Ah, noble intentions. You know how it goes--you start out with a brilliant plan to write a convicting, insightful blog post on a new DTS topic each week, and then suddenly it's week 9 and you haven't written anything since week 3. Not to name names, but well, let's just say I'm chock-full of noble intentions...
Anyways, where to begin? We'll start with week 4, which was worship and intercession week here at YWAM Perth. All 4 DTS's crowded into an upstairs classroom for a week of teaching by the hilariously expressive Christine Weiner, and I'll just say it was a lot of fun. Christine has a real talent for interactive teaching, especially when it comes to prayer. It's one thing to tell an audience of sleepy teenagers to be active and engaged in intercession, it's quite another to tell your audience to be active and engaged as you chuck tennis balls at them.
If you're like me, you might view prayer as kind of boring and ultimately unnecessary. It's easy to fall into a pattern of expecting God's will to come about automatically. If God is sovereign, His will will be done no matter what we pray, so why bother? Unfortunately, this fatalistic thinking undermines our spiritual authority and renders our broad, halfhearted prayers largely ineffective. To combat apathy in your own prayer life, here's Christine Weiner's 5 keys to effective prayer. Your welcome.
5 Keys to Effective Prayer:
1. God is who He says He is: Either God is completely true or He’s a liar. John 14:6 says God is the way, the truth, and the life. He is described as having no deceit in Him--He is completely trustworthy. We believe in God's power and we pray to tell God what we’re believing Him for. Do your prayers reflect your faith in God's ability to provide for you, or do you pray general, vague prayers for fear of being disappointed? If you're in doubt of how to pray, read the Psalms. Psalm 4:3 says, "the Lord hears when I call to Him." Psalm 5:3, "O Lord, in the morning you hear my voice; in the morning I prepare a sacrifice for you and watch." Come into prayer with faith that God hears you and have expectation that He will act. Don't be worried about asking to much of Him, of hurting His feelings with your pain. You have permission to pray specific, aggressive prayers. God is the truth, therefore, He can handle the truth. There's a lot that's wrong with our world, and God hates it. God hates injustice so much more than you do and He doesn’t ignore the cries of those who suffer. It comes down to a choice: if we choose to mistrust God, our prayers are ineffective and our relationship with Him rots. If we choose to believe God, we gain power in our prayers. The reason prayer becomes passive is because we don’t believe prayer makes a difference.
2. God does what He says He will do: If God is who He says He is, we can know that if He tells you to do something, He will give you everything you need to accomplish that task. God has promised to never leave or forsake us and He always keeps His promises. When you're feeling overwhelmed, you can cling to the promises of God. It's not presumptuous to remind God of His promises---Moses and God Himself often reminded Israel of His promises. Sometimes we need a reminder of God's faithfulness in our lives. Reminding ourselves of the capacity of God builds our faith, and it's impossible to pray without faith. Faith runs to get what hope sees. Faith runs to get the breakthrough. There’s a sense of urgency with faith---it doesn’t wait, it runs to get what God sees. Faith will by nature activate and produce on the earth what God sees.
3. I am who God says I am: As we pray, we must have the mind of Christ. We can believe God is who He says He is and have faith that He’ll do what He says He’ll do, but we can still have doubts about who we are. We get obsessed with "finding ourselves," but it's so simple---you are who God says you are. Who does God say you are? God has called you to be an intercessor on behalf of others. You have been given all the authority of heaven through the indwelling power of the Holy Spirit. You have power in prayer. Hold firmly to who God says you are.
4. I can do all things through Christ who gives me strength: God works with people. Jesus could have fed the 5,000 himself, but instead He told His disciples to feed them. God blesses obedience. Take the little bits and pieces of your life and offer it to God, and He will anoint you.
5. God’s word is alive and active in me: Words have incredible power. The entire universe came about by a simple pronouncement from God. Jesus Himself is described as the Word. When you speak out God’s word, it brings life. You can dispel fear by reading out scriptures that speak on the love of God, the power of God, the mightiness of God. God’s word is described as living and active-- it demands our response. We must respond to the truth of God's word by actively seeking His voice in our specific circumstances. It is in God's nature to communicate, but we have to be listening for His word. In the parable of the Good Shepherd, the sheep respond to the Shepherd because they recognize His voice. The more time we spend listening to God and obeying Him, the more we will learn to know our Shepherd’s voice. Sometimes we make hearing God’s voice too complicated, like it has to sound a certain way, but God speaks to us with the simplicity of a child. When God spoke in the past, He spoke in a way that people understood. God is determined to speak to you and He will speak to you. God speaks your heart language.
Good stuff, huh? This is just a snapshot of everything we covered that week, but I hope it will encourage you to take up your spiritual authority and stand in the gap for those who can't stand for themselves. God has called you to be an intercessor---to pray for God's will to be done on the earth and stand against the schemes of the enemy. It's a high calling, but also an incredible privilege. So go out and be warfare for those who can't fight for themselves and watch the world change!
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