prayer coach

• Prayer is the divine equalizer. Some preach, other teach, a few sing publicly, but all can pray.
  
• The greatest blow sent Satan-ward is made by weeping warriors of prayer.
  
• The greatest hindrance to effective prayer is sin. Satan’s greatest goal is to keep us from our knees.
  
• The heartbeat of intercession is servanthood.
  
• To pray with bitterness toward fellowmen nullifies hours on our knees.

image courtesy of How It Should Have Ended

I heard a great analogy from my former worship pastor Stephen Roach that related to the last post. He shared how in the book version of The Wizard of Oz Dorothy was talked to the Wicked Witch of the West by the flying monkeys. When the witch saw what Dorothy had in the gifts from the good witch, she became very afraid to the point wanting to run. But then she saw into Dorothy’s eyes and could tell that she did not know what she had. The witch knew that she could still make Dorothy her slave because Dorothy did not know how to use the power she had been given. The only thing the witch could do was to deceive Dorothy in thinking she did not have the power that had been given to her.

Sounds vaguely familiar to our enemy.

Lately my oldest daughter had been refusing to ask God for help. She is young but has always loved Jesus and the Bible. My wife and I have tried to reason with her about how important it is to go to God for help and she would just go ballistic, completely out of character for her.

Some of the tactics we have tried have been to assure her of God’s love. He is not mad with her when she needs help. He loves her so much and loves to see her coming to Him.

Another is to help her know that she is not too insignificant for God. He cares about her so much that He will come to her every need. But, He can’t help her if she would let Him. He wants the invite. (O, I know God can do whatever He wants, but we can’t count on the rescue if we are holding Him at bay).

Another is to reassure her of His response. He will not get angry at her for her mistakes. Every bit of disappoint or anger He may have ever had with us was put on Jesus at the cross. He has no anger left for us. He looks at us with love. You can come to Him with confidence.

The other day we were going over this again with her and she just retreated into a ball on the couch. We recognized that what was going on was beyond just her lack of understanding. She was being attacked by an evil spirit.

As her parents and spiritual authority, we took authority over the spirit and told it to leave. This was not an exorcist moment as the media often displays, but more like when a cop asks you for your driver’s license. There is no yelling or anger. You do it because both of you know he has authority.

• Every need is a call to prayer.
  
• A Christian should know more about the operation of his spirit than about the activity of his mind.
  
• A person who wholly follows the Lord is one who believes that the promises of God are trustworthy, that He is with His people, and that they are well able to overcome.
  
• A spiritual Christian must experimentally know the Holy Spirit in his spirit.
  
• Faith looks not at what happens to him but at Him Whom he believes.
  
• How true it is that without the guidance of the Holy Spirit intellect not only is undependable but also extremely dangerous, because it often confuses the issue of right and wrong.
  
• How we need the Lord to enlighten our eyes that we may comprehend afresh the importance of prayer and know anew its value. Furthermore, we must recognize that had Satan not deceived us we would not be neglecting prayer so much. We should therefore watch and discover therein all the various wiles of Satan. We will not allow him to delude us any more in relaxing in prayer.
  
• If we were more disposed today to mind the voice of conscience we would not be as defeated as we are.
  
• Many are so preoccupied with work that they allow little time for prayer.
  
• Many confuse understanding with believing.
  
• Negligence in prayer withers the inner man.
  
• Nowadays Christians appear to treat prayer as a means to accomplish their aims and ideas.  If they possessed just a little deeper understanding, they would recognize that prayer is but man uttering to God what is God’s will.
  

image used courtesy of Project M: Marriage Blog

Recently God is putting a lot of people in my path that are struggling in their marriages. There is a consistent encouragement that God has been allowing me to share that I think appropriate here.

Many people with marriage issues face an emotional roller coaster. Good days and bad days. The good days are encouraging, but they are also emotionally draining because you just do not know what you are going to get. Some days your spouse thinks you are the source of everything wrong; other days they are offering hope to something better.

What is going on? Is your spouse bi-polar? How come you do not know what you are going to get?

On those good days, your spouse is living out of their true self. All God’s works are wonderful therefore when our lives reflect the fruit of the Spirit, we are living out of who God created us to be (Psalm 139:14 and Galatians 5:22). Even if your spouse is not a Christian, deep down God has created in them the desire to have a good and healthy marriage with you.

Since this is God’s will for your spouse, the enemy will try to steal, kill, and destroy it (John 10:10). He is feeding lies into your spouse about you, them, and your marriage. Therefore the ups and downs in your marriage are your spouse’s choice over which voice they will listen to.

Now before you think this is only a matter of spiritual warfare, your spouse does have responsibility in the matter. And, choices they have made in the past allow the enemy greater influence.

I have heard said that the biggest problem in the church today is that it does know how to differentiate the voice of God and the voice of Satan. I would like to argue that this statement is correct.

We know that Satan is our accuser. He is looking to steal from you, kill your desire, and destroy your life. He hates you. How can the church possible mistake that terrible voice with the loving Father?

Easy, we think they are our voice. Have you ever had thoughts of shame, depression, and unworthiness? Where do they originate? Do you really hate yourself? Does God hate you? No, Satan is the one who hates you. He is the one who wants to see you fail and wants to keep you from walking into all that God has for you.

How do we differentiate between the voice of the enemy and the voice of God? The more we know the character of God; the more we will know His voice. God loves us. God is for us. God believes in us. God will lead us to hope and life. (If you doubt any of this read Romans 8 multiple times.)

This is so important because you will live out of the voice you are listening to. If you believe the lies Satan throws at you that you are worthless, a failure, and that those you love would be better off without you, than you will not live out of the unique calling God placed into your life. Instead you will try to be whoever you can that would cause you the least amount of pain. If you believe that if people knew the real you they would reject you, then you will always live your life behind a mask so nobody would ever know the real you.

Today I received a devotional from Rod Parsley about Jesus praying for us.  I encourage you to read it because he does a great job linking Romans 8:34 to Luke 22:31-32.  Who is it that condemns you? Not God! “Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus!” (Romans 8:1).  Who is it that condemns us? Satan, and anyone else he can tempt to try to condemn us, including ourselves. Satan comes to steal, kill and destroy and Jesus comes that we may have life (John 10:10). And, yes, not only does Jesus not condemn us he is continually interceding for us to remind everyone why we are not condemned. He wants you to know that you are His. All condemnation had been placed on Him and He conquered it when He raised from the dead.

We have a choice of which voice we will follow. Will it be the voice of condemnation or the voice of life? Our prayers are an agreement with what the Son of God has already said is true about us, others, and the world around us. Listen to what His Spirit is saying to you and pray along with Him as partners in His work.