prayer

Is it possible to live free from fear in this dangerous and unpredictable world? Yes, it most definitely is! Because protection is a solid promise of God.

But it's not a promise that's offered to just anyone. It is promised to those who abide in the Lord. To abide means "to dwell, to remain and to continue." To abide in the shadow of the Almighty is to live in continual union with Him, keeping His Word and obeying His voice. Those who abide in the Lord can live without dread of what the devil will do.

Someone once said that the reason I can live like I do is because I have "special faith." But, you know, that's just not true. I don't have "special faith." God has given me the same measure of faith He's given to you and every other believer. The only reason my faith looks like it works better is because I use it!

You've been there many times, standing in the valley of decision. Perched precariously between victory and defeat. On one side of you is the word of the world authored by Satan that says, for example, "You're not going to get healed." On the other side of you, the Word of God is saying, "My Word is yea and amen" and "By whose stripes, ye were healed" (1 Peter 2:24). Who will determine how it all turns out? You will. You're the establishing witness.

Unfortunately most of us don’t know the first thing about fighting the kind of war this scripture refers to. For, as Ephesians 6:10-12 says, it’s not a battle of flesh and blood, but of the spirit.

Most believers are so earthly minded (or carnally minded) that they never even realize where the enemy’s attacks are actually coming from. They blame circumstances and people, and they waste their energy fighting natural conditions instead of supernatural causes.

We need to wake up to the warfare that’s going on in the heavenly realm!

Abiding in Jesus isn’t something that comes automatically to any believer. It’s a lifestyle that involves discipline and effort.

We have to choose to give ourselves to our union with Him, to give Him first place where our attention is concerned. If we want to grow spiritually, if we want to walk in power and in fellowship with the Lord, we’ll have to spend the time it takes to know Him.

That’s not something we can do for a while and then forget about either. We must continue in it every day. For the moment we stop moving closer to Jesus, we always start drifting away.

Remember when you first got into the Word and were so excited about the things of God? Remember when you could hardly wait to read the next chapter in the Bible or listen to the latest teaching tape? There was only one word to describe you—hot! Your reborn spirit was on fire for God.

If you’re going to live in divine health, there are going to be times when you’ll have to be downright extreme about the Word of God. Times when you may be facing a sickness so severe that you need more than just a few moments in the Word and a quick prayer to receive your healing.

I want to tell you, in very practical terms, what I would do in a situation like that.

We are commanded to pray for our country and our leaders. But having prayed, God expects us to act. The elections in the United States are vital to the future of this nation. Our country is in the midst of a spiritual outpouring, and it’s vitally important that the right people be elected. We must see to it.

Did you know that the seemingly innocent things in your everyday life can suffocate your spiritual life if you allow it?

A friend of mine said the Lord told her in prayer one day that this nation had become a nation of maintenance men. You have so many things to maintain, He told her. You maintain your house. You maintain your car, your yard, your machines, your hair....

It’s true. You can become a maintainer of so many natural things that you don’t have any time left to maintain your own spirit!

When someone hurts us, our natural human reaction is to strike back...to ask God to clobber them. But that’s not God’s way.

I realized that one time when some relatives of mine got robbed. I was praying about the situation and puzzling over it. “Lord,” I began to ask, “why did You let that happen? Why didn’t You just knock that thief over the head when he tried to do that?”

Suddenly, God enabled me to back up from that situation and look at it with spiritual, instead of just purely natural, eyes.

According to Romans, hope is actually looking at something you can’t see. How do you do that? You do it by looking at the promises of God in the Word until with your inner eyes—the eyes of your spirit—a picture is formed.

For example, one of the hardest things I ever had to do was face the fact that the inner image I had of myself physically was fat. It didn’t matter how hard I tried to change, it wouldn’t go away. I was always on a diet. I must have lost (and regained) hundreds of pounds over the years.

Have you ever noticed that you are sometimes aware of certain things even before you know what the Word says about them? That’s because the Holy Spirit is inside you teaching you the truth. He speaks into your spirit. Then your spirit relays His promptings to your mind. Suddenly, you’ll have a new thought. I need to forgive that person, you’ll think, or I need to stop saying those unkind things.

Jesus compares the workings of the kingdom of God to planting seeds in the earth. “When the seed is sown,” He said, “it grows up....”

Notice He didn’t say that it would occasionally grow up. Or it grows up if it’s God’s will. He said, “It grows up and becomes greater.” Period.

God’s economy isn’t like ours. It isn’t up one day and down the other. It’s always the same and it always works perfectly. If you have good earth, good seed and good water, you’re going to have growth. It’s inevitable.

So, if you’re facing a need, don’t panic...plant a seed!

If, as God tells us in 1 Timothy 2:4, it’s His will for all men to be saved, why aren’t we seeing more of the masses of lost people born again every day? Have you ever wondered that?

I have...and as I’ve sought the Lord about it, I’ve come to realize that, for the most part, it’s because those of us who are already saved don’t pray persistently for those who aren’t. Instead of persevering—staying before the Father, praying for them to receive the bread of salvation—like the man in Luke 11:8 did for his friend, when we don’t see immediate results, we simply give up and go home.

As long as you live on this earth, you’re going to be saddled with a weakness. What is it? The flesh and blood body you live in. It’s a body that’s subject to death. A body that’s subject to the physical world around you.

Your reborn spirit doesn’t want to sin. It wants to be completely obedient to God. But the weakness of the flesh causes you to fall prey to the temptations around you.

Does that mean you’re doomed to a life of failure till Jesus comes and that flesh body is glorified?

The Greek text of that scripture would literally read, “I give you the keys of the kingdom. Whatever you declare locked on earth is locked in heaven and whatever you declare unlocked on earth is unlocked in the heavenlies.”

The heaven Jesus was talking about there isn’t the heaven where God resides. He was talking about the battle zone, about the heaven where Satan’s forces are operating.

He was telling us that God has given us power to bind the wicked spirits in heavenly places and to loose the angelic powers of God to work in our behalf.

God’s will is to lead you on a day-by-day basis. He’s given His Spirit to guide you every day.

Most believers don’t know that. They expect God to reveal His complete will for their lives in one big revelation. Don’t make that mistake. Don’t just sit around waiting for God to show you whether or not He wants you to go to Africa for the rest of your life.

Let Him begin to lead you in little things first, to tell you what you need to do about this situation or that one. He’ll show you what you need to change. And, as He does, you’ll change one thing at a time.

Someone’s done you wrong! Sooner or later it happens to all of us. Somewhere along the way, we all get hurt or cheated or lied to or abused.

It’s as predictable as it is painful. Yet when it happens most of us find ourselves strangely unprepared. In our outrage, we often cry out to God against the one who wronged us. We ask for justice, or even vengeance, and end up making things tougher on everyone involved—including ourselves.

If that’s been true of you, it’s time you found out how you can put the power of God to work for you the next time someone does you wrong.

Don’t ever short-circuit a miracle by trying to see it in progress! So many believers do that. They’ll lay hands on someone and pray for healing or deliverance and then, when they don’t see any immediate, outward change take place, they’ll withdraw their faith and assume nothing happened.

That verse is clear, isn’t it? The instruction is plain. Yet even in these tumultuous days when our nation is so desperately in need of God’s guidance, most of God’s people don’t do what that verse commands.

Why not?

I believe it’s because most of us are overwhelmed by the problems we see around us. How could my prayers make a dent in the national debt? we think. How could my faith affect foreign policy?

In other words, we fail to pray because we fail to realize just how powerfully our prayers can affect this country.