intercessory prayer (9)
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I want to open tonight with a question:
How many of you have prayed prayers and seen nothing happen?
I’ve been there. God why aren’t you answering this prayer? Why did this person not get healed? Why am I still struggling with these same emotions and issues I’ve asked you to take away?
I have found that unanswered prayers usually fall into 2 Problems
It’s a will/ plan problem
Meaning God has another plan or purpose for not answering your prayers.
2. It’s a power problem.
Now automatically I can see it, God’s all powerful. How dare you say he doesn’t have the power to do something, but I didn’t say it’s God’s power problem.
20 Now to him who is able to do far more abundantly than all that we ask or think, according to the power at work within us,
21 to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, forever and ever. Amen.
The word far more abundantly is the same word in
20 Now the law came in to increase the trespass, but where sin increased, grace abounded all the more,
the term abound.
20 Now to him who is able to do far more abundantly than all that we ask or think, according to the power at work within us,
The word is hipperikperrysue
Hyperekperissou- Superabundant, exceeding abundantly
Here I’m with you. God can do more than we could even imagine to ask for. It’s why we need Him. We cannot create the freedom from sin he creates. We can’t do the miracles he does. We are just the conduit. But here’s the power problem
Ephesians 3:20 (ESV)
20 …according to the power at work within us,
And here is the hardest truth I have learned in my life—we don’t all work with the same amount of power.
James 5:16 (AMP)
16 …The earnest (heartfelt, continued) prayer of a righteous man makes tremendous power available [dynamic in its working].
Obedience
The idea is that if you love God you obey his commands. It’s scriptural. The thing most people don’t understand is this:
The prophetic ministry, the healing ministry, speaking in tongues, teaching, preaching—all are done through obedience.
9 For this is why I wrote, that I might test you and know whether you are obedient in everything.
Obedience brings us closer to God. God isn’t going to give you power to destroy things. He will only give you what he can trust you with. We are told to plant seeds. It’s been an on-going theme for us through the last several weeks. The Greek word for seed is
Sperma-seed
It’s where we get the term sperm from which should surprise you considering it’s the women who carries the egg, but the sperma is the seed planted that brings life to the egg. How much trouble would we be in if we could bring life out of every prayer ever prayed without God making sure it falls in line with His will.
28 You will decide on a matter, and it will be established for you, and light will shine on your ways.
Decree means descide. If you aren’t obedient than our decisions aren’t going to match God’s.
Established- arise, stand up, come to fruition.
If God gives you this power there has to be a certain level of obedience, but there must also be a certain level of
2. Relationship
You can see we can superabound in power, but how much power is truly dependent on how close you are to someone.
10 Do not forsake your friend and your father’s friend, and do not go to your brother’s house in the day of your calamity. Better is a neighbor who is near than a brother who is far away.
This verse shows the importance of proximity. God isn’t saying the brother in invaluable just simply that he can’t help because of proximity. Often times proximity or how close someone is to you will determine their ability to help you. God desires to help you, but he also desires to be close and the closer we get to God the more He is able to help us.
It isn’t also just about being near someone you have to be near the right person
1 Blessed is the man who walks not in the counsel of the wicked, nor stands in the way of sinners, nor sits in the seat of scoffers;
There is proximity without Holiness. God desires you be with both in proximity and holiness.
2 My soul thirsts for God, for the living God. When shall I come and appear before God?
3 My tears have been my food day and night, while they say to me all the day long, “Where is your God?”
4 These things I remember, as I pour out my soul: how I would go with the throng and lead them in procession to the house of God with glad shouts and songs of praise, a multitude keeping festival.
The term remember here in verse 4 is the Hebrew word
ZKR- retain in thought constantly
The idea here is to maintain close proximity with your thoughts. It’s the only way to draw an appropriate amount of power. The farther you get from a power source the less potent the power that you receive. If you aren’t receiving an answer to your prayer it may be a power problem because it’s a problem of proximity. Peter and Paul didn’t perform the miracles they did because they were select and special. They just put in work to be close in proximity to the power source.
The beautiful reality is: You determine your gifts. Not God. God wants to give it all to you right now. We just have to position ourselves to receive it.
