Prayer the Hotline to the Throne of God
Prayer is the one of the most powerful weapons in a believer's arsenal. It is a lifeline, a hotline to the throne room, a sacrifice at times, and a stealth nuclear weapon against the enemy, of our souls, when employed most effectively.
Thirty years ago my prayer life was weak and seemingly ineffective. Oh, I know that our most gracious and kind God heard my prayers. However, He must have had great patience as I begged, whined, and complained to get my way.
Any good parent encourages and rewards the efforts of a toddler when he is first learning to speak. So our good Father encouraged me and rewarded me with some answers. I can only imagine though, how He must have grinned and shook His head at times as I begged for Him to indulge me with many things that would not have either me or His purposes well.
My prayer life has taken many transitions, since those earliest years, when I did not really know either His heart nor His faithfulness. I've learned much more about His kindness, as well as, learning of my authority, as a child of the King through the years. With that increased revelation, my prayer life has been revolutionized.
Oh, I probably still bore Him and amuse Him at times. He probably still shakes His kind head at times, and chuckles to Himself saying, "There she goes again!"
However, the increase in answered requests and the expediency of the answers oftentimes, leads me to believe that I have learned some important prayer strategies that are worth sharing.
THE EFFECTIVE PRAYERS OF THE SAINTS AVAIL MUCH
"The priests and the Levites stood to bless the people, and God heard them, for their prayers reached heaven, His holy dwelling place." 2 Chronicles 30:27
The preceding verses speak of a huge celebration of praise and thanksgiving for God's victory in their lives. People who had come that were unclean and had not prepared themselves were cleansed and consecrated before the Lord by the priests, who knew the importance of this concept. Psalm 24:4 confirms that only those with "pure hearts and clean hands" may enter the courts of the Lord. Since we are washed and found clean by the blood of the sacrificial Lamb who made atonement for us, is that not a done deal, you might ask.
Yes, the one sacrifice was for all who will receive it and for all times. However, unconfessed sin is not covered by the blood. Therefore we must search our hearts and allow our forgiving God to show us if there is any dark thing in us that we need to acknowledge before Him and be cleansed from before we engage in prayer that is effective. For years I thought that I was pretty efficient at performing this exercise.
Consider this concept. It is the the court that we petition the judge in our behalf. Therefore we keep the protocol to honor the judge if we expect him to grant us favor in our petitions. God is indeed a righteous judge, is He not?
Had I known then, the importance of some key issues that could hinder prayer, my batting average would have probably increased exponentially. It was only recently, that I came to learn that there are several areas, common to man, that we seem to discount, as having much relevance to answered prayers. I was forced to back up and regroup and pay much closer attention to these key issues and deal with them diligently. They seem to be very important from God's viewpoint.
Two Kingdom Keys to Effective Prayers
Two of these critical issues are unity and offenses. Our beautiful, relational God loves unity. He desire that His family is one in heart and one in spirit. Therefore when we have ought against a brother we need to forgive and release him from judgments. It really is not an option but rather a mandate.
If a brother has something against us, regardless of who was right or wrong, we are to ask his forgiveness. Yes, even when we were right, we are to ask forgiveness. What matters to God is that we are one and UNdivided as His Body.
The second issue, offenses, often result in such disunity. That means that when we are offended by someone, whether family, friends, perfect strangers, or church family, it is imperative to give up the offense, even when they are dead wrong. It is imperative to confess the offense as sin and to get cleansed afresh.
He has taught me that offenses will hinder my prayers from being answered and often result in unnecessary and lengthy delays in the answers. He has shown me that forgiving and releasing an offender is more about me getting healed and restored to right standing with Him than it is about letting any guilty offender off the hook.
Forgiveness Expedites Prayer's Answers
It is both in our own self interest, and in the other's best interest to release them from the offense. By releasing them from apologies, and the need to make it right, we become dependent on the faithfulness of our God.
He has, after all, promised to be our vindication. We simply choose to allow God to handle them and our vindication and we don't go back and reflect on the matter any further.
Oh, yes! This is much easier said than done. Our human nature demands its pound of flesh more often than not. So the temptation will be to sneak another look at the offense, analyze it a bit more, try to justify our position, or reason it out somehow. That's simply not edifying in any way.
You see an offense is quite like a wild cat. It wounds and sometimes very deeply. When we pick up that wild cat again, to attempt to understand it better, it claws and bites and scratches again, digging even deeper into the wounds it has already inflicted. We subject ourselves to wound upon wound, upon wound. We, in essence, invite more pain by reassessing it.
Compassionate Wisdom of God
God's wisdom knows the additional damage that we will incur if we go back and reason with a wild cat. His kindness wants us to protect us from any additional pain. He will deal with those who despicably use His children.
Secondly, our real battle is never against flesh and blood but principalities and powers of darkness in high places, according to His word. Although it was a human who inflicted the blow, it was initiated by the powers of darkness working through the brokenness of another individual.
We don't have to wrestle with this too much. If we are wise we need only to heed the exhortation and move ahead.
This letting go of offenses feels very weak to human beings like you and me. However, God values this weakness considers it as humility, rather than weakness. Humility is a sweet fragrance to our Lord. In our weakness He can become strong in us.
He considers this process, of letting go of offenses, meekness, as well. He says that the meek shall inherit the earth.
That's not a half bad promise, is it? That can mean lots of answered prayers regarding our life here on this earth and the lives of others. Something to consider.
So what if I slip and pick up the offense again? Confess, get cleansed and move forward. Don't be like Lot's wife!
Practicing this concept has caused me to be acutely aware of even the tiny offenses and quickly turn from them. When someone deliberately takes my intending parking place, after I've sat for extended periods waiting, signaling my intent with my blinker, I refuse to get irritated. Answered prayers are far more valuable than such a trivial matter these days.
Let your Yes Be Yes and your No Be No!
Psalm 24:4 refers to an issue of swearing falsely or, swearing deceitfully, depending upon the translation. Recently, the Lord has made me ware that, that includes seemingly innocuous little habit of saying, "I'll be in touch. Call you on Friday." When Friday comes and goes I have long forgotten the commitment which I made. I have, in fact, sworn falsely.
Then there are the times, when I actually do keep my word to call but on Saturday or Sunday. I committed to Friday. Again I have sworn deceitfully. Ouch! This one weighed very heavily upon me. I had the best of intentions but knew that my friends would understand and most often they did.
The point, however with God, is that my "yes" is to be yes and my "no" is to be no. As His child, the daughter of the King, it is important that I have veracity and that I am trustworthy. It is family trait in God's family. His is a holy family and holy simply means different. I am to walk differently than the standards of this world as I represent my Father on the earth.
There was a time that would have struck me as complete and utter legalism and perhaps, that is your view too. However, since I have been diligent regarding these matters, as I've discussed here, I am seeing the amazing results in the effects of my prayers. I am seeing them answered quickly as well. It has been astounding. Many in my circle of friends who are walking in these disciplines are seeing similar results in their prayer life.
I cannot count the times in recent months, that I have prayed for an issue that I expected to be answered in many weeks or even months, only to get a call from someone within hours. The person on the other end of the line would announce the answer, precisely as I had prayed only hours earlier. Sometimes the answer would be newspaper headlines a day or two later.
Now many issues are dependent on someone's free will. God will not violate another's will to answer a prayer. There are also many issues in the lives of people that we may praying for, that will affect when and how the prayers are answered, if it requires someone else cooperation. However, He will at times give someone an idea that they may believe to be their own great idea.
Not every prayer that I pray gets an immediate or even speedy answer. Nor do I always pray a situation according to His will and purpose in my limited understanding. However, those of us who are pursuing these disciplines, are seeing magnificent results and astounding increase in the effectiveness of our prayers.
Prophetic Declarations Another Kingdom Key to Amazing Answers
I am not one to belabor prayer for extended periods of time either. I simply state the request and perhaps explain the situation briefly. Then I pray in the spirit until I feel the release.
Many of my prayers are warring intercession, that is articulated very briefly in proclamations or declarations of, what I believe to be God's heart, regarding a given situation, speaking them in His Name always.
As an example of this type of prayer, I was in a workplace situation, where two other people were underming my relationship with the owner of the company. It had gone on for some time and he had been very contentious.
As I entered the building one Monday morning, without even considering that, it was as though something had empowered me to blurt out with great authority, "Justice of the Living God and His Kingdom rule and reign prevail in this company, in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ of Nazareth who came in the flesh!"
The entire declaration had completely bypassed my conscious mind prior to making that decree. It actually surprised me when I heard myself speak it. Nor did I even consider the situation of all the office politics.
Only a few hours later after my boss had arrived at work and worked did I make any connection with that declaration and its possible ramifications. He suddenly announce that he would be cutting my hours back. I was told that my hours were to be reduced to working only one day a week. That would be at a rate $4 an hour less than I was currently earning. The change was to occur in about 60 days.
Gratefully I began to praise the Lord and thank Him profusely. I was truly quite ecstatic because I had been praying that He would release me from that employment situation. That, I believed, was my reprieve from that unjust environment.
I knew that He did not expect me to work for that rate of pay and so few hours. I sincerely believed that His justice had been executed and that I was free to leave at long last.
God's Great and Swift Justice
Little did I know that within about a week of that day, one of the women spontaneously quit in the middle of the workday without notice. She simply walked out.
The other woman had a long standing history of threatening to quit in order to manipulate her agendas in the company. Within a week of the first lady leaving, the second one attempted her typical power play with devastating results.
The owner of the company did not bend to her threat. Instead, much to her surprise, he said, "That's a really good idea. You can pack up your stuff and leave right now!"
I was astounded at what the Lord had actually done in response to my declaration of Kingdom justice. Never had I expected that kind of an answer. Those two women having vacated their positions left the owner in a position in which he could not reduce my hours, nor could he justify reducing my wages.
Justice was served far beyond, what I had imagined or what I expected. It was not merely a reprieve from that company for me. The actual justice was in God restoring the excellent relationship this boss and I had enjoyed, for many years, long before the two women were employed there. God sovereignly revealed the deception and backbiting that had taken place for several years. I was vindicated by the Lord just as His word had promised. This is the inheritance of those who dwell in the shelter of the Most High God, according to Psalm 91.
This is only one of many amazing answers to prayer recently, by which I am convinced that some of these disciplines and methods of prayer are effectual as never before.
Holy Spirit come! Teach us to pray effective prayers, according to your Kingdom will and purpose, that Your Holy Kingdom rule and reign may be established upon this earth. Reveal to us Your heart. Give to us Your great wisdom. Show us Your ways and empower us to walk in them that we may enter your courts and celebrate you your great victories in our behalf. We love You Father, and we love Your Son, Jesus. Help us to walk holy in your sight and to partner with you in advancing your Kingdom. Thank you. Lord, for your many answered prayers and amazing victories in our lives already. Our trust is in You and You alone! In Jesus Name we pray. Amen!"
