Intercessory prayer (7)
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One of the biggest things we pray for when we pray for people is for them to have repentant heart. It’s one of the steps of becoming a disciple of Christ, but do we truly knw what we are asking a person to do and what we are battling to get them there.
19 Repent therefore, and turn back, that your sins may be blotted out,
Most people define repentance as turning away from sin and turning back to God, but if you look at the origional greek language the word for turn back epistrefo
Epistrepho- to turn
So the real question here is this: Is Luke telling us truly to turn back twice. Because with that definition it would be Turn back, and turn back, that your sins may be blotted. Or in other words-go in a circle, which puts you in the same position you were already in. Maybe that’s the real reason we tend to struggle.
But repentance or the term repent comes from the Greek word
Metenoia- a new knowledge or understanding.-a complete change of mind
When we pray for people to repent we are asking that they are given a new mind or give you a new way of thinking.
We are trying to get people into the revelatory knowledge of Jesus Christ.
18 Open my eyes, that I may behold wondrous things out of your law.
The word open here is the Hebrew word
Galah- to unveil or uncover.
This is part of the miracle of the veil ripping in two when Jesus was crucified. The ark wasn’t actually in the Holy of Holies. Jesus was opening the eyes of the people to an empty religious system. I believe this is happening across America today. People have embraced an empty religious system as opposed a life chaneging relationship. Information is easy to gain. Anyone can be smart but revelation takes work. IT takes work to be wise. We are living in the information age. We have information at our finger tips. I can find out anything I want to know with a click of a finger, but how to apply that information correctly, justly, and in the proper way. That is wisdom. That takes time. It takes processing. It takes thinking. Most people can regurgitate information, but to apply Revelation knowledge takes time. tIt’s why the bible calls wisdom seeds. A seed can be planted, much like our faith, but it takes time to grow. It takes time to change. It takes time to develop. True Godly wisdom goes against our normal understanding.
14 But the natural man does not receive the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him; nor can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned.
The term Foolishness comes from the Greek word moria- it’s root word is moros which is where we get our term moron from.
Moron is a term defined as someone who, in their adult age, has a mental age of between 7-10. Originally it’s someone who isn’t maturing or growing.
It’s someone who isn’t going through the revelatory process. You have all the information, but you aren’t applying it.
This is important because one of the schemes of the enemy is to purposefully dull our intellect and we see this everyday i n America.
4 In their case the god of this world has blinded the minds of the unbelievers, to keep them from seeing the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God.
The term blinded comes from the greek word
Tuphoo-to dull the intellect.
Comes from the root word Tupho- meaning to make smoke
or Tuphonikos which means to make cloudy.
which causes a person not to be able to see clearly by darkening the air.
There are many ways people are blinded the most common is pride. When people don’t want to hear, they feel like they know better or to acknowledge the truth.
Another definition for Tuphoo is proud or inflated with self-conceit.
What we are doing when we pray; even when we come to God is we are looking to change people’s mindsets before their behaviors.
We must be aiming at people’s minds. We must be aiming at our mindset.
3 For though we walk in the flesh, we are not waging war according to the flesh.
4 For the weapons of our warfare are not of the flesh but have divine power to destroy strongholds.
5 We destroy arguments and every lofty opinion raised against the knowledge of God, and take every thought captive to obey Christ,
Strongholds- what are strongholds- where something is held strongly where are our strongest beliefs held? the deepest part of our mind. Where our mind meets our emotions.
We don’t battle against our flesh- many people say this is a spiritual battle, but I believe it’s an emotional battle. Because we are told the weapons are used to destroy strongholds-held where our information meets our emotions. What people hold the most value to they attach to their emotions. In college one of my professors brought in a Vegan to torture us. At that time my brother was studying rats to figure out cures of cancer. My step mother had been diagnosed with skin cancer around this same time. He was trying to explain why animal testing is bad. He hit not only something I was knowledge about, but rather a stronghold of mine. Rage consumed me and if it wasn’t for my friend who grabbed my shirt I would have jumped over the table at him. I wasn’t arguing logically because I already attaching my knowledge to my emotions.
So we destroy strongly held belief systems with divine power—prayer. The only way to destroy a stronghold is to first come against it on a spiritual level.
Our weapons are prayer, worship, and the Word of God. The only way to come against these string emotions/thoughts/beliefs is to have the veil removed from the eyes and to see the word clearly. You have to pray and lead people into the Holy Spirit
26 But the Helper, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, he will teach you all things and bring to your remembrance all that I have said to you.
The Holy Spirit guides and teaches you with the weapon of the word. Listen if there is something you can’t seem to get over. If there are is something you have emotional tie to. If you’re trying to help someone you can’t break the strongholds your only weapon is to usher in the presence of the Holy Spirit through prayer, through worship, and through God’s word.
What if they won’t listen to God’s word, then you till the ground again with prayer and worship. You pray and pray and pray until the work is completed.