08/17/2014 Intense, Prevailing Prayer #1
Only intense, prevailing prayer overcomes worldliness and unrighteousness, both inside and outside of the Church.
Bounds Quote: God's greatest movements in this world have been conditioned on, continued and fashioned by prayer. God has put Himself in these great movements just as men have prayer. Persistent, prevailing, conspicuous and mastering prayer has always brought God to be present. How vast are the possibilities of prayer!
How wide its reach! It lays its hand on Almighty God and moves Him to do what He would not do if prayer was not offered. Prayer is a wonderful power placed by Almighty God in the hands of His saints, which may be used to accomplish great purposes and to achieve unusual results. The only limits to prayer are the promises of God and His ability to fulfill those promises. E.M. Bounds
· Personal Prayer:
Pray Correctly + Pray Consistently= Paycheck (Answered Prayer)
Those who pray correctly will receive a paycheck of answers at the end of the day. Those who do not pray or do not pray correctly will not receive the paycheck of answers.
- Therefore, it is essential to:
1. Pray according to the will of God: 1 John 5:14-15 (NKJV) Now this is the confidence that we have in Him, that if we ask anything according to His will, He hears us. 15 And if we know that He hears us, whatever we ask, we know that we have the petitions that we have asked of Him.
When we pray will-of-God prayers, they are answered. We will discuss this more later in the message.
2. Pray consistently 1 Thes. 5:17 pray without ceasing,
a. Prayer is essentially getting connected to the flow of the Vine.
John 15:7-8 (NKJV) If you abide in Me, and My words abide in you, you will ask what you desire, and it shall be done for you. 8 By this My Father is glorified, that you bear much fruit; so you will be My disciples.
b. When we have our heart right, are submitted to Holy Spirit, we know how to pray "in-the-will-of-God-prayers."
Our spirit registers impressions from God’s Spirit. Red Light: Something is wrong, don’t go there
Green Light: This is the right way, walk in this
Direction
Galatians 5:16 (NKJV) I say then: Walk in the Spirit,
and you shall not fulfill the lust of the flesh
Bill Hybels Quote:
If the request is wrong, God says, "No."
If the timing is wrong, God says, "Slow."
If you are wrong, God says, "Grow."
But if the request is right, the timing is right and you
are right, God says, "Go!" --Too Busy Not To Pray, Bill
Hybels, IVP, p. 74
· Prayer is not trying to talk God into something He doesn't want to do.
Derek Prince Quote: "Prayer is not a way of twisting God's arm or getting God to do things that He doesn't want to do. Prayer is a way for us to become an instrument for God to do what He wants, and if we fail to approach it that way, we will run into many frustrations."
When a person is born from above, the life of the Son of God is born in him, and he can either starve that life or nourish it.
Chambers Quote: Prayer is the way to nourish one's life with God. Our ordinary views of prayer are not found in the New Testament. We look upon prayer as a means of getting things for ourselves; the Bible's idea of prayer is that we may get to know God Himself. It is not so true that 'prayer changes things' as that prayer changes me and I change things. God has so constituted things that prayer on the basis of redemption alters the way in which one looks at things. Prayer is not a question of altering things externally, but of working wonders in one's disposition. --Oswald Chambers
· Prayer is surrendering to His will and believing His Word and Will.
There are two sides to this:
1. We must forsake willfulness and rebellion and submit our will to what God wants. This is putting Him first.
2. We must have the faith to believe His Word that He really does love us and wants the best for us. Therefore, we must be willing to stretch our expectation to accept it when He decides to bless in large ways that we don't deserve. If we limit Him because of false humility, it becomes unbelief. God is a good Father. He wants to bless His children who are obedient and faithful in walking in Him.
· Prayer for the Church: Revival, passion, fervency in the local church requires prayer with those same elements. If someone doesn’t intercede and “stand in the gap”, the move of God like we have had the last few weeks will not intensify but will wane for lack of attention. One of the great aspects of short-term mission trips is the focused prayer of so many over a short period of time. You can feel the prayer and the anointing that is with you continually. Who will give themselves to see God drawn to New Life over the long-haul. It is job one for New Life.
· Ford Slogan: Quality Is Job 1. A number of years ago, Japanese auto makers began to far exceed the quality of American car makers like Ford and GM. Realizing they were not competing well, Ford and others began trying to make their automobiles last longer with fewer breakdowns in an effort to compete with Honda and Toyota. Quality was Job 1. For New Life, Prayer is Job 1. Without intense prevailing prayer, quality goes out the window. We need God’s presence to accomplish His will.
· Does God always answer prayer? A. W. Tozer says that it is an error to say, "God always answers prayer." Tozer gives two elements required for answered prayer:
1. Clear-cut request. Something which you will know when it is answered.
2. Clear-cut answer. The answer must demonstrate God's reality and power to do what we ask. We need to put ourselves on the spot and let God be God!
Example: About 10 years ago, CURE Pastors called Anderson to specific prayer focusing as a rifle on our School System. We were very concerned about the graduation rates and the poor test scores. We have seen major improvement since that time. At times, even miraculous results in certain schools.
· There are two conditions to answered prayer:
1. Be in the will of God.
2. Be on Praying ground.
James 4:3 You ask and do not receive, because you ask amiss, that you may spend it on your pleasures/lust.
You ask and receive not--spend on your lust.
· Intense, Prevailing Prayer involves the following:
1. Praying Fervently- James 5:16 Confess your trespasses to one another, and pray for one another, that you may be healed. The effective, fervent prayer of a righteous man avails much.
Ferevent: energeo, to be active, efficient :- do, (be) effectual (fervent), be mighty in, shew forth self, work (effectually in).
Passion: We have been focusing on the importance of passion. So many are apathetic. God wants us to passionately pursue Him in prayer.
During the Mau Mau uprising in Kenya in 1960, missionaries Matt and Lora Higgens were returning one night to Nairobi through the heart of Mau Mau territory, where Kenyans and missionaries alike
had been killed and dismembered. Seventeen miles outside of Nairobi their Land Rover stopped. Higgens tried to repair the car in the dark, but could not restart it. They spent the night in the car, but claimed Psalm 4:8: "I will lie down and sleep in
peace, for you alone, O Lord, make me dwell in safety." In the morning they were able to repair the car. A few weeks later the Higgenses returned to America on furlough. They reported that the night before they left Nairobi, a local pastor had visited them. He told how a member of the Mau Mau had confessed that he and three others had crept up to the car to kill the Higgens, but when they saw sixteen men surrounding the car, the Mau Mau had left in fear. "Sixteen men?" Higgens responded. "I don't know what you mean!" While they were on furlough a friend, Clay Brent, asked the HIggens if they had been in any danger recently. Higgens asked, "Why?" Then Clay said that on March 23, God had placed a heavy prayer burden on his heart. He called the men of the church, and sixteen of them met together and prayed until the burden lifted. Did God send sixteen angels to represent those men and enforce their prayers? Touch the World Through Prayer, W. Duewel, OMS, p.85-6
2. Praying Persistently- Luke 11:8 I say to you, though he will not rise and give to him because he is his friend, yet because of his persistence he will rise and give him as many as he needs.