession.
The prayer of intercession is the prayer for another, not for self. It is the prayer that passes out from your realm, into the realm of another.
Jesus ever lives to make intercession at the right hand of the Father.
The Holy Spirit in us often makes intercession that cannot be uttered in words.
Often we are depressed; we cannot understand it or see any reason for it; it is the Holy Spirit in agony reaching through us to the Father.
If our spirits were only fruitful, perhaps we could understand the language and the agony of the Spirit in His mighty outreaching toward the throne of grace.
If our lives were only more perfectly under His influence, He might be able to breathe His passion through our conscious faculties, in His mighty agony for lost men and women.
Often our spirits are dull, and He cannot communicate His passion and desire through them to our minds.
So, it becomes unintelligible agony, “groanings which cannot be uttered” (Romans 8:26).
I suppose this is the reason why certain men and women are led to become the prayer channels for a whole congregation.
So, few of us, in our busy lives, take time to pray, that the Spirit searches through the congregation for the willing hearts that will deny themselves some of the common pleasures and will be first in the line of prayer instead of last.
On these willing hearts moves the burden of the entire church.
In a church there may be found those who are willing to set aside whole nights of prayer; who will leave the joy of visiting with loved ones, and hide away alone with Him to take the burdens of the church and intercede for them.
They encompass our Jericho with their persistent intercession.
While the Spirit is searching for an outlet, He must pass us by because we are not dedicated to this kind of prayer life.
Take time to start your prayer life. You can start out with a few minutes which could lead to hours as we begin to see results, when we learn how to pray effectively.
You will be surprised how halting and stumbling will be your first attempts.
Men and women may look upon you as an outstanding Christian, but if they knew that behind your public appearance, there was an empty closet, or an unused prayer room.
If you live with the Lord your secret prayer closet, you will be able to pray with great freedom in public.
Unconsciously we call upon the people to pray who are on praying terms with the Lord.
Seldom will a spiritual mind reach out to an unspiritual life for help.
It is only when we are clutching at straws that we do it.
You see, prayer has several elements.
It brings you into personal fellowship and touch with the Father, with the Holy Spirit, and with Jesus.
All three of the Godhead are brought into the prayer life.
You are praying to the Father.
You are praying in the name of Jesus.
You are praying through the Holy Spirit.
Your prayer is based upon the Word.
It brings this heart of ours into contact with the heavenly center of all divine power and activity.
You can’t spend any length of time in prayer without being affected by it.
The quietness, the unshaken faith, the deep, unsounded peace that pervades the Godhead will overflow into the life of one who prays.
An anxious and nervous mother said: “You will have to forgive me, children, but I forgot to visit the Father this morning, and so I lack His quietness and His strength.”
Many of us can make the confession that our irritability, weakness, and lack of spiritual insight come from not sitting in the presence of the Master feet.
One cannot spend an hour in conscious communion with the Father, the Son, the Spirit, and the Word without carrying away from that place the fragrance that fills the atmosphere.
There is a heavenly fragrance about Jesus that lingers with those who pray.
They are slow to speak.
They are slow to judge.
They are quick to love and quick to help.
There is a holy calmness about their lives that challenges the restless ones; they need that quietness of spirit.
We cannot spend time with them without partaking of their stability and their unshakableness.
One who is easily disturbed, and who, in the shocks of life is easily moved, will find a new strength and steadiness that will make them a blessing to the world, by spending just a little time with the Rock of our salvation.
You see, a few moments with Him tunes us up, fills the battery, adjusts the carburetor, and makes it easy for us to face life’s bumpy conditions.
It gives us dignity and holy dignity in our relationships.
Faith makes us an intelligent victor.
Faith makes mountains and difficulties realigning their position.
You can’t sit with the God of all faith and all love, for a half hour each day, without appropriating the faith of God. What would it mean to you, if Jesus should come into your home as He came into the home of Mary and Martha?
You would take time to visit with Him!
Jesus answered and said unto him, If a man love me, he will keep my words: and my Father will love him, and we will come unto him, and make our abode with him. (John 14:23)
You love Him, invite Him into your home, and then get acquainted with Him.
Learn to talk things over with Him.
He is there; visit Him!
Remember, He loves you and is interested in all your problems.
He will reveal His word to answer your questions; He will make Himself real in your life and home.
PRAYER ON A WINNING BASIS
God made prayer a means of our sucess
We didn’t ask Him to do it.
We didn’t say, “Now, Father, we want you to give us certain promises and certain abilities.”
No. He did it all. He planned it all for us.
He based a prayer life upon His own Word.
He has made us new creations.
Why? Because He believed that man would respond to His love and the finished work of Jesus on the cross.
And so, we are fellowshipping with Him in His faith for a lost race.
We are helping the men and women for whom His Son died and has redeemed.
Our combat is warring against God’s enemy.
It is saving the men for whom Christ died.
It is making strong, the weak.
It is giving God’s children a chance for winning the good fight of faith.
We are the instruments. We are the forerunners. We are the pioneers in this marvelous life of faith.
We are joining the men and women of all the ages who have dared to walk on the paths of life.
We are opening channels for His grace to reach the human race.
We are God’s under-engineers.
We are building roads for others to walk upon.
Our faith life has joined with God’s faith life, and we have become His “fellow workers.”
We are the branches that are bearing real fruit from the vine.
We are opening channels through which He can pour Himself out on the human race.
Our ministry is not a failure. We are winning.
We are making the life of failure a success.
Our union with Him is calling others to come into the union too.
We see failures transfigured into successes.
They see people who have been held for years, absolute slaves to narcotics and drink, set free to walk in the fullness of their liberty in Christ.
And those in bondage reach their hands out for help, and our Father grasps them and lifts them up onto a solid foundation.
Come on, you who pray, join this mighty group of intercessors who are making the desert places blossom like the rose.
Come on, you men and women who have never made prayer a business. Make your investment of time. Learn the art, of successful prayer.
Let Him pour Himself through you until your home and your companions feel the rhythm of His mighty life and the lifting up of His love.
Let me state it with all the simplicity possible: you can’t have prayers answered without having miracles performed.
PRAYER AND MIRACLES
If you deny that miracles are for this age, you deny the need, the privileges, and the benefits of prayer.
The two-fold value of prayer lies first in sitting in His presence, or in direct fellowship with the Father.
The second benefit is the answer that comes to us.
John says, “If we ask any thing according to his will, he heareth us: and if we know that he hear us, whatsoever we ask, we know that we have the petitions that we desired of him” (1 John 5:14–15).
For God the Father to hear my prayer is equivalent to His answering it.
Now, for God to hear me is a miracle.
For God to answer my prayer, regardless of its nature, is a miracle.
Whether my petition is for a postage stamp or for a thousands of dollars, it is a miracle.
Any divine intervention, any arrest of the laws of nature that comes in answer to faith, is a miracle.
If prayer brings an answer, that answer is a miracle. It is then that faith has its true place.
The instant that you say there are no miracles in this age, you deny that our walk is a walk by faith, and you are declaring that our walk is a walk by physical sense knowledge.
I challenge you to find one place where God tells us as believers to walk by reason.
God is a faith God.
We are a Faith family.
We are all born by faith.
We live by faith.
By faith we live, breathe, and have our being in Christ.
If there are no miracles, then there is no reason for faith.
If there are no miracles, God can’t answer prayer, because He can’t answer prayer of any character that is not a miracle.
You men and women who tell me that you believe the Bible to be the Word of God, that it is God-breathed and without error in the original, and then, in the same breath, tell me that the day of miracles is past, you are the most illogical thinkers, the most inconsistent believers that the devil ever deluded.
I believe profoundly that the devil is the deceiver of the whole inhabited earth and of that type of Christian in particular.
So, let us reverently come back to God.
Let us take our place.
If we pray at all, we expect prayer to be answered.
If that prayer is answered, God has done it; and if God has answered prayer, He has performed something outside of the realm of reason.
We will have to give up our prayer life utterly, or we will have to believe in miracles.
I believe in miracles.
I believe in divine intervention.
I believe that the prayer of faith reaches God our Father, and when it reaches Him, He acts in response to that faith.
When He acts in response to our faith, His action is above our reason. It is in the realm of miracles.
For me to deny the privilege and benefits of prayer would raise a storm of protest among those who deny miracles today.
Faith causes people to act like God.
Love makes them like God.
THE SUPERNATURAL
Prayer is an outflowing into the supernatural realm.
You are in the throne room in the presence of God, of All Ability. He has promised to hear your petition and to give you your request. You have come on the ground of His Word.
Jesus said, “Whatsoever you ask the Father in My name, He will give it you.”
You understand that the words that Jesus spoke were His Father’s words; so, you come now with the Father’s words on your lips, and you are making your appeal on the ground of His own Word.
TAKING A SON’S PLACE
You are not a servant.
You are not a slave.
You are a son. You are taking Jesus’s place, acting in His stead, doing the Father’s will.
You may know that you are the Father’s will, just as Jesus was the Father’s will, because of His own will, He begot you.
You are the fruit of His own Word. You came into being by His own power and ability. You have received eternal life, His very nature.
You recognize your place in Christ. You are acting the part of a Son.
The great unsaved world must know what He has done for them in Christ; and so, you are taking His ability, doing your part in the saving of people as Jesus did His part.
You belong to a supernatural order of being, whether you recognize it or not, whether you have taken your place or not. You have the ability of the indwelling presence.
You have the wisdom that Jesus had in His earth walk because Jesus has been made unto you wisdom.
You can think of yourself as linked up with omnipotence.
You remember He said, “And nothing shall be impossible unto you” (Matthew 17:20).
I know that physical sense knowledge reasoning shrinks from this, but here is where the challenge of grace leads you.
We dare to take our place, dare confess what we are, dare confess that He made us what we are, that we can do what He says we can do because He is at work within us.
We have His Word that He is in us. The latent ability and energy within us He has given to us.
This makes prayer life a miraculous thing.
You are not asking for the possible. You are always praying for the impossible. You are asking for things that can’t be done by any human method.