When we first heard we could command God to do things it sounded like heresy or something. There it was in black and white, Isaiah 45:11, "...And concerning the work of My hands, you command Me." God is telling us to command the work of His hands. Surely there is some theologian or exegete out there who can tell us God did not really mean exactly what He said. Until we hear from that person, let us just go with what we have--the eternal word of the unchanging God. God is telling us to command the works of His hands. Certainly He knows what to do without us telling Him? Of course He does. He wants us to be His partners in doing things on the earth. He is waiting for us to figure that out. That is why we are to command the works of His hands. In case you are inclined to think this verse is isolated in all of God's word, keep reading. You are likely to have an "ah ha" moment just as I did.
We have all read the Lord's prayer--or the disciples' prayer if you like. It is repeated probably millions of times a week around the globe. The prayer is found in Matthew's Gospel and in Luke's Gospel. We are quoting from Luke 11:2-4:
"So He said to them, 'When you pray, say: Our Father in heaven, Hallowed be Your name. Your kingdom come. Your will be done On earth as it is in heaven. Give us day by day our daily bread. And forgive us our sins, For we also forgive everyone who is indebted to us. And do not lead us into temptation, But deliver us from the evil one.' "
We think it was Yonggi Cho--remember him, Seoul, Korea, pastors the largest church in the world--who first began teaching that prayer in earnest. We think it was in the mid '70s. He noted the imperative mood in the prayer. For those not familiar with the imperative mood, it would be one person telling another what to do. It is not a begging or a pleading, but rather a command. Did I say command?
Look at the verses above from the lips of Jesus. Your kingdom come, your will be done, give us this day, forgive us our sins, and deliver us from the evil one are all in the imperative mood. Note that "hallowed" which actually means "be kept holy" is also in the imperative mood. The difference is the passive voice. (I know, grammar is a little confusing, even in English.) The rest of the phrases in the list are in the active voice. Jesus is telling us to tell (yes tell) God to do those specific things. How would it affect our prayers if we knew our heavenly Father was just waiting for us to tell him to "go ahead and do something" so He could get busy doing it? The fact is, at least according to Jesus, if we believe Him, God is doing exactly that. He is waiting to hear us tell Him what we want so He can do it for us. We do apologize if that messes with anyone's theology. You might have noticed we do not have a lot of respect for bad theology.
Interestingly, when Jesus started the model prayer by saying, "When you pray, say" He did not use the imperative mood. He was not telling us to pray. He was expressing His desire that we do. Well, I think it is interesting anyway. I am not the jumping up and down and shouting type, but in my mind, that is something to jump up and down and shout about. Let me say it again. Jesus suggests that it would be good if we were to tell God what we want Him to do for us. I believe I have just written myself happy.
Now that we know what God wants us to do, let us consider the ramifications of doing it. We know that God is not going to tell us to do anything that is bad for us. In fact Jesus told us how foolish we would be to think that just a few verses further down in Luke 11. We already knew where the real power in the universe resides, in the Holy Trinity, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.
We might as well use our real life situation as an example. We are interested in ridding the area of a religious spirit. We do not have the ability to do that. We know God wants to move. God is going to move in response to our prayer, praise, and worship. In fact, He is already moving or we would not even be having this discussion. It is time to begin to command the work of God's hand. Right now is not too soon to start. Let us agree together to, at least once a day, say something like, "Father God, we command the works of Your hand against the religious spirit in the Santa Maria valley." You can then go on and speak against the manifestations you see. Refer back to the series on the manifestations of the religious spirit if you need to.
When you have a chance, give us some feedback as to what is going on and anything the Holy Spirit might show you. Do remember we are not speaking against people. We are speaking against the religious spirit. If you do not think you are quite ready to discern the difference, do not start until after you have at least read the next post. God bless.
Showing posts with label prayer. Show all posts
Showing posts with label prayer. Show all posts
Saturday, August 1, 2009
Tuesday, July 28, 2009
The Weapons of Our Warfare, Part 7
This is kind of a curious situation. We had never really sat down to talk about spiritual weapons before starting this series. Now here we are at part 7 and the list keeps growing. It seems we had not previously realized how extensive the armory of spiritual weapons really is. It seems there are different weapons for just about anyone who has a heart for the fight. For those of you who like to be loud and boisterous in facing down the enemy, there are shouting and singing and clapping weapons. If, on the other hand, you tend to be the more quiet, reserved personality type, you can hide in your closet and whisper your prayers. Since the battle is being fought by the angelic hosts of God, it really does not much matter which of the weapons we are using, the results are the same.
Prayer is kind of a tricky weapon to describe in very much detail in a limited space. This could end up being Part 7A, 7B, etc. In order for that not to happen, we are going to limit ourselves to the essence of prayer--what it is, how we use it, and what we can expect it to accomplish. That seems simple enough.
Prayer is communication with God. Oh, and of course the "with" there means both ways, to and from God. Most Christians know all about praying to God, but come up a little short on hearing from God. At least they know how to talk to God. At least they know how to talk? We love the old saying that God gave us two ears and one mouth for a reason. Seriously, prayer is simply communicating with God. That should take care of number one above--what prayer is.
How we use prayer largely depends on the situation we are facing. As we have mentioned before, God has no boundaries. Therefore, when we pray to Him, our prayers have no boundaries. We are asking him to do something that we could not do. The reasons for our impotence in the situation are irrelevant. It could be that we are facing an enemy stronger than we are. Maybe the battle is at a distance from us and we cannot participate in person. Perhaps we simply do not know what else to do. Prayer is not a default, it is a good option when we are uncertain about what it is we should be doing.
Let us do a brief teaching that many have found extremely beneficial. By looking at just a few verses in the Bible we can be assured that our prayers are answered. The first thing we need to settle is this blog is intended for people who have made Jesus Lord of their lives and have been born again. We are then grafted into and abide in the one true vine. (John 15:1-8) Once we have done that, "...all the promises of God are Yes in Him [Jesus]..." (2 Corinthians 1:20, brackets added) Since all the promises are yes in Jesus, all we need do is find the promises that apply to answered prayer. We know they are good. The answer is yes in Jesus.
The first verses we want to look at promise that God hears and answers our prayers. After we explain that, we will validate it with another verse. Warning, do not succumb to the temptation to say, "I tried it and it does not work so I do not believe it." What we are about to tell you is so good and so powerful, the religious spirit has already convinced most of the church it is too good to be true. We invite anyone who doubts what we are going to teach here to study it out for yourself. If you come to a different conclusion, post a comment or send us a personal email. The email, in case you do not know how this works is, thechurchinsantamariaca@gmail.com
"Now this is the confidence that we have in Him, 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 the petitions that we have asked of Him." (1 John 5:14-15) Briefly, for the sake of space, this verse says if we ask, He hears us and if He hears us we have what we asked of Him. You have most likely heard these verses taught to say God's hearing and answering only applies if what we ask is what is in God's will. The Greek text does not support that conclusion. His will in these verses is that we pray. It does not refer to what we pray. You may have to meditate on that statement. The verses are telling us that God calls us to pray. He does not tell us what to pray. The validation verse we mentioned above is John 14:14, "If you ask anything in My name, I will do it." We have no idea how Jesus could have been more clear than that.
The point of this post, in case you missed it, is that prayer is a powerful, spiritual weapon which is effective because Jesus has promised to do what we ask Him to do. The more specific we can be with those requests, the easier it will be for us to see the answers to them. He is literally waiting to hear us ask Him for what we want. He is trying to teach us to partner with Him in building His kingdom. With regard to this spiritual warfare, making our needs known to Him in prayer moves Him to direct the appropriate response. Try prayer. You will like the results.
Prayer is kind of a tricky weapon to describe in very much detail in a limited space. This could end up being Part 7A, 7B, etc. In order for that not to happen, we are going to limit ourselves to the essence of prayer--what it is, how we use it, and what we can expect it to accomplish. That seems simple enough.
Prayer is communication with God. Oh, and of course the "with" there means both ways, to and from God. Most Christians know all about praying to God, but come up a little short on hearing from God. At least they know how to talk to God. At least they know how to talk? We love the old saying that God gave us two ears and one mouth for a reason. Seriously, prayer is simply communicating with God. That should take care of number one above--what prayer is.
How we use prayer largely depends on the situation we are facing. As we have mentioned before, God has no boundaries. Therefore, when we pray to Him, our prayers have no boundaries. We are asking him to do something that we could not do. The reasons for our impotence in the situation are irrelevant. It could be that we are facing an enemy stronger than we are. Maybe the battle is at a distance from us and we cannot participate in person. Perhaps we simply do not know what else to do. Prayer is not a default, it is a good option when we are uncertain about what it is we should be doing.
Let us do a brief teaching that many have found extremely beneficial. By looking at just a few verses in the Bible we can be assured that our prayers are answered. The first thing we need to settle is this blog is intended for people who have made Jesus Lord of their lives and have been born again. We are then grafted into and abide in the one true vine. (John 15:1-8) Once we have done that, "...all the promises of God are Yes in Him [Jesus]..." (2 Corinthians 1:20, brackets added) Since all the promises are yes in Jesus, all we need do is find the promises that apply to answered prayer. We know they are good. The answer is yes in Jesus.
The first verses we want to look at promise that God hears and answers our prayers. After we explain that, we will validate it with another verse. Warning, do not succumb to the temptation to say, "I tried it and it does not work so I do not believe it." What we are about to tell you is so good and so powerful, the religious spirit has already convinced most of the church it is too good to be true. We invite anyone who doubts what we are going to teach here to study it out for yourself. If you come to a different conclusion, post a comment or send us a personal email. The email, in case you do not know how this works is, thechurchinsantamariaca@gmail.com
"Now this is the confidence that we have in Him, 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 the petitions that we have asked of Him." (1 John 5:14-15) Briefly, for the sake of space, this verse says if we ask, He hears us and if He hears us we have what we asked of Him. You have most likely heard these verses taught to say God's hearing and answering only applies if what we ask is what is in God's will. The Greek text does not support that conclusion. His will in these verses is that we pray. It does not refer to what we pray. You may have to meditate on that statement. The verses are telling us that God calls us to pray. He does not tell us what to pray. The validation verse we mentioned above is John 14:14, "If you ask anything in My name, I will do it." We have no idea how Jesus could have been more clear than that.
The point of this post, in case you missed it, is that prayer is a powerful, spiritual weapon which is effective because Jesus has promised to do what we ask Him to do. The more specific we can be with those requests, the easier it will be for us to see the answers to them. He is literally waiting to hear us ask Him for what we want. He is trying to teach us to partner with Him in building His kingdom. With regard to this spiritual warfare, making our needs known to Him in prayer moves Him to direct the appropriate response. Try prayer. You will like the results.
Saturday, July 25, 2009
The Weapons of Our Warfare, Part 6
We are not entirely sure how blogger works, and it really does not matter all that much. The way we hope and pray this blog works is that we hear what the Holy Spirit is saying, write it down, and it becomes some kind of semi-permanent record on the internet. We mention that only to say, this post, we think, is going to show it was published on a Saturday. In reality it is barely Saturday by the clock. We are morning people, but this can hardly be considered morning at all.
Watchman Nee, who is one of our heroes in the faith, said every day was a spiritual battle while he was writing his classic The Spiritual Man. I was talking about that with my neighbor across the fence just yesterday. When we look back at the dates of these posts, we note we were publishing much more frequently when we started. Then something happened. The warfare became a little more intense. Trust me when I tell you this whole, past week was one distraction after another.
For most of the past twenty years, as we have alluded to previously, we have been unsure of what we were called to Santa Maria to do. We are embarassed to say most of that time we spent in ignorance can be directly related to spiritual deception. Not only were we unable to see what we were supposed to be doing, we thought we were doing what we should be. We know, that sounds sort of cryptic, but that is how spiritual deception works. One wrong turn, one false piece of information, one lie that we believe can send us down the path toward deception.
At this time, however, we can tell you, we are doing what we are supposed to be doing. In the past three months, more or less, we have moved out of that period of ignorance and deception, into a period of apathy, where we did not really care what happened, to peace. We now understand, with more than head knowledge, God is at work in us to will and to do for His good pleasure. (Philippians 2:13) Looking back over our lives, we see sometimes very clearly, sometimes less how God was bringing us to this time and place.
In the beginning, this blog was as effortless as anything ever has been in my life. Of course, most of the early posts were simply personal history so the most difficult part of writing them was remembering that far back with a brain that may have passed it's prime. It has become more difficult recently. We are aware of Satan's schemes. We also understand a little something about how God works in our spirits.
This is a real time update. I just learned what I am about to share, and I do mean "just" as in moments ago. It is also one of those "duh" moments as in, how have I been missing that? Let me explain what "just" happened. The Holy Spirit dropped a word into my spirit. The word is "schemes". I knew it was in the Bible, but I get a little fuzzy on addresses sometimes. I almost always blog with another tab open to http://www.crosswalk.com/. What a blessing that site is to The Church. Anyway, as we said very early on, we always quote from the New King James Version of the Bible unless otherwise noted. So we search in that translation. Nothing came up. Maybe it was in the Authorized Version, a.k.a The King James Version. Not there either. Sometimes we do use the New International Version. Might as well try that. There it is, two times. The word "schemes" appears in 2 Corinthians 2:11 and Ephesians 6:11. Both times the scheme of Satan being talked about is division amongst God's people. For your information, the other two versions mentioned use the word "devices" instead of schemes.
We neglected to mention earlier the Lord has been working overtime dealing with us about our love walk. In fact, our pastor sent an email just yesterday reminding us that loving one another is one of the life principles of our church. That also came up in the conversation with the neighbor yesterday. He is a Christian man. We briefly noted that some people are just easier to love than others.
There is no way to over-emphasize the importance of loving one another. The Bible is God's love story to mankind. From Genesis 1:1 where God began His work of creation to provide a perfect place for man to live to Revelation 22:20 where He wishes us the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, the Bible is the expression of a Father's love for his children. Jesus prayed, "...that they may all be one...that they may be made perfect in one, and that the world may know that You have sent Me, and have loved them as You have loved Me." (John 17:22-23) We truly will show God to the world by loving one another as He has loved us.
I started writing this over an hour ago because I felt led to write. At that time I did not know what weapon I would be writing about. By now it should be obvious. The weapon is unity and it works by love. It seems I remember some historical figure saying, "United we stand, divided we fall." or was that just a song lyric performed by Sonny and Cher? (We do hope you recognize our sardonic comments that appear in this space from time to time.)
Now I had better get back to bed. Our grandson is here for the weekend and we would hate to miss any time with him. He is, after all, the cutest little boy in the world.
Work on your love walk and we will be "perfect in one".
Watchman Nee, who is one of our heroes in the faith, said every day was a spiritual battle while he was writing his classic The Spiritual Man. I was talking about that with my neighbor across the fence just yesterday. When we look back at the dates of these posts, we note we were publishing much more frequently when we started. Then something happened. The warfare became a little more intense. Trust me when I tell you this whole, past week was one distraction after another.
For most of the past twenty years, as we have alluded to previously, we have been unsure of what we were called to Santa Maria to do. We are embarassed to say most of that time we spent in ignorance can be directly related to spiritual deception. Not only were we unable to see what we were supposed to be doing, we thought we were doing what we should be. We know, that sounds sort of cryptic, but that is how spiritual deception works. One wrong turn, one false piece of information, one lie that we believe can send us down the path toward deception.
At this time, however, we can tell you, we are doing what we are supposed to be doing. In the past three months, more or less, we have moved out of that period of ignorance and deception, into a period of apathy, where we did not really care what happened, to peace. We now understand, with more than head knowledge, God is at work in us to will and to do for His good pleasure. (Philippians 2:13) Looking back over our lives, we see sometimes very clearly, sometimes less how God was bringing us to this time and place.
In the beginning, this blog was as effortless as anything ever has been in my life. Of course, most of the early posts were simply personal history so the most difficult part of writing them was remembering that far back with a brain that may have passed it's prime. It has become more difficult recently. We are aware of Satan's schemes. We also understand a little something about how God works in our spirits.
This is a real time update. I just learned what I am about to share, and I do mean "just" as in moments ago. It is also one of those "duh" moments as in, how have I been missing that? Let me explain what "just" happened. The Holy Spirit dropped a word into my spirit. The word is "schemes". I knew it was in the Bible, but I get a little fuzzy on addresses sometimes. I almost always blog with another tab open to http://www.crosswalk.com/. What a blessing that site is to The Church. Anyway, as we said very early on, we always quote from the New King James Version of the Bible unless otherwise noted. So we search in that translation. Nothing came up. Maybe it was in the Authorized Version, a.k.a The King James Version. Not there either. Sometimes we do use the New International Version. Might as well try that. There it is, two times. The word "schemes" appears in 2 Corinthians 2:11 and Ephesians 6:11. Both times the scheme of Satan being talked about is division amongst God's people. For your information, the other two versions mentioned use the word "devices" instead of schemes.
We neglected to mention earlier the Lord has been working overtime dealing with us about our love walk. In fact, our pastor sent an email just yesterday reminding us that loving one another is one of the life principles of our church. That also came up in the conversation with the neighbor yesterday. He is a Christian man. We briefly noted that some people are just easier to love than others.
There is no way to over-emphasize the importance of loving one another. The Bible is God's love story to mankind. From Genesis 1:1 where God began His work of creation to provide a perfect place for man to live to Revelation 22:20 where He wishes us the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, the Bible is the expression of a Father's love for his children. Jesus prayed, "...that they may all be one...that they may be made perfect in one, and that the world may know that You have sent Me, and have loved them as You have loved Me." (John 17:22-23) We truly will show God to the world by loving one another as He has loved us.
I started writing this over an hour ago because I felt led to write. At that time I did not know what weapon I would be writing about. By now it should be obvious. The weapon is unity and it works by love. It seems I remember some historical figure saying, "United we stand, divided we fall." or was that just a song lyric performed by Sonny and Cher? (We do hope you recognize our sardonic comments that appear in this space from time to time.)
Now I had better get back to bed. Our grandson is here for the weekend and we would hate to miss any time with him. He is, after all, the cutest little boy in the world.
Work on your love walk and we will be "perfect in one".
Tuesday, July 21, 2009
The Weapons of Our Warfare, Part 5
It is as impossible to prioritize spiritual weapons by effectiveness as it is to do so with physical weapons. Sometimes a .50 caliber sniper rifle is the correct weapon to employ in conventional warfare and sometimes a .45 caliber handgun is the right one. In spiritual warfare there are times to use one weapon and times to use another. In this post we would like to discuss worship, praise, and music.
We said in a previous post, the word of God is the most effective spiritual weapon because it is the very essence of God and brings all His power to bear in any given situation. It works every time it is employed. We also noted it is employed by speaking it out loud. When we add music to our speaking of the word, we move into a different dimension in our use of the word of God. Music opens our spirits to the Spirit of God. We make the distinction between speaking and singing the word of God understanding that we will not always be quoting scripture in our singing. Music can, in and of itself, be a spiritual weapon or it can add power to the weapons of praise, worship, and prayer.
Music was created by God. Theologians and preachers like to point to Lucifer, who before challenging God's authority, was the worship leader in heaven. They say he was a being uniquely created to lead worship because he was created for that purpose. As far as we can tell, this is probably true. He is only mentioned twice by name in the Bible, but there are other references that are generally believed to refer to him. He is also generally believed to be Satan since the time of his fall from grace in heaven.
Ezekiel chapter 28 is almost universally considered to refer to Lucifer. Verse 13 says, "...The workmanship of your timbrels and pipes was prepared for you on the day you were created." He had timbrels and pipes! What an amazing being he must have been! It is true Lucifer was uniquely created. Such is the nature of angels. They were each uniquely created. None of them is like another. We are going to let you in on a little secret. You have timbrels and pipes. It is true. A timbrel is a simple, percussion instrument. Clap your hands together. You just made the sound of a timbrel, more or less. There is a tube that runs from your nose to your lungs. It is generally referred to as a wind pipe. We have timbrels and pipes. We can worship. We can make music. Granted that some of us make music and some of us just make noise, but God still receives it as praise or worship. I, for one am glad of that. I have four children who sing like angels. They did not get that ability from me.
Music elevates and empowers our words and moves our speaking of the word of God to a higher plane. Music inspires the angels who fight on our side and confuses the demonic hordes who fight against us. By way of real life illustration, consider your personal reaction to different types of music. I am not a huge fan of opera in most cases. I feel less enthusiastic about rap music. I have been known to leave the room if someone is listening to rap--or change the station in the mission van. (Were I preaching this message, I would add something like, "Angels cannot fight to the accompaniment of rap music because they have to put down their swords to cover their ears.")
As mentioned earlier, we will not always be quoting scripture when we are singing. Although scripture is the best thing to speak or sing, God receives praise and worship from our lips whether accompanied by music or not. He delights to hear what is in our hearts. He knows it is good for us to hear it too. That is why He encourages us throughout scripture to speak or sing.
We said in a previous post, the word of God is the most effective spiritual weapon because it is the very essence of God and brings all His power to bear in any given situation. It works every time it is employed. We also noted it is employed by speaking it out loud. When we add music to our speaking of the word, we move into a different dimension in our use of the word of God. Music opens our spirits to the Spirit of God. We make the distinction between speaking and singing the word of God understanding that we will not always be quoting scripture in our singing. Music can, in and of itself, be a spiritual weapon or it can add power to the weapons of praise, worship, and prayer.
Music was created by God. Theologians and preachers like to point to Lucifer, who before challenging God's authority, was the worship leader in heaven. They say he was a being uniquely created to lead worship because he was created for that purpose. As far as we can tell, this is probably true. He is only mentioned twice by name in the Bible, but there are other references that are generally believed to refer to him. He is also generally believed to be Satan since the time of his fall from grace in heaven.
Ezekiel chapter 28 is almost universally considered to refer to Lucifer. Verse 13 says, "...The workmanship of your timbrels and pipes was prepared for you on the day you were created." He had timbrels and pipes! What an amazing being he must have been! It is true Lucifer was uniquely created. Such is the nature of angels. They were each uniquely created. None of them is like another. We are going to let you in on a little secret. You have timbrels and pipes. It is true. A timbrel is a simple, percussion instrument. Clap your hands together. You just made the sound of a timbrel, more or less. There is a tube that runs from your nose to your lungs. It is generally referred to as a wind pipe. We have timbrels and pipes. We can worship. We can make music. Granted that some of us make music and some of us just make noise, but God still receives it as praise or worship. I, for one am glad of that. I have four children who sing like angels. They did not get that ability from me.
Music elevates and empowers our words and moves our speaking of the word of God to a higher plane. Music inspires the angels who fight on our side and confuses the demonic hordes who fight against us. By way of real life illustration, consider your personal reaction to different types of music. I am not a huge fan of opera in most cases. I feel less enthusiastic about rap music. I have been known to leave the room if someone is listening to rap--or change the station in the mission van. (Were I preaching this message, I would add something like, "Angels cannot fight to the accompaniment of rap music because they have to put down their swords to cover their ears.")
As mentioned earlier, we will not always be quoting scripture when we are singing. Although scripture is the best thing to speak or sing, God receives praise and worship from our lips whether accompanied by music or not. He delights to hear what is in our hearts. He knows it is good for us to hear it too. That is why He encourages us throughout scripture to speak or sing.
We discussed a little on the difference between praise and worship in an earlier post, More on Spirit vs. Soul, 6/28/09. We do not intend to reprise that here. However, it is important to understand that praise and worship are two different activities. Someone has summarized the primary difference well in saying that praise is thanking God for what He has done while worship is thanking God for who He is.
Praise is a two-part activity. While our spirit is supposed to always be active, it is not necessary for it to be when we praise. We make a decision to praise (soul) and tell our body to do so. That can involve using the pipe and timbrels and doing anything else with our bodies that seems right. There are some in almost any church who think it undignified to dance or lift hands or objects to to the Lord during praise. Unfortunately for them, God does not agree with that perspective. The Bible is replete with examples of various physical activities associated with praise. Granted most of those things are in the Old Testament. For those who believe Jesus did away with the Old Testament celebrations and such, we would strongly encourage you to re-read your Bible.
Worship is a three-part activity. Worship may look like praise to the outside observer. The difference is that in worship, the worshipper is one on one with God. Many "worship" leaders make a fundamental mistake in leading people to worship. They do not get out of the way so the individuals in the group they are leading can get one on one with God. The job of a worship leader is to lead in praise so the people turn their souls and open their spirits to God. When this is accomplished, they are ready individually to enter into the presence of God. It is only when our spirit touches His that worship happens. Most people do not understand this concept, but now you do.
Jesus told the Samaritan woman, in slightly different words that it does not matter where we worship. God is simply looking for those who will worship Him in spirit and in truth. (John 4:23-24) Where we worship, how we worship, with whom we worship is unimportant. What is important is that we worship the one true God in spirit and in truth. Those are the kind of worshippers God prizes. We would challenge you to be one of us.
Wednesday, July 8, 2009
The Workings of a Religious Spirit, Part 6
"But the prince of the kingdom of Persia withstood me twenty-one days; and behold, Michael, one of the chief princes, came to help me, for I had been left alone there with the kings of Persia." (Daniel 10:13)
This verse, in the middle of chapter ten of Daniel explains why our prayers are sometimes not answered immediately. It also shows us yet another way a religious spirit retains control over a geographical area. A message was revealed to Daniel in a vision. He did not totally understand what was being shown him so he set himself to fast and pray for understanding. Twenty-one days later, an angel appeared to him while he was going about his business. Most scholars believe this to be the angel Gabriel who is understood to be God's primary messenger. The angel told Daniel he had been dispatched three weeks earlier when Daniel had begun to pray. He apparently had to literally fight his way through spiritual interference to bring Daniel his message. The battle was so intense that he was not able to beat back the demonic forces in the heavens by himself. It was only when Michael, the archangel arrived to reinforce him that we was able to continue on his way and fulfill his mission to talk to Daniel.
We are trying to understand what factors might affect our ability to see clearly into the spiritual realm. While some things from the Old Testament do not exactly equate with the New Testament, there are many, valuable lessons we can learn from what is recorded there.
There was and is spiritual interference between us and God. In the previous post we discussed why we must be careful not to allow anything to become more important to us than God is. When we do that, we do not know how we should be praying and we may not be able to understand His answers to our prayers. If you pay attention here, we may be explaining much of the mystery of unanswered prayer. Had Daniel quit praying after two weeks, Gabriel might still be battling the Prince of Persia and Daniel might have passed from this life never having received his answer.
Jesus taught us that we must keep praying and we will receive our answers. (Luke 18:1) In this case He made His point with the parable of the unjust judge. Interestingly, this is one of the two parables Jesus used to say what the kingdom of God is not like. The other one is the parable of the midnight visitor in Luke 11:5-8. He follows that parable with the very familiar "So I say to you, ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you." (Luke 11:9) What most people miss in that statement is the present tense. We miss the literal meaning because we do not really think in literal terms. We think of the present tense being, for example, "I ask." That is actually the participle , for any of you who might be interested. The present tense is "I am asking." In the present tense things are happening right now. Jesus is really saying, be asking, be seeking, and be knocking. When we have the attitude of continuously doing those things, we will see results.
A religious spirit wants to throw up barriers to our being able to hear from God. Anything will do. Prayerlessness is good. Perhaps unanswered prayers are better. They foster discouragement and contribute to a lack of faith. Bad theology or bad doctrine will keep us from praying in faith. We have all heard that God answers prayer in three ways, yes, no, and wait. Let us make this very simple and very scriptural. "For all the promises of God in Him are Yes, and in Him Amen, to the glory of God through us." (2 Corinthians 1:20) Where do you see no or wait in that verse? We will try one more verse just for emphasis. In John 16:23, Jesus tells us, "...Most assuredly, I say to you, whatever you ask the Father in My name He will give you." Perhaps we missed it, but there does not appear to be a no or a wait in there either. We could go on, but we see no reason. How can it be that easy? Hint: there are no theologians involved here to confuse things. Call this "simply scripture". We have often said the newest Christians have the best theology because the church (the lack of capital letters there is intentional) has not had a chance to mess them up yet. God is waiting to answer prayer. He is not looking for reasons to not answer prayer. However, a religious spirit would like to convince us He is.
We have one other ploy of a religious spirit to expose here. A lack of love inhibits our ability to minister to the Lord and to others. It is,in fact, sin. Sin blocks our vision of what God is saying and doing. Jesus told us the greatest commandment is to love the Lord our God and the second is like it, love our neighbor. (Matthew 22:37-39) Simply walk in love toward everyone. I run a substance abuse recovery program. I work with drug addicts and criminals. This is a great group of guys. How can I say that. Love covers all sins. (Proverbs 10:12) I simply choose to walk in love toward them. That is not to say I do not get aggravated on a regular basis and have to correct them. I even love them enough to make them follow the rules. I looked in the mirror a few times today and discovered I am still human. Walking in love is a decision we can all make. Let us encourage you all to make that decision today.
This verse, in the middle of chapter ten of Daniel explains why our prayers are sometimes not answered immediately. It also shows us yet another way a religious spirit retains control over a geographical area. A message was revealed to Daniel in a vision. He did not totally understand what was being shown him so he set himself to fast and pray for understanding. Twenty-one days later, an angel appeared to him while he was going about his business. Most scholars believe this to be the angel Gabriel who is understood to be God's primary messenger. The angel told Daniel he had been dispatched three weeks earlier when Daniel had begun to pray. He apparently had to literally fight his way through spiritual interference to bring Daniel his message. The battle was so intense that he was not able to beat back the demonic forces in the heavens by himself. It was only when Michael, the archangel arrived to reinforce him that we was able to continue on his way and fulfill his mission to talk to Daniel.
We are trying to understand what factors might affect our ability to see clearly into the spiritual realm. While some things from the Old Testament do not exactly equate with the New Testament, there are many, valuable lessons we can learn from what is recorded there.
There was and is spiritual interference between us and God. In the previous post we discussed why we must be careful not to allow anything to become more important to us than God is. When we do that, we do not know how we should be praying and we may not be able to understand His answers to our prayers. If you pay attention here, we may be explaining much of the mystery of unanswered prayer. Had Daniel quit praying after two weeks, Gabriel might still be battling the Prince of Persia and Daniel might have passed from this life never having received his answer.
Jesus taught us that we must keep praying and we will receive our answers. (Luke 18:1) In this case He made His point with the parable of the unjust judge. Interestingly, this is one of the two parables Jesus used to say what the kingdom of God is not like. The other one is the parable of the midnight visitor in Luke 11:5-8. He follows that parable with the very familiar "So I say to you, ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you." (Luke 11:9) What most people miss in that statement is the present tense. We miss the literal meaning because we do not really think in literal terms. We think of the present tense being, for example, "I ask." That is actually the participle , for any of you who might be interested. The present tense is "I am asking." In the present tense things are happening right now. Jesus is really saying, be asking, be seeking, and be knocking. When we have the attitude of continuously doing those things, we will see results.
A religious spirit wants to throw up barriers to our being able to hear from God. Anything will do. Prayerlessness is good. Perhaps unanswered prayers are better. They foster discouragement and contribute to a lack of faith. Bad theology or bad doctrine will keep us from praying in faith. We have all heard that God answers prayer in three ways, yes, no, and wait. Let us make this very simple and very scriptural. "For all the promises of God in Him are Yes, and in Him Amen, to the glory of God through us." (2 Corinthians 1:20) Where do you see no or wait in that verse? We will try one more verse just for emphasis. In John 16:23, Jesus tells us, "...Most assuredly, I say to you, whatever you ask the Father in My name He will give you." Perhaps we missed it, but there does not appear to be a no or a wait in there either. We could go on, but we see no reason. How can it be that easy? Hint: there are no theologians involved here to confuse things. Call this "simply scripture". We have often said the newest Christians have the best theology because the church (the lack of capital letters there is intentional) has not had a chance to mess them up yet. God is waiting to answer prayer. He is not looking for reasons to not answer prayer. However, a religious spirit would like to convince us He is.
We have one other ploy of a religious spirit to expose here. A lack of love inhibits our ability to minister to the Lord and to others. It is,in fact, sin. Sin blocks our vision of what God is saying and doing. Jesus told us the greatest commandment is to love the Lord our God and the second is like it, love our neighbor. (Matthew 22:37-39) Simply walk in love toward everyone. I run a substance abuse recovery program. I work with drug addicts and criminals. This is a great group of guys. How can I say that. Love covers all sins. (Proverbs 10:12) I simply choose to walk in love toward them. That is not to say I do not get aggravated on a regular basis and have to correct them. I even love them enough to make them follow the rules. I looked in the mirror a few times today and discovered I am still human. Walking in love is a decision we can all make. Let us encourage you all to make that decision today.
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