Tag Archives: prayer

3 – ENGAGING THE POWERS OF THE KINGDOM – WHO IS IN CHARGE?

Christian Life, ,

3 – ENGAGING THE POWERS OF THE KINGDOM – WHO IS IN CHARGE?

 Now that we have finally settled the issue of who is in charge, we have our first weapon against the devil’s lie that he is in charge – TRUTH.

Our immediate response to adversity should never be, “I am under attack.” Wrong focus! Our first response should be, “I am being tested.” Who is testing me? Definitely not the devil. He has no authority to do anything without Jesus’s permission.

Why am I being tested? To find out whose word I believe. Do I believe the TRUTH that Jesus is in charge, or do I believe the lie that Satan controls my life? Jesus will continue to test us in this area until our automatic response is confidence in the love, goodness and power of God, no matter what.

When we are finally secure in the conviction that Jesus is in charge, we can begin to explore the power given to us to respond positively to every test.

We have two resources at our disposal, God’s TRUTH which tells us what the real issues are in every situation, and God’s PROMISES which show us what He intends to do if we trust Him.

We also have two channels through which we access those promises, FAITH, our only connection with God in the unseen realm, and PRAYER, our direct access to God to tap into the resources He has made available.

We have already briefly commented on faith as the only thread that connects us to God. Without the confidence that God is who He says He is, loving, faithful, reliable and trustworthy, and that He will do what He says He will do, prayer would be a waste of time.

“For every child of God defeats this evil world, and we achieve this victory through our faith. And who can win this battle against the world? Only those who believe that Jesus is the Son of God.” 1 John 5:4-5 NLT

Today, we take a closer look at prayer because it is only through prayer that we have direct access to and contact with God.

“And so, dear brothers and sisters, we can boldly enter heaven’s Most Holy Place because of the blood of Jesus. By his death, Jesus opened a new and life-giving way through the curtain into the Most Holy Place. And since we have a great High Priest who rules over God’s house, let us go right into the presence of God with sincere hearts fully trusting him. For our guilty consciences have been sprinkled with Christ’s blood to make us clean, and our bodies have been washed with pure water.” Hebrews 10:19-22 NLT

“So, let us come boldly to the throne of our gracious God. There we will receive his mercy, and we will find grace to help us when we need it most.” Hebrews 4:16 NLT

From the many studies we have done on prayer, let me summarise the Bible’s perspective rather than what we have learned from others.

  1. Prayer is, firstly, changing our awareness. We deliberately turn our thoughts away from the earthly circumstances we are embroiled in to contemplate the glories of the one whose help we are seeking.
  1. We can only approach the Father on the authority of Jesus (in His name). He has given us power of attorney to use His name ONLY if our prayers meet the requirements of His character and will.

“I tell you the truth, anyone who believes in me will do the same works I have done, and even greater works, because I am going to be with the Father.  You can ask for anything in my name, and I will do it, so that the Son can bring glory to the Father.  Yes, ask me for anything in my name, and I will do it! John 14:12-14 NLT

“And we are confident that he hears us whenever we ask for anything that pleases him. And since we know he hears us when we make our requests, we also know that he will give us what we ask for.” 1 John 5:14-15 NLT

  1. Our motive for asking for help is to protect our unity with Him and to glorify His name no matter what it costs us. Look at Jesus…

“Now my soul is deeply troubled. Should I pray, ‘Father, save me from this hour’? But this is the very reason I came!  Father, bring glory to your name.” Then a voice spoke from heaven, saying, “I have already brought glory to my name, and I will do so again.” John 12:27-28 NLT

“He went on a little farther and fell to the ground. He prayed that, if it were possible, the awful hour awaiting him might pass him by. “Abba, Father,” he cried out, “everything is possible for you. Please take this cup of suffering away from me. Yet I want your will to be done, not mine.” Mark 14:35-36 NLT

Whenever we effectively engage the power of God in any situation, the outcome reflects back on God.

“We now have this light shining in our hearts, but we ourselves are like fragile clay jars containing this great treasure. This makes it clear that our great power is from God, not from ourselves.” 2 Corinthians 4:7 NLT

  1. Having established that Jesus is in charge and that we have help available for every situation we face, now we turn to the Word and the Promises and ask for discernment to engage whatever resources are available in God’s realm (kingdom) to resolve the situation for our good and His glory.

The New Testament gives us many examples of the way Jesus went about dealing with seemingly impossible earthly situations by engaging the kingdom’s resources. Just one powerful example comes to mind, the feeding of the five thousand.

“Jesus soon saw a huge crowd of people coming to look for him. Turning to Philip, he asked, “Where can we buy bread to feed all these people?”  He was testing Philip, for he already knew what he was going to do.” John 6:5-6 NLT

Jesus was already convinced of the Father’s character and will. He (the Father) would never send people in need away to seek help elsewhere.

Jesus showed His faith in the Father by giving thanks for the food available in His hand. He acted on that confidence without hesitation.

“Then Jesus took the loaves, gave thanks to God, and distributed them to the people. Afterward he did the same with the fish. And they all ate as much as they wanted.” John 6:11 NLT

Please understand that I am not giving you a check list to tick off but rather showing you how to develop a mindset that responds to challenges rather than reacts in panic.

John wrote an absurd statement which is impossible to achieve UNLESS we do it by using the resources God has given us to overcome the world.

“We know how much God loves us, and we have put our trust in his love. God is love, and all who live in love live in God, and God lives in them. And as we live in God, our love grows more perfect. So, we will not be afraid on the day of judgment, but we can face him with confidence BECAUSE WE LIVE LIKE JESUS HERE IN THIS WORLD.” 1 John 4:16-17 NLT

How is this possible? We’ll discover how as we go along.

What I have done so far is to lay a foundation to enable us deal with the whole variety of challenges we face in our lives in this world. I have discovered that every challenge and every test has a specific resource that God has provided for us to overcome the world (the way the world thinks and reacts) in the problems we face and turn them into opportunities to shine the light on God.

In the next few weeks, we’ll explore every resource and find out how to apply them as situations arise. I would love you to add to the list as you recognise, in the Word, what God has provided for you to overcome the world.

Scripture  taken from THE HOLY BIBLE, NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION®, NIV® Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.® Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide.

Scripture quotations marked (NLT) are taken from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright © 1996, 2004, 2007 by Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Inc., Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.

THE BOOK OF ACTS – IN THIS FOR GOOD

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IN THIS FOR GOOD 

“So they left the mountain called Olives and returned to Jerusalem. It was a little over a half a mile. They went to the upper room they had been using as a meeting place: Peter, James, John, Andrew, Philip, Thomas, Bartholomew, Matthew, James, son of Alpheus, Simon the Zealot, Judas, son of James.

“They agreed they were in this for good, completely together in prayer, the women included. Also Jesus’ mother, Mary, and His brothers.” Acts 1:12-14 (The Message).

This seems like a pathetically small group of followers after three years and a spectacular life of miracles and teaching like no other rabbi. God had once said to His people when they felt overwhelmed by their circumstances, “Who despises the day of small things?” Zechariah 4:10 (NIV).

The people of God had returned from exile and, after many years, they had finally rebuilt their temple, but it was an inferior temple to the one built by Solomon. They wept but God reassured them that the glory of the latter temple would exceed the glory of the former. Of course, He was referring prophetically to the human temple He would occupy after Jesus’ work of restoration through the cross.

These few people in the upper room were now right in line for the fulfilment of that prophecy. They were few in number but their potential was huge because of the one fact which Luke noted. They were in this together. Together they prayed and waited for the promise to be fulfilled.

Adam’s decision to go it alone had severed him from God and shattered the image of God in him, the oneness (ECHAD) that reflected the oneness between Father, Son and Holy Spirit. “Hear O Israel: The LORD our God, the LORD is one…” Deuteronomy 6:4 (NIV). It was imperative that this small group of people be of one heart and mind so that the Holy Spirit could have unrestricted access to their spirits.

At the beginning of human history, when the people banded together to set up a false religion in rebellion against God, God said, “‘If as one people speaking the same language they have begun to do this, then nothing they plan to do will be impossible for them.'” Genesis 11:8 (NIV).

In few days’ time Babel would be reversed. Their unity would be the environment into which the Holy Spirit would come to set them on the path of restoring what Adam had destroyed in the Garden of Eden.

Jesus’ prayer just before His arrest gives us a glimpse into His heart. His final request was “‘that all of them may be one, Father, just as you are in me and I am in you. May they also be in us so that the world may believe that you have sent me.'” John 17:21 (NIV).

This unity is initiated by the Spirit but maintained by the mutual submission of God’s people. “Be completely humble and gentle; be patient, bearing with one another in love. Make every effort to keep the unity of the Spirit through the bond of peace.” Ephesians 4:2, 3 (NIV).

These disciples had decided to stick together, to do life together and to go it together and in that decision and their actions that followed they paved the way for the Spirit’s coming and His work in and through them.

They had made their decision – they were in this together, for good!

New Covenant Prayer – The Foundation

Prayer, ,

NEW COVENANT PRAYER – THE FOUNDATION

Prayer is a common activity in all religions. In fact, religion is a felt need because human beings are incomplete within themselves and need a higher power upon which to depend in their weakness and to supply their needs.

Since people are essentially at enmity with God and refuse either to acknowledge His existence or to recognise their accountability to Him as their Creator, they have created gods for themselves which are both figments of their imagination and beings (though non-existent) made in their image so that they can manage and manipulate them for their own ends. Prayer to these “gods” is not true prayer. This kind of “prayer” has no fellowship with its god, and it does not submit to the will of such a god. People relate to their gods on the basis of fear. Whatever they do is often an attempt to appease or to manipulate them for their own ends.

We cannot understand true prayer unless we understand our essential relationship with our Creator. In order to short circuit our accountability to our Creator, we have invented both gods and what we call “prayer” but that does not absolve us from accountability in any way. We can neither make God go away, nor can we shake off our responsibility to Him just because we choose to do so.

God has two very valid reasons for calling us to account for what we are and what we do with our lives. He is both our Creator and our Reconciler.

1. GOD IS OUR CREATOR
There is no other account of creation that gives a simpler or saner record of the event. Unlike all other attempts to explain how the universe came to be, including the theory of evolution that many scientists support that presupposes that everything just “happened”, the Bible explains the origin of all life by starting at the beginning.

In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth (Gen.1:1)

Since God claims responsibility for all of creation, He has the right to direct the affairs of individuals and nations.

I am the Lord, who has made all things, who alone stretched out the heavens, who spread out the earth by myself (Isa. 44:24).

2. GOD IS OUR RECONCILER
In Paul Young’s book, The Shack, the main character, Mackenzie, asked Papa (the person who plays the part of God the Father), the question, “What exactly did Jesus accomplish by dying?” Papa’s response was both simple and riveting. “Honey, you asked me what Jesus accomplished on the cross; so now listen to me carefully: through His death and resurrection, I am now fully reconciled to the world.”

“The whole world? You mean those who believe in you, right?” Mack asked.

“The whole world, Mack. All I am telling you is that reconciliation is a two-way street, and I have done my part, totally, completely, finally. It is not the nature of love to force a relationship but it is the nature of love to open the way,” responded Papa.

God has opened the way for the world to be reconciled to Him. He invites us to change our minds about Him and to return to Him. He reinstates all who receive His forgiveness as His beloved sons and daughters.

…God was reconciling the world to Himself in Christ, not counting men’s sins against them. (2 Cor. 5:19).

It is this Father/son relationship which qualifies us to come to God and to call on Him for a response to our prayers. There can be no true prayer outside of this relationship.

What is man?

Pastor's Desk,

Dear Family

If we truly take a good, long, honest look at ourselves as the human race, it takes very little effort or imagination to realize that we are indeed a motley bunch of creatures. We have enormous capacities to injure one another, to hate, to deceive, to trample on and to do just about anything else which, if left unchecked, would ultimately result in the extinction of mankind in a ridiculously short space of time! The bible puts is like this in Jeremiah 17:9: “The heart is deceitful above all things and beyond cure. Who can understand it?” Is it any wonder that when God adopts us into His family that He deems us “new creations”?
And yet we have a Father, the God of all creation, who has said of us in Psalm 8:4: “what is man that you are mindful of him, the son of man that you care for him?” I find it incredible that God actually has us in mind in the first place. That He actually loves us, and actually sees us as we can be, and actually invites us into His kingdom, and actually chooses to adopt us as His sons and daughters. Mind blowing stuff! Is it just not possible to meditate on these things without being gobsmacked by how wonderful, loving and kind our God actually is, especially seeing as we do not and cannot deserve His kindness.

Psalm 103:13-14 puts everything into perspective: “As a father has compassion on his children, so the LORD has compassion on those who fear him; for he knows how we are formed, he remembers that we are dust.”
What a relief—He knows we are dust and He chooses therefore to have compassion on those who fear Him!
As we witnessed the goings on in parliament recently and saw the gods of our country doing their very best, we became acutely aware again that outside of submission to Almighty God and the fear of Him in our land and powers of parliament, we have nothing and instead find ourselves bent on a road of self destruction. We will continue to point fingers and blame until we all find ourselves on another planet, but nothing can change until we remember who we actually are and who God actually is.

He has compassion on those who fear Him. He knows how dusty we are. He knows how to fix and what to do. He knows! Now more than ever we need to be in secret in our cupboards praying for our kings—the pattern to use is simply “The LORD has compassion on those who fear Him”. Let’s keep on keeping on, praying our leaders into the will of God.

Learning To Be A Son – Chapter Eleven – The Father’s Business

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LEARNING TO BE A SON

CHAPTER ELEVEN

THE FATHER’S BUSINESS

At the age of twelve, Jesus already knew that He was about the Father. His sojourn in the temple after His parents had set off home, had left the religious sages amazed at His understanding and His questions.

From the beginning of time, God was writing His story, and regardless of the intervention of sin, He continued to write, including the revelation of His mercy to sinners. His story climaxed in the revelation of Himself through His Son. Jesus came to reveal the true nature of the Father and to do His business on earth, to establish His kingdom in the hearts and in the society of His people.

He would restore His wayward people to Himself through His Son’s perfect life and sacrificial death so that, through them His kingdom would come on earth and He would be glorified through His redeemed people and His restored creation.

Since we have explored the meaning of sonship and how we relate to the Father as His sons and daughters, it is time to ask what our role is in His story and how we carry out that role as citizens of God’s kingdom.

God created us to have fellowship with Him and to reign over the earth as His vice-regents. Satan lied to the first pair, convincing them that he was in charge and that he could call the shots. They fell for his ruse and became slaves to his tyranny. Jesus exposed his lie and defeated him at the cross, cancelling our debt and freeing us from slavery to him.

Jesus showed us how to interpret and live in obedience to God’s instructions, contained in the Torah, His directions for living the best life. He also gave us access to the Father so that we can approach Him directly through Jesus, our high priest and no longer through human priests and animal blood.

Prayer is much more than talking to a deity, like pagan so-called “prayer”. True prayer is the right of sons and is our way of communicating with the Father. Why should we communicate with Him?  We communicate with Him for fellowship and directions for carrying out our mandate to manage the earth for Him.

Jesus was the model of true prayer. He had fellowship with the Father and received His instructions for carrying out the Father’s will. His testimony was that He obeyed the Father implicitly in everything. He gave His disciples a simple pattern to guide them in their praying – what we call “the Lord’s Prayer”.

He warned His disciples not to model their prayers on the hypocrites who prayed to gain the attention and approval of people, or the pagans who babbled to gain their god’s attention. We are to relate to God as a Father who knows our needs before we ask Him.

His pattern directed His disciples’ attention away from themselves and their needs and problems,and towards the Father who is everywhere and as close to them as their breath. They did not need to inform Him, advise Him or persuade Him to come into their situation. He was already there and fully aware of every detail. They were to recognise that is was God, their Father and the Creator and Ruler of the universe, “gracious and compassionate, slow to anger and abounding in love and forgiveness”, to whom they turned. Their primary focus was to be on His kingdom, not on themselves and their needs.

They were to be concerned, first of all with their inner lives and God’s rule over their hearts so that they would be the agents through whom His kingdom would come on earth. Jesus, the living Word, was to be their daily bread, through the written word, feeding and nourishing their souls, like the manna in the wilderness that came from heaven to meet their daily needs.

They were to keep short accounts with people if they wanted to keep short accounts with God and to remember that they were their own worst enemy. They were to recognise and seek God’s strength to overcome the pull of their own selfish and greedy natures.

It was the will of God, above everything else that they were to seek and to do. The first step in knowing God’s will is to give Him complete charge over our bodies (Rom. 12: 1-3) and to renew our minds through the Word so that our lives will measure up to God’s requirements. With bodies and minds under the control of the Holy Spirit, we will be able to discern and approve God’s perfect will.

The purpose of prayer, then, is to have access to the Father so that we can partner with Him in managing the earth for Him and doing His will on earth. Our needs and concerns must fit into His story, not His story be directed by ours.

This is the true nature of a son – to be in submission and obedience to the Father so that we can serve Him and conduct His business on earth.

Summary of the Lord’s Prayer

Abba, Daddy, my source and the one to whom I belong, I turn away from my circumstances                       and become aware of you. You are here, all around me and as near to me as my breath. I                      honour you as holy by my words and my life.

May your just and benevolent rule come and may I be a part of bringing heaven to earth by                   doing your will, not mine, wherever I can and in whatever way I can so that those around me may see you in my life.

Feed me every day on Jesus, the living Bread.

Let me be merciful to those who offend me by cancelling their small debts, just as you have                been merciful to me by cancelling the huge debt I owed you.

Do not allow me to be pushed to the limit of my confidence in you either by severe trials or by alluring temptations, because you know how weak I am, and how strong my sinful flesh is.                      

Save me from the anguish of my own self-destruction.