Prayer Blog

PUSH BACK

Many times in our lives we come to the point where it appears as if we are drowning in a sea of situations that are troubling us, that we seem not to be able to sort out or shift.  The situation can quickly become very overwhelming such that if care is not taken, we just want to drop everything and not bother to try to resolve any of the situations.  This is not peculiar to us and it is not new, like the Bible says 

     "No temptation has overtaken you except what is common to man.  And God is faithful, He will not let you be tempted beyond what you can bear.  But when you are tempted, He will also provide a way out so that you can endure it"

                                                                                                          - 1Cor 10:13

Paul the Apostle appeared to have had many instances like that during his ministry.  He records his many crushing situations in 2Cor 4:8-9 

     "We are pressed on every side by troubles but we are not crushed.  We are perplexed but not driven to despair. We are hunted down, but not abandoned by God. We get knocked down but we are not destroyed"

In fact the Bible makes us to realise that this is part of life and to be expected - it is part of the legacy of Adam and Eve!

So, how do we respond in such situations?  How do we go from the point of being overwhelmed to having victory, regaining our sense of being in control?

In John 16:33, Jesus said

    "These things I have spoken to you, that in Me you may have peace.  In the world you will have tribulation; but be of good cheer I have overcome the world"

We need to remind ourselves of this fact that the Lord has overcome the world for us!  Like the Bible says in Romans 8:37 that

    "No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him (Jesus) that loved us"

Instead of throwing in the towel and giving in to the state of overwhelm, the Lord encourages us to do certain things that guarantee victory:

1.  Be anxious for nothing and do not be afraid!  - the easiest thing to do in such situation is to worry but it will not bring a solution to the problem; it will make it worse!  

    "Be anxious for nothing but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving, make your requests known to God"    -  Phil 4:6

2.  Pray!  Ask God to intervene.  Bind the enemy, bind his activity and lose the power of God in the situation.

     "Is any man in trouble, let him pray...."  - James 5:13

    "...whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven...."  -  Matt 18:18

3.  Praise!  Praise is one of the most powerful weapons of our warfare because we magnify God when we praise Him and He shows up on the scene!  For example, Paul and Silas chose to praise God in their prison cell and God sent an earthquake to set them free!

    "And at midnight, Paul and Silas prayed, and sang praises unto God: and the prisoners heard them.  And suddenly, there was a great earthquake so that the foundations of the prison were shaken: and immediately all the doors were opened, and every one's bands were loosed"     -   Acts 16:25-26

God bless you as you rise up, face the situation and overcome in the name of Jesus and by the power of the Holy Spirit!

Abidemi Nwator

SUBMIT yourself to God...DRAW near unto God....HUMBLE yourself before the mighty hand of God...

(James 4:7-10)

Wow! Three different 'commands' for each believer in a short passage, each designed to take us from one level to the next in God!  All three commands are within our capacity to fulfil otherwise God would not have told us to do them. So there is no point praying that God should do those things for us - in fact, asking God to humble us, for instance, is asking for a different thing entirely which might not be pleasant.  Let us briefly examine each one of the commands.

1. SUBMIT yourself to God, resist the devil and he will flee from you (vs 7) - This is showing us that effectively exercising the authority of the Kingdom of God is dependent on us being aligned with the King by submitting ourselves to Him.  The devil is defeated (Col 2:15) and has been put under our feet (Luke 10:19) but he is an outlaw and is still looking for whom he will devour hence the need to resist him (1Peter 5:8); he knows who is not submitted as well - ask the 7 sons of Sceva (Acts 19:14-16)!  As children of the Most High King, we are called to live a life of resistance against the enemy so he knows he can not encroach on our territory.  This is exercising our Kingly mandate of dominion (Gen 1:26-27 & Rev 5:10).  Submitting ourselves to God involves being totally surrendered to the will of the father in all areas of our lives; it includes making Him and His word the final authority in our lives.  It means being true 'sheep' and not 'goats'!  It means always saying 'yes' to His will with no 'buts'

2. DRAW near unto God and He will draw near unto you (vs 8) - This is showing us that we have the opportunity to determine how intimate we want to be witht he Lord and the responsibility to make it happen!  How closely do you want to walk with the Lord? Do you want to worship from afar or in close intimacy with the King who indwells you by his Spirit? Jesus is our perfect example, the first begotten from the dead.  He modelled for us how intimate we can be with the Father.  In John 5:19, Jesus declared that He does only what He saw the Father doing and said only what He heard the father saying.  This is indicative of intimacy because you cannot see what someone is doing from afar, you have to be close to them.  Jesus modelled for us how to fulfill this command - early in the morning, He went away by Himself to spend time with the Father and sometimes throughout the night!  Drawing near unto God will require us to invest a lot of our time, treasure & talents. When we seek the Lord with all our hearts, we will find Him (Jer 29:13).  We seek His face and not just His hands - for who He is and not for what He can do for us.  That was the difference between Moses and the children of Israel - Moses sought God for who He is and found Him (Ex 33:18) but the children of Israel sought Him for what He could do for them, hence He revealed His ways to Moses and His deeds to the children of Israel (Ps 103:7).

3. HUMBLE yourself before the mighty hand of God and He will lift you up (vs 10) - This command is profound in the sense that it is our choice to humble ourselves 'before the mighty hand of God'!  This means agreeing with God about everything and not having a contrary opinion, no matter how pious that may look or sound! If God says you are royalty because you are His child (Rev 1:5 & 5:10; 1Peter 2:9), it is not humble to call yourself a 'worm'! If He says you are His righteousness in Christ Jesus (2Cor 5:21), it is not humble to insist that you are a 'sinner'!  The truth is you and I were sinners but now we have been saved - we need to renew our minds to that!  On the other hand, humbling ourselves also involves total reliance and dependence on God, acknowledging Him as our source, our strength and our all in all.  It's being quick to ask for the help of the Holy Spirit (our guide, helper, standby, advocate, etc) in every situation and being careful to give the glory back to God!  That is the way that God lifts us up. He makes His grace (His divine enablement) available to us because we humble ourselves before His mighty hand instead of being proudly self-reliant.  God resists the proud but gives grace to the humble (James 4:6)!

The commands that God gives us show that He is committed to our victory and to our success.  By obeying the commands, we demonstrate that we are also committed to our own victory and success.  

Obeying these commands helps to become more aware of our supernatural connection and to take advantage of it so that nothing is difficult for us (Phil 4:13)

In Hebrews 10:5-7 we read

'Therefore, when Christ came into the world, He said: Sacrifice and offering you did not desire, but a body you prepared for me; with burnt offerings and sin offerings you were not pleased. Then I said, 'Here I am - it is written about me in the scroll - I have come to do your will my God'

Jesus was the Word of God who was with God in the begining and who was God. He had to come to the earth to redeem us from the dominion of Satan and of Sin by becoming a sacrifice for sin.  For this purpose, a body was prepared for Him and we read in John 1:14 that 'the Word became flesh and dwelt among us'.  The body was prepared for Him so He could offer it as a sacrifice for the redemption of humanity instead of animal sacrifices and offerings which had to be offered year after year. The same is true of each one of us - we existed in God before the foundations of the earth and were only sent into the world to fulfil a specific purpose which God had before pre-ordained.  

We see this truth eplained in Psalm 139:13-16 and Jeremiah 1:5 how that God knew us before we were formed in our mothers' womb and our days are recorded in His book even before they ever came to be. In the New Testament, Gal 1:15 says the same about Paul and Eph 2:10 also talks about God pre-ordaning certain paths that we should walk in here on earth. 

It is clear that God has a clearly defined purpose for each human being but it is also true that God has a purpose for each family (cf Abraham's lineage), each community, each City and each nation on the face of the earth.  This purpose of His is written in His books and is accessible to us.  Just like Jesus located what is written about Himself in the scroll (Luke 4:21), each one of us need to find out what is written in the scroll about us, embrace it and give oneself to God for it to be fulfilled having the same attitude as Jesus when he declared in John 4:34, 'my food is to do the will of the father and to finish it'.

It is also clear from John 10:10 that Satan also has his agenda for our lives which is directly opposite the plans of God hence the need to be focussed and clear minded about the father's purpose for our lives, families, church, City and Nation. It is not uncommon for us to feel inadequate to fulfill the plan of God for our life - Moses felt inadequate (Ex 4:13), Gideon felt inadequate (Judges 6:15) and so did Jeremiah (Jer 1:6). However, God does not ask us to fulfill His purpose with our own ability - infact, He calls us to do things that are humanly impossible so that we can depend on Him totally.

We therefore need to completely depend on God and let Him continue to work in us both to will and to do of His good pleasure (Phil 2:13). The Lord's purpose for our lives must become our food and drink in order to fulfill/finish our race.

Let's offer our bodies as a living sacrifice unto God and let His fire fall upon us so we can run our race with passion and finish our course!

Dr Abidemi Nwator

God's Purpose alone will stand (Isaiah 46:9-10)

In the place of prayer a few minutes ago, the Lord began to speak concerning His purpose for each one of His children and for the families, churches, communities and nations that they represent:

 'remember the former things, those of long ago; I am God, and there is no other; I am God, and there is none like me. I make known the end from the beginning, from ancient times, what is still to come.  I say, 'My purpose will stand, and I will do all that I please'

He says he wants us to remember certain things that He did in the past that displayed His sovereignty as the omniscient, all knowing God who declares the end from the beginning. He has a purpose and a plan for each one of His children and He makes this plan known because that's what He wants to happen.

He reveals His plan to us His children so that we may take ownership of it (embrace it as the purpose of God which must stand) and have the opportunity to co-labour with Him to bring it to pass (by begining to pray into it so that it can become our reality). Someone might say 'well, if it is God's will, why do I have to play any part in it? why does he not just bring it to pass in my life?

God wants us to play a part in it because

(a) that is the way He has set things up to operate so that we have the opportunity to willingly take part in the creative process (consider Mary's response and her part in the conception and birth of Jesus as recorded in Luke 1:38)

(b) by praying about it we are authorising God to carry out His purpose in our lives and in the earth because God needs man's co-operation (by invitation) to carry out His will on earth because 'the highest heavens belong to the Lord, but the earth He has given to the sons of men' (Ps 115:16). This is why He says in Matt 7:7 'ask that we might receive' (even though He knows what we need and has given us all things to enjoy) and in James 42b 'you have not because you ask not'

(c) it is in the place of prayer that we hear clearly what God is saying concerning the declared purpose so that we may obey His directions, perhaps somethings that we need to do or to stop doing so that the purpose might manifest.

The bible is full of confirmation of this word of the Lord.  Paul says to Timothy in 1Timothy 1:18 to fight a good warfare with the prophecies (God's declared purpose) that have been spoken over His life. In Jeremiah 29:11, God declares His purpose for the children of Israel but goes on in verses 12 to 14 to say that they will now come and pray to Him and seek His face with all their hearts and He will fulfill His promise to them. James 5:17-19 records that Elijah prayed fervently that God's declared purpose of 3 years of famine to turn the hearts of the children of Israel back to Himself would happen and also that it might be ended by a down pour at the end of the famine. 

Finally, in Isaiah 55:10, God declares that His words (his declared purpose/plan) will not return to Him void but will accomplish what He sent it to and in Jeremiah 1:12, God says He is watching over His words to perform.  So when we pray in accordance with His declared purpose, we are joining forces with the Lord to 'hasten' the performance of His word.

Let him who has an ear, hear what the Spirit is saying to the church!