|
|
|
PRAYING IN THE SPIRIT SERIES
PERFECTING THE SAINTS IN PRAYER
We want to talk about interceding for the
saints. Although there is a similarity between interceding for the lost and interceding
for the saints, yet there are differences.
Gal. 4:19 "My little children for whom I labor in birth again
until Christ is formed in you. Now
this verse talks about as if he says that he had travailed for the
Galatians. He says my little children I
travail again for you. The Galatians
Christians were falling away from the perfection that they were supposed to
function in. Paul says that I travail
again. That means that once upon a time
he did travail for them. We assume that
would be referring to the time when they were not born again yet. So there is some similarity between praying
for the lost and praying for the saints.
So in regard to praying for the saints, he says that once again he
travailed for them.
The word travail comes from the
Greek word agonised, which is where we get the word
agonized. So it talks about not just
normal prayer. There is a time and place for normal prayer. But there is a time
and place also for agonizing prayer. And
Paul was talking about Galatians who have fallen from
the perfection that they should have been in Christ. We do not know how far is the fall. But
definitely in the book of Galatians he says you have fallen from grace. And he chastises them with the word and
corrects them. And he sought to stir them to go back to that perfection that
they should have walked in the liberty of grace. But yet he not only corrected them with the
word, he not only exhorted them, Paul says I agonized for you. He travailed for them. He prayed for perfection to come into their
lives. So we realized that the same
process that birth us through travailing and through groaning like interceding
for the saints. That same process is necessary for our perfection.
That's what many saints forget. They
thought we have travailed for the lost and know they are born again and that's
it. The rest of the time expects them to grow perfect just by teaching them the
word. We realize teaching is one aspect
of bringing growth to their life. They
forget that we need to agonize for their perfection too. It takes the same spirit of prayer to perfect
a person or to perfect a group of Christians. It takes prayer to perfect the
church that God wants it to be. The only problem is sometimes it's easier to
deal with things by the natural and without prayer then to deal with it by
prayer.
For example, sometimes people would rather
deal with church problems in the intellectual realm and in the natural realm
then in the spiritual realm. One could easily set up a committee to make a
decision. Dismiss the people who are not
perfect or dismiss those who are at fault. We could make decision like that in
the natural and straight away take some form of action. I don’t say that there
is no necessity of such action sometime. There is a certain category but I
sense in my spirit that it probably would lie within 5% of those problems. 95%
of the problems should be dealt with by prayer.
But the only problem is this.
Prayer takes time to work. It
takes time to see the effect of prayer.
There have been many times and in many situations and many advisors who
say do this, take this action. And it
all look likes a short cut. But I knew
in my spirit that the right way was to pray through. It looks easier to just deal with it in the
natural and take an intellectual decision and action on that then with all the
agony of praying through something. It
is far easier to take an action in the natural with the authority of the
organization to just deal with it. But sometimes the best way is prayer.
There have been times when I had to deal
with the situation in prayer and the others say that I am not doing
anything. And I find that sometimes it
takes two years to deal with it through prayer where it would take just two
weeks of committee and action to deal with it in the natural. But difference is
very clear after 5 years. The problem
that was dealt with by prayer has a permanent lasting effect in its
solution. While the problem that is
dealt with by natural action breed other problems one after another. So it's important
for us to understand that not only do we perfect another life by correcting
another life, we perfect another life by patiently agonizing in prayer. Like Paul says, I travail again for you.
Agonizing in prayer is so hard in the natural but it is the best solution that
God offers.
Right now if the Lord Jesus were to take
action on His church, guess what would have happened? There will be so much
shaking that literally we may loose 90% of the known church. If the Lord Jesus were to step in right now
and remove everything that is imperfect and everything that deserve judgment
and everything that needs to be punish, we may loose 90% of the church. How did
the Lord Jesus deal with the problem right now?
Right now our Lord Jesus is interceding at the right hand of the Father.
He ever lived to make intercession for the saints. See our Lord Jesus is preparing the bride
through His prayer.
Lets look at
Colossians. Sometimes when we talk about
Christian patience people think in terms of weeks. God thinks in terms of years. Col.2: 10 "You are complete in Him who
is the head of all principality and power." It speaks about how positional the Colossians
are perfect in Christ.
A lot of Christians like to play judges. It would help if those who would like to play
the role of judges to also play the role of a high priest. It would do the body of
Christ a lot of good if leaders correct
someone through prayers instead of through words. And here it says Epaphras
was seeking to bring perfection to the Colossians Christians through
prayers. Now it didn't even says about
his teaching ministry. He didn’t even
talk about the exhortation ministry. And
these are powerful ministries in themselves.
God does perfect the church through these ministries too. But it says all Epaphras
does is to get into the closet and he spends his time praying. The Bible call it
labor; it's hard work. All Epaphras does is to closed himself
in the closet and he labored in prayer and the Colossian church is being
perfected.
Lets read on, it says
that you may stand perfect ands complete in all the will of God. In Gal.4: 19 we see his agonizing and in Col.
4:12 we see how he labor to intercede for the saints. And I realized that Christian leadership must
be leadership in prayer first above all others.
And every time there is as church situation here on in other places and
in the natural I feel like reaching out to take some action, I would hold myself back and say have
I done the praying onto perfection. If I have not done my part in that, then I
have no right to do anything else. We have to do the intercession part -
prayer. And 95% of the time perfecting the body of Christ is done through
prayers. There has been many times where we gone to the closet and pray and
pray and pray through the situation and the problem and the result that
followed up are permanent. The resource
that we have in prayer is so wonderful.
Romans
8:26-27 "Likewise the Spirit also helps in our weakness for we do not
know what we should pray for as we ought.
But the Spirit Himself makes intercession for us with groaning, which
cannot be uttered. Now He who searches the heart knows what the mind of the
spirit is because He makes intercession for the saints according to the will of
God. Notice the intercession is for the saints in verse 27. He makes intercession for the saints. So
there are a lot of prayers that is needed for the saints. All you have to do is to look at the body of
Christ on the planet earth and you will realize how much intercession is needed
for the saints. This is not even talking
about for the unbelievers. How much
intercession is required for the saints in the planet earth to be perfected?
Paul says that the Spirit of God within us will cause us to have that groaning
within us that will rise within us as an intercession for the saints.
Eph.6: 18 Praying
always with all prayers and supplication in the spirit being watchful to the
end with all perseverance and supplication for all the saints. He didn’t
say unbelievers or the lost although there is a place and a time to pray for
the lost.
Know in Jesus' own life and ministry He
focuses more of His prayers for the saints that is His disciples and those who
believe in Him than for those who don’t believe in Him. In the gospel of John
17:9 Jesus Himself said, "I prayed for them." The them is
not the lost. The them
are His disciples. I do not pray for the world. What a statement. I
am not making this up. It's just from
the bible. He says I do not pray for
the world, but for those whom you have given Me for
they are Yours. Why is that so? If the church is perfected the lost is
easily won. Do you know the only hindrance to the lost being won is the
imperfect church? If the church is perfected there is no problem in the lost
being won. They will look at the church and see Jesus and they will all be
convicted. So Jesus Himself focuses a lot of prayer for the saints. And we need
to focus our prayers accordingly.
Now
how do we pray for the saints? It's important for us to remember that we need
to constantly hold Christian leadership in prayers before God. See Jesus
proportion His time in praying for the saints. Between the saints and the lost,
He seems to be praying more for the saints than for the lost. And among the
saints, He seems to concentrate His prayer especially on Christian leadership.
Luke 22:32 Jesus said to Peter but I have prayed for you that your faith
should not fail. Now don’t leave out
the other part of the verse. The reason
Jesus concentrated so much prayer on Simon Peter was because of the second part
of the verse. He says and when you have returned to me strengthen
your brethren. Peter was the key to the others. All the sheep was going to be scattered and
he knew Peter would go through a hard time. I am sure Jesus prayed for everyone
but He had especially prayed for Peter.
We could even read between the lines and almost as if He is saying I
specially prayed for you. And when you come back, you strengthen the rest. And
in the
And
Paul seems to spend the same amount of time too. If you read every epistle, he always talks
about remembering the church in prayer. And we need to continually remember
that. And then among the saints and among the lost there seems to be this
pattern. Among the saints there is more
concentrated prayer for the leadership.
And among the lost there is also concentrated prayer for the leadership
in the lost world, that is leaders of the lost
people.
Lets point to the similarity in both groups. In the book of 1 Timothy 2:1 here he is talking about general
prayer. Therefore, I exalt first of
all that supplication, prayers, intercession and giving of thanks be made for
all men. For kings and all who are in authority that we lead
a quiet and peaceful life in all godliness and reverence. Now do you notice he said that in regard
to the lost? As you pray for their
souls, you pray especially for kings, which represent the leaders among the
lost and those in authority, again emphasizing leadership. Did you notice the pattern for praying for
the lost? You concentrate prayers for the leaders in the lost world. Do you know the reason?
Donald
MaGavran in an article on Church Growth calls it the
people movement. The conviction comes on
people when God touches a major leader.
He is an expert on church growth.
He studies church growth all over the world. And most of the major revival has come
because of what he called people movement. Take an example like
See
we don’t realize the impact on the whole world when key leaders get touched. The bible originally was in Greek and in
Hebrew and then in the Roman days they all were translated into Latin. But by
the time of the 16-century most people were English speaking and Latin became
an archaic language. So the people didn’t have the bible in their common
language. Then when the first group of people began translating the bible, the
translators were arrested and burnt at the stake. One martyr cried out the last
prayer. The prayer of martyr is very powerful. He said Lord open
the eyes of the king of
Now
lets look carefully of what the enemy is doing so that
we know how to do a spiritual battle.
Why does God want us to pray especially for leaders in the secular realm
and then the leaders in the spiritual realm in the
Let me just illustrate a little bit more. In the book of Daniel chapter 10:13 Gabriel
the angel said but the prince of the
In
Rom. 8:26 The Spirit Himself makes intercession for us with groaning which
cannot be uttered. The groaning is one of the 5 sensations of the spirit
man. And the groaning is a particular
sensation that speaks of a sort of a burden coming down upon us. Lets us look at Mk. 8:12 But He sighed deeply in His
spirit and said. Notice He was
sighing deeply in His spirit. And
groaning is one of 5 senses of the spirit man. It is the prayer burden that
comes that rises inside us. It is the
same word that found in Mk. 7:34 Then
looking up to heaven He sighed and said ephphatha and
that is be opened. What is sensed within is a sort of a burden that rises
within us. In the spiritual is like
something that needs to be lifted. And you lift it off in your prayer. It
senses sometimes like heaviness in your spirit.
And some people have sensed that spirit and don't know what to do about
that. Don't know how to lift it up to the Lord.
But that heaviness of the spirit is what we call intercessory sensation.
For example, I am praying for a brother who
has not known Christ yet. Suddenly God puts his burden upon me. The
intercessory sensation that He sends becomes yours and you carry it to the
Lord. That is what the priest in the Old Testament does; he brings the
sacrifices of the people, slaughter them and bring them to God on behalf of the
people. The bible tells us that we are all anointed by God to be kings and
priests. Although a lot of people prefer
to be kings than priests, I think we need to learn to be kings and
priests. The wonderful thing is that the
bible always uses the terms kings and priests together. I believe you cannot learn the kingship
authority unless you learn the priestly authority. This seems to be twin
anointing of a believer. So what he
feels becomes mine. In a sense it is like the cross that Jesus carry where He
died for our sins
|
HOME I INDEX I PRAYER
REQUESTS SITES I LINKS I CONTACT US I TOP |
|
|