“14But above all these things put on love, which is the bond of perfection. 15And let the peace of God rule in your hearts, to which also you were called in one body, and be thankful. 16Let the Word of Christ, dwell in you richly in all wisdom, teaching and admonishing one another in Psalms and hymns, and spiritual songs, singing with grace in your hearts, to the Lord. 17And whatsoever you do in word and deed do all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through Him.”

Now we have talked about putting on love and singing with grace in our heart. We talked about being beautified with salvation and now Romans 13:14 says, “Put on the Lord Jesus Christ.” We discussed this in length in the last lesson, but did you know that when you are put on the Lord Jesus Christ, you are wearing Jesus? And when people see you, they see Jesus in you, on you and through you. Now whether or not they know it is Him or not is irrelevant. How many of you that if the Lord Jesus came and started walking in this city today and dressed normal, that most people would not know it is Jesus? So don’t expect them to recognize the Jesus in you when they see you. They are not going to say, “Wow! I see Jesus in you.” No, they are going to say, “I can see something different about you” and that something is going to draw them to ask you about what it is they see. What you have done is – you have put on the Lord Jesus Christ and He is shining through you. You have chosen to identify with the Lord Jesus by walking out His Word in your life. So what happens? When people see you, they see Jesus. It’s important though that you remember that you and Jesus are not separate entities anymore. You have been made one with Him. Through His death, He has killed the old nature in you so that He can raise the new nature in you. Now when you put Him on, you are causing His life to live through you, and your life and His has now become energized by the victory of Calvary.

Romans 13:14 says, “Make no provision for the flesh.” Why is that? If the devil can get you to associate yourself with who you used to be, you will begin to operate under the curse of the fall and reap the benefits of that curse. The devil wants equal time in your life. He will try to convince you that it is “balance”. No! You cannot mix the Word of God and the report of the Lord with man’s report and come out with balance. If you do, you will come out with error. True accuracy is believing God. The issues of life do not come from God. God has got Himself it together? No, we are the problem, and He is going to straighten us out and so we “make no provision for the flesh” or the old nature. That is why the Bible tells us to “Give no place to the devil.” (Eph 4:27) I don’t know about you, but that tells me that there is something I must do to ensure the devil gets no foothold in my life? So what do I do when I am tempted to go back to my old way of doing things? I tell the devil with boldness, “No, that’s the old man. That is not me!” Now people will say, “Wait a minute! That is too you!” You answer, “No, it isn’t, that is the old man. That person is dead in Jesus!” What are you telling this person? You are saying, “Look, I have completely annihilated satan’s foothold any place in my life because I believe that Jesus through His death on the cross, killed the old nature I used to have.” That’s right! Through His sacrifice on the cross, Jesus annihilated the devil’s foothold over every area of the life of the every believer. That’s why the devil works overtime to try to convince you that you are not who God said you are because if you believe you are who God says you are, he has no place in you and no ability to influence your life.

John 14:30 says, “The devil comes and has nothing in me!” Why is this important to know? If you can say this with conviction, the devil is in trouble because He will have no place in you. He cannot touch you. That is why the Bible tells you to not give equal time to the flesh. Do not give the new man some time and the old man some time. Do not be to the many viewpoints of the world. Just be open to the Word of God only. GIVE NO PLACE TO THE DEVIL! GIVE NO PLACE TO THE FLESH! PUT ON THE LORD JESUS CHRIST! Do not get caught up the traditions of man and religion. Do not put walk one foot in the Word of God and the other in the world, and call it balance. Put on the Lord Jesus Christ and His extremely zealous, Godly Word-based conduct. You let Jesus live on the inside of you. Remember, do not let yourself see you and He as separate entities. You are both joined as one, therefore His victories are yours now through faith. Your failures in the past were already judged in Him on the cross. You are one in nature. Through His death, He has broken the old man in Him so that He could raise a new man in Him.

“So put on the Lord Jesus Christ in your mind, in your thought life, in your awareness, and in your meditations. Realize your identity is eternally linked in Him.”

Now when God created Adam, the Genesis 1:26-27 said,

“Then God said, “Let Us make man in our image, according to Our likeness; let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the air, and over the cattle, over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.” 27So God created man in His own image; in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them.”

Here the Bible calls mankind “man” and if you read closely, you will see that man is distinguished apart from the rest of creation. By doing so, the earth and the children of men are recognized as a breed, a species, all to itself. Now every species of living things has a certain way of acting and there are those who will tell try to convince us through so called science, which is nothing in the world but religion of evolution, that man evolved, but you can look at breeds such as the cat and dog, and see that there is nothing evolving. A cat is a cat and a dog is a dog. Two different species each acting like the species it belongs to. Well by the same token, a human belongs to the human family and will have common ground with those within the human family. So when God said mankind, He was talking about a species of creation that He made after His image and His likeness. When Jesus became a new man, He became the last Adam. Through Him, a new species, a new breed, a new race of men and women created in the image of holiness now live. This new breed godly men/women will bear the characteristics of the Head or the Procreator, Jesus, but it is enough to just know that fact. You have to be changed, but to be changed and owe nothing to the flesh, and give no place to the flesh, you have got to allow the new Procreator, Jesus, to change your mind and your confidence, and transform or lead you far away from the old man, so as to bring you closer to the new man you were intended to be.

So we are not only going to find out who we are in Him, we are going to put that knowledge to work. As we do, we will begin to see the result of what we believe. See the problem is many of us fall into a trap. As we are studying and learning faith, we try to put faith to work in the natural by seeing if it will produce a tangible something outside of us, and in so doing, we miss God. Then we will say, “It doesn’t work. I tried to believe God for a car and it didn’t happen.” That is kind of backwards isn’t it? You should first believe God for a change in your spirit and a change in your mind because faith is there to primarily make you a different person. Now when you get that revelation of that different person and you find out that he is already blessed, everything in the natural realm will comply with that. Faith begins with change, a change that takes us out of the old and takes us into the new. So a man’s life does not measured by the abundance of the things he possesses. Faith is measured by who the man has become. Now once he has become and is becoming what God has made him to be, he will have possessions. He will have victory and success in life, but it will not be because God did something for him, it will be because God did something in Him. That means that in order for God to create in you a change that produces faith, you have to hear the Word. You have to explore the Word. You have to meditate on and draw strength out of the Word itself.

Now let’s turn to John 1:12-13. It reads,

“12But as many as received Him, to them He gave the right to become children of God, to those who believe in His name: 13who were born, not of blood, nor of the will of flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God.”

The Bible tells us how the Word became flesh (John 1:14). The invisible, nontangible, spiritual Word of God became a physical, tangible, flesh, bone and blood person. The Word, Himself, became incarnated and became human. When you saw Him, He was thinking, but it was the Word. He was living, but it was the Word. He was speaking, but it was the living Word. When He sat down, it was the Word sitting with you. When He walked around, it was the Word walking around with you. That Word took not only a human form, not only a human identity, but that Word through an act of faith took your old identity in Him, and when He broke His body, He literally was breaking the natural manifestation in the earth realm that God had pre-ordained to be your substitute in order to deliver you from eternal hell.

The Bible says He took the bread and broke it, saying, “This is my body which is broken for you. Take, Eat …” (1 Corinthians 11:24-30) So it is not enough to know the Bible, you got to eat the Bible. How many of you said, “No thank you! I ate about a month ago. I know how that tastes.” No one right! Yet people come to church all the time and they sit there and say, “I don’t hear anything new. I ate that before.” Isn’t that interesting because it is not what you know. Are you eating the thing because when you eat, life flows in you? You feel good. How many of you know you get grouchy when you are hungry? Then somebody says, “What is wrong with you? Did you eat today?” You see the Bible is not just something you know, it is something you continue to partake of because it does not matter how many times you have eaten that Word before, if you are hungry, it will taste each time you hear it. As a matter of fact, partaking of the Word is God’s way to allow His power to continue to flow in you. Now when you are partaking of that Word, what is it doing? It is giving you new life that can only reach you and benefit you if you can relate to it. That means you have to have something in common between you and the Word of God, otherwise it is irrelevant to you. The Bible said, “If we walk in the light as He is in the light, we have fellowship (koinonia) or communion with one another, that is, we have things in common. (1 John 1:7) What do you think you have in common with Jesus?

Let me tell you some things.

• You are human. He became human.
• You used to be a sinner. He was made sin for you although He didn’t know any (2 Cor 5:21)
• You are tempted. He was tempted in all points like you are yet without sin. (Heb 4:12)
• You were worthy of death. He died for you
• You should have went to hell. He went down to hell for you.

As you can see, you have a lot in common with Jesus. As you walk in the light the Word becomes relevant to you. What does that mean? It means you have something in common with the Word. The Word connects to you in a personal way. Have you ever sat with people and they said, “No, I don’t eat that! Do you have anything else?” What are they doing? They are refusing to eat. They are refusing to be partakers of the meal because they have nothing in common it. What is the meal spiritually speaking? It is the Word. Now that is a bad place to be for when the Lord begins to talk to you about something, if you cannot partake of it or relate to it, it will not benefit you.

Have you ever heard someone say, “But I know that already, preach to me something I haven’t heard. I heard that before”? I hear it all the time, but what you must realize is the Word doesn’t do you any good if you just know it, you have to have something in common with it. Now let me tell you how common ground comes. You see somebody that failed God in the Bible will and you say, “If it was not for the grace of salvation, I would be there.” You see somebody please God in the Bible and you say, “That’s me through the power of the Holy Ghost.” You see Jesus winning and overcoming and you say, “Through Him I have that same authority.” You are finding common ground. Do you know what you are doing? You are eating or partaking of the Word. What does that do? It allows the life of the Word to become your life. How? You are assimilating that thing.

Let me ask you something. How many of you lie awake at night worrying how you are going to digest the food you ate in order to cause it to give your body strength? No! Your job is to just eat the thing. As a matter of fact, you do not even give it a second thought. We walk around as if it is normal. Now the Word of God is like that. Your spirit man will detect the good news and go out after it. Listen, the rational mind will talk him out of that – It will say, “Don’t eat that! Make sure…” But your spirit man will know the good news. You spirit man will go after it. Your job is to just eat the Word. Once you eat the Word, it is the job of the Holy Ghost to cause that Word to live and give strength to portions of your being causing the new man to live and to be strong. As you begin to eat the Word, you are partaking of revelation knowledge through the power of the Spirit because of the common ground and things with which Jesus has made available to you. So what happens is – what is His, becomes yours. His nature is given to you. How are we given this nature? The Bible tells us that His divine power has given to us exceeding great and precious promises that through these we become a partaker or an associate with God and His divine nature. (2 Pet 1:4) Now how come many people know the promises, but don’t have the divine nature? It is not enough to know it the promises, you got to eat it. You have to anchor your faith to these promises.

Now it is a sad day when food sits before you and you refuse to eat. I tell you, you can be starving to death and roll around in plates full of food and still die of starvation. You know how it feels. You know how it smells and yet you die anyway. Don’t roll in it, eat it! There are people who have perfected the art of just analytically evaluating the Word of God and not allowing it to feed their spirit. If the Word is irrelevant to you, if you haven’t identified that it is food, if you don’t know you are hungry, then you are not going to eat and go about with little change in your life. You have got to recognize two things –

1) Recognize your hunger
2) Recognize food and begin to assimilate it or eat it, that you might receive the strength you
need from it.

Now the Word became flesh for a reason. He became flesh so that He could provide the food of heaven so that our spirit can continue to live and to be strong.

Let’s look at Elijah, the prophet, during the time he was running away from Jezebel because she said, “I’m going to kill you.” He sits down under the Juniper tree. He had been anointed. He had outran a chariot for over twenty miles, but when the anointing lifted, all of a sudden his life was in danger. He said, “God kill me”. Suddenly, an angel shows up and makes him some food and feeds him. The Bible said, “He was able to walk in the strength of that for many days.” That is what the Bible is saying, “Get around the Word of God and get heavenly food in your spirit so that your spirit man can once again relate to who he is”. Now you can be an athlete who has never been defeated, but if you haven’t eaten for a month, guess what happens? It doesn’t matter who you are. By the same token, it doesn’t matter if you have a new nature, you have to feed that new nature. You have to let that new nature live on a new heavenly diet. You have to let that Word go on the inside of you and fill you. Some people say, “I just don’t have that time to spend to study in the Bible”. Jesus is coming soon. You are going to live by what you eat.

The Word of God is food. It is life to those who find it (Prov 4:20). It is health to all their flesh (Pro 4:21-22). You got to feed the spirit man so that the spirit man can live. Do you know what happens in him? He rises up and he becomes strong. The Word helps your spirit man live out his identity. So in light of that, the Bibles said, “As many as received Him, to them gave the power”. The Word “power” here is the word “Exousia”. This is not like dunamis, a power that generates himself like the one He gave us on the day of Pentacost. This is a different word for “power”. It means a sense of ability. He gave them the ability, privilege, force, capacity, competency, a freedom, a mastery, a delegated influence, a jurisdiction, a liberty, a power, a right and a strength to become sons of God. Now that Word “become” is the word “ginomai” in the Greek. It means “came into being”. Webster’s Dictionary said, “To grow up to be” or “change” or “develop into by growth.

Are you sincere about changing into or developing? If you, then it is not enough to know how to change, you have to make a decision to diligently pursue that change. Now watch what he said, “To as many as received, to them gave He an ability, a delegated authority, a competence, a privilege, a force to be able to grow up to be and become a son of God.” He said, “that delegated authority secures and ensures your ability to become a son of God” and yet there are still people living their life as a child spiritually. As a result, they die as a child, and go to heaven saying, “How come you didn’t do this Lord?” And God will say, “Listen, I gave you the job, the job description, the privilege, the delegated authority to grow up and become a son.” That means you won’t be able to blame God for not raising the dead through you. You are not going to be able to blame Him for not healing the sick through you. You are not going to be able to blame Him for not prospering your life or causing it to radiate with the glory of Calvary. The only blame is going to be on you for not putting to work the “Exousia” or power given to you. If however, you do, then something will happen. Whether you know it or not, you are working hard to remain where you are.

Remember Colossians 3:14-17 says, “14But above all these things put on love, which is the bond of perfection. 15And let the peace of God rule in your hearts, to which also you were called in one body, and be thankful. 16Let the Word of Christ, dwell in you richly in all wisdom, teaching and admonishing one another in Psalms and hymns, and spiritual songs, singing with grace in your hearts, to the Lord. 17And whatsoever you do in word and deed do all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through Him.”

Now we have talked about putting on love and singing with grace in our heart. We talked about being beautified with salvation and now Romans 13:14 says, “Put on the Lord Jesus Christ.” We discussed this in length in the last lesson, but did you know that when you are put on the Lord Jesus Christ, you are wearing Jesus? And when people see you, they see Jesus in you, on you and through you. Now whether or not they know it is Him or not is irrelevant. How many of you that if the Lord Jesus came and started walking in this city today and dressed normal, that most people would not know it is Jesus? So don’t expect them to recognize the Jesus in you when they see you. They are not going to say, “Wow! I see Jesus in you.” No, they are going to say, “I can see something different about you” and that something is going to draw them to ask you about what it is they see. What you have done is – you have put on the Lord Jesus Christ and He is shining through you. You have chosen to identify with the Lord Jesus by walking out His Word in your life. So what happens? When people see you, they see Jesus. It’s important though that you remember that you and Jesus are not separate entities anymore. You have not been made one with Him. Through His death, He has killed the old nature in you so that He can raise the new nature in you. Now when you put Him on, you are causing His life to live through you, and your life and His has now become energized by the victory of Calvary.

Romans 13:14 says, “Make no provision for the flesh.” Why is that? If the devil can get you to associate yourself with who you used to be, you will begin to operate under the curse of the fall and reap the benefits of that curse. The devil wants equal time in your life. He will try to convince you that it is “balance”. No! You cannot mix the Word of God and the report of the Lord with man’s report and come out with balance. If you do, you will come out with error. True accuracy is believing God. The issues of life do not come from God. God has got Himself it together? No, we are the problem, and He is going to straighten us out and so we “make no provision for the flesh” or the old nature. That is why the Bible tells us to “Give no place to the devil.” (Eph 4:27) I don’t know about you, but that tells me that there is something I must do to ensure the devil gets no foothold in my life? So what do I do when I am tempted to go back to my old way of doing things? I tell the devil with boldness, “No, that’s the old man. That is not me!” Now people will say, “Wait a minute! That is too you!” You answer, “No, it isn’t, that is the old man. That person is dead in Jesus!” What are you telling this person? You are saying, “Look, I have completely annihilated satan’s foothold any place in my life because I believe that Jesus through His death on the cross, killed the old nature I used to have.” That’s right! Through His sacrifice on the cross, Jesus annihilated the devil’s foothold over every area of the life of the every believer. That’s why the devil works overtime to try to convince you that you are not who God said you are because if you believe you are who God says you are, he has no place in you and no ability to influence your life.

John 14:30 says, “The devil comes and has nothing in me!” Why is this important to know? If you can say this with conviction, the devil is in trouble because He will have no place in you. He cannot touch you. That is why the Bible tells you to not give equal time to the flesh. Do not give the new man some time and the old man some time. Do not be to the many viewpoints of the world. Just be open to the Word of God only. GIVE NO PLACE TO THE DEVIL! GIVE NO PLACE TO THE FLESH! PUT ON THE LORD JESUS CHRIST! Do not get caught up the traditions of man and religion. Do not put walk one foot in the Word of God and the other in the world, and call it balance. Put on the Lord Jesus Christ and His extremely zealous, Godly Word-based conduct. You let Jesus live on the inside of you. Remember, do not let yourself see you and He as separate entities. You are both joined as one, therefore His victories are yours now through faith. Your failures in the past were already judged in Him on the cross. You are one in nature. Through His death, He has broken the old man in Him so that He could raise a new man in Him. “So put on the Lord Jesus Christ in your mind, in your thought life, in your awareness, and in your meditations. Realize your identity is eternally linked in Him.”

Now when God created Adam, the Genesis 1:26-27 said, “Then God said, “Let Us make man in our image, according to Our likeness; let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the air, and over the cattle, over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.” 27So God created man in His own image; in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them.”

Here the Bible calls mankind “man” and if you read closely, you will see that man is distinguished apart from the rest of creation. By doing so, the earth and the children of men are recognized as a breed, a species, all to itself. Now every species of living things has a certain way of acting and there are those who will tell try to convince us through so called science, which is nothing in the world but religion of evolution, that man evolved, but you can look at breeds such as the cat and dog, and see that there is nothing evolving. A cat is a cat and a dog is a dog. Two different species each acting like the species it belongs to. Well by the same token, a human belongs to the human family and will have common ground with those within the human family. So when God said mankind, He was talking about a species of creation that He made after His image and His likeness. When Jesus became a new man, He became the last Adam. Through Him, a new species, a new breed, a new race of men and women created in the image of holiness now live. This new breed godly men/women will bear the characteristics of the Head or the Procreator, Jesus, but it is enough to just know that fact. You have to be changed, but to be changed and owe nothing to the flesh, and give no place to the flesh, you have got to allow the new Procreator, Jesus, to change your mind and your confidence, and transform or lead you far away from the old man, so as to bring you closer to the new man you were intended to be.

So we are not only going to find out who we are in Him, we are going to put that knowledge to work. As we do, we will begin to see the result of what we believe. See the problem is many of us fall into a trap. As we are studying and learning faith, we try to put faith to work in the natural by seeing if it will produce a tangible something outside of us, and in so doing, we miss God. Then we will say, “It doesn’t work. I tried to believe God for a car and it didn’t happen.” That is kind of backwards isn’t it? You should first believe God for a change in your spirit and a change in your mind because faith is there to primarily make you a different person. Now when you get that revelation of that different person and you find out that he is already blessed, everything in the natural realm will comply with that. Faith begins with change, a change that takes us out of the old and takes us into the new. So a man’s life does not measured by the abundance of the things he possesses. Faith is measured by who the man has become. Now once he has become and is becoming what God has made him to be, he will have possessions. He will have victory and success in life, but it will not be because God did something for him, it will be because God did something in Him. That means that in order for God to create in you a change that produces faith, you have to hear the Word. You have to explore the Word. You have to meditate on and draw strength out of the Word itself.

Now let’s turn to John 1:12-13. It reads, “12But as many as received Him, to them He gave the right to become children of God, to those who believe in His name: 13who were born, not of blood, nor of the will of flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God.”

The Bible tells us how the Word became flesh (John 1:14). The invisible, nontangible, spiritual Word of God became a physical, tangible, flesh, bone and blood person. The Word, Himself, became incarnated and became human. When you saw Him, He was thinking, but it was the Word. He was living, but it was the Word. He was speaking, but it was the living Word. When He sat down, it was the Word sitting with you. When He walked around, it was the Word walking around with you. That Word took not only a human form, not only a human identity, but that Word through an act of faith took your old identity in Him, and when He broke His body, He literally was breaking the natural manifestation in the earth realm that God had pre-ordained to be your substitute in order to deliver you from eternal hell.

The Bible says He took the bread and broke it, saying, “This is my body which is broken for you. Take, Eat …” (1 Corinthians 11:24-30) So it is not enough to know the Bible, you got to eat the Bible. How many of you said, “No thank you! I ate about a month ago. I know how that tastes.” No one right! Yet people come to church all the time and they sit there and say, “I don’t hear anything new. I ate that before.” Isn’t that interesting because it is not what you know. Are you eating the thing because when you eat, life flows in you? You feel good. How many of you know you get grouchy when you are hungry? Then somebody says, “What is wrong with you? Did you eat today?” You see the Bible is not just something you know, it is something you continue to partake of because it does not matter how many times you have eaten that Word before, if you are hungry, it will taste each time you hear it. As a matter of fact, partaking of the Word is God’s way to allow His power to continue to flow in you. Now when you are partaking of that Word, what is it doing? It is giving you new life that can only reach you and benefit you if you can relate to it. That means you have to have something in common between you and the Word of God, otherwise it is irrelevant to you. The Bible said, “If we walk in the light as He is in the light, we have fellowship (koinonia) or communion with one another, that is, we have things in common. (1 John 1:7) What do you think you have in common with Jesus?

Let me tell you some things.

• You are human. He became human.

• You used to be a sinner. He was made sin for you although He didn’t know any (2 Cor 5:21)

• You are tempted. He was tempted in all points like you are yet without sin. (Heb 4:12)

• You were worthy of death. He died for you

• You should have went to hell. He went down to hell for you.

As you can see, you have a lot in common with Jesus. As you walk in the light the Word becomes relevant to you. What does that mean? It means you have something in common with the Word. The Word connects to you in a personal way. Have you ever sat with people and they said, “No, I don’t eat that! Do you have anything else?” What are they doing? They are refusing to eat. They are refusing to be partakers of the meal because they have nothing in common it. What is the meal spiritually speaking? It is the Word. Now that is a bad place to be for when the Lord begins to talk to you about something, if you cannot partake of it or relate to it, it will not benefit you.

Have you ever heard someone say, “But I know that already, preach to me something I haven’t heard. I heard that before”? I hear it all the time, but what you must realize is the Word doesn’t do you any good if you just know it, you have to have something in common with it. Now let me tell you how common ground comes. You see somebody that failed God in the Bible will and you say, “If it was not for the grace of salvation, I would be there.” You see somebody please God in the Bible and you say, “That’s me through the power of the Holy Ghost.” You see Jesus winning and overcoming and you say, “Through Him I have that same authority.” You are finding common ground. Do you know what you are doing? You are eating or partaking of the Word. What does that do? It allows the life of the Word to become your life. How? You are assimilating that thing.

Let me ask you something. How many of you lie awake at night worrying how you are going to digest the food you ate in order to cause it to give your body strength? No! Your job is to just eat the thing. As a matter of fact, you do not even give it a second thought. We walk around as if it is normal. Now the Word of God is like that. Your spirit man will detect the good news and go out after it. Listen, the rational mind will talk him out of that – It will say, “Don’t eat that! Make sure…” But your spirit man will know the good news. You spirit man will go after it. Your job is to just eat the Word. Once you eat the Word, it is the job of the Holy Ghost to cause that Word to live and give strength to portions of your being causing the new man to live and to be strong. As you begin to eat the Word, you are partaking of revelation knowledge through the power of the Spirit because of the common ground and things with which Jesus has made available to you. So what happens is – what is His, becomes yours. His nature is given to you. How are we given this nature? The Bible tells us that His divine power has given to us exceeding great and precious promises that through these we become a partaker or an associate with God and His divine nature. (2 Pet 1:4) Now how come many people know the promises, but don’t have the divine nature? It is not enough to know it the promises, you got to eat it. You have to anchor your faith to these promises.

Now it is a sad day when food sits before you and you refuse to eat. I tell you, you can be starving to death and roll around in plates full of food and still die of starvation. You know how it feels. You know how it smells and yet you die anyway. Don’t roll in it, eat it! There are people who have perfected the art of just analytically evaluating the Word of God and not allowing it to feed their spirit. If the Word is irrelevant to you, if you haven’t identified that it is food, if you don’t know you are hungry, then you are not going to eat and go about with little change in your life.

You have got to recognize two things –

1) Recognize your hunger

2) Recognize food and begin to assimilate it or eat it, that you might receive the strength you need from it.

Now the Word became flesh for a reason. He became flesh so that He could provide the food of heaven so that our spirit can continue to live and to be strong.

Let’s look at Elijah, the prophet, during the time he was running away from Jezebel because she said, “I’m going to kill you.” He sits down under the Juniper tree. He had been anointed. He had outran a chariot for over twenty miles, but when the anointing lifted, all of a sudden his life was in danger. He said, “God kill me”. Suddenly, an angel shows up and makes him some food and feeds him. The Bible said, “He was able to walk in the strength of that for many days.” That is what the Bible is saying, “Get around the Word of God and get heavenly food in your spirit so that your spirit man can once again relate to who he is”. Now you can be an athlete who has never been defeated, but if you haven’t eaten for a month, guess what happens? It doesn’t matter who you are. By the same token, it doesn’t matter if you have a new nature, you have to feed that new nature. You have to let that new nature live on a new heavenly diet. You have to let that Word go on the inside of you and fill you. Some people say, “I just don’t have that time to spend to study in the Bible”. Jesus is coming soon. You are going to live by what you eat.

The Word of God is food. It is life to those who find it (Prov 4:20). It is health to all their flesh (Pro 4:21-22). You got to feed the spirit man so that the spirit man can live. Do you know what happens in him? He rises up and he becomes strong. The Word helps your spirit man live out his identity. So in light of that, the Bibles said, “As many as received Him, to them gave the power”. The Word “power” here is the word “Exousia”. This is not like dunamis, a power that generates himself like the one He gave us on the day of Pentacost. This is a different word for “power”. It means a sense of ability. He gave them the ability, privilege, force, capacity, competency, a freedom, a mastery, a delegated influence, a jurisdiction, a liberty, a power, a right and a strength to become sons of God. Now that Word “become” is the word “ginomai” in the Greek. It means “came into being”. Webster’s Dictionary said, “To grow up to be” or “change” or “develop into by growth.

Are you sincere about changing into or developing? If you, then it is not enough to know how to change, you have to make a decision to diligently pursue that change. Now watch what he said, “To as many as received, to them gave He an ability, a delegated authority, a competence, a privilege, a force to be able to grow up to be and become a son of God.” He said, “that delegated authority secures and ensures your ability to become a son of God” and yet there are still people living their life as a child spiritually. As a result, they die as a child, and go to heaven saying, “How come you didn’t do this Lord?” And God will say, “Listen, I gave you the job, the job description, the privilege, the delegated authority to grow up and become a son.” That means you won’t be able to blame God for not raising the dead through you. You are not going to be able to blame Him for not healing the sick through you. You are not going to be able to blame Him for not prospering your life or causing it to radiate with the glory of Calvary. The only blame is going to be on you for not putting to work the “Exousia” or power given to you. If however, you do, then something will happen. Whether you know it or not, you are working hard to remain where you are.

How do you put on something? How many of you know that you don’t just get up without thinking and get dressed? If you do, you will be embarrassed when you go out.  You’ll say, “What a mess!”  When you look at yourself may find you got buttons buttoned wrong, you got two different colored shoes and two different colored socks.  When people meet you they will say, “What’s wrong with you? Did the lights go out at your house?”  See, you don’t just get up and put on anything without thinking about it. By the same token, you do not just become something without thinking about it.  To become something different than you are, you are going to have to think about it. Now with that being said, that means if you are acting in fear, doubt and unbelief, you have given it thought.

Let’s stop for a moment and think about what we just said, “If you are acting in fear, doubt, and unbelief, you have given it thought.” No one can fear unless they are thinking about something that provokes you to be afraid.  No one doubts unless you happen to be presented with something that sound far-fetched and hokey.   When situations present themselves in your life, it causes every person to think and analyze what they are experiencing which creates an emotional response deep inside you.  You have consciously or subconsciously gotten up, walked to your closet, got out the helmet of damnation and started putting on doubt, fear and unbelief. So the Bible says, “Above all put on love”.  Spiritually speaking, you walk to your spiritual closet and look around.  Seeing what you are looking for, you say, “Oh, love, there it is. I’m going to put that on.”  That is a decision you make.  That means you have to meditate on the Word of God and find out what the love of God in the Word is, and as you do, that love will live on the inside of you.

Now Paul is talking to Christians telling that the Bible says, “the love of God has been shed in their hearts by the Holy Ghost (Rom 5:5).”  If God has shed His love in our hearts by the Holy Ghost and we receive the Holy Ghost upon receiving salvation, that means the love Paul is referring to has always been in our hearts, but it is not enough for love to be in our hearts, we have to put it on.  The Bible says that “the Lord will beautify the meek with salvation. (Ps 149:4)”, yet all of can attest that we have seen some really mean Christians.  Yes, they are saved, but they just haven’t made the decision to put on God’s love.   Now what does it mean when it says the Lord will beautify the meek with salvation?  It means that the things you have experienced through God will become the predominant influence in your life.  Why? Because you have been thinking about them, meditating on them until you know that you know that you are saved. Your words will show it.  Your actions will show it. Everything about you will show it because you have been beautified by it.  Everyone who meets you will say, “There is something different about you” and they will ask what it is. Tell them, “I put on the love of God.”

Colossians 3:15, “And let the peace of God rule in your hearts, to which also you were called in one body, and be thankful.”

Now how many of you know that in order for the peace of God  to rule in your heart, the thoughts of God have to be in your mind.  You cannot have anxiety while you are meditating on God’s Word and God’s goodness.  You only have anxiety, lack of peace and turmoil in your heart when you have been thinking the wrong way.  Now what did you do? You stopped mortifying the deeds of the old man on the earth.  You stepped out of who your heavenly identity/position in your thought life and came right down to the earth realm by allowing your old nature to rise. You became double-minded and unstable in all your ways (Jms 1:8).

Colossians 3:16-17, “Let the Word of Christ, dwell in you richly in all wisdom, teaching and admonishing one another in Psalms and hymns, and spiritual songs, singing with grace in your hearts, to the Lord. ¹⁷And whatsoever you do in word and deed do all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through Him.”

 Isn’t this awesome!!! He said, “put on love”, “let peace rule in your heart and be thankful”, and then “let the Word of God dwell in you richly” and this can go beyond that.  When there is peace in your heart and love is being worn by you, people will see it over you both inside and outside, and you will have thanksgiving in your heart.  Now what do you thank God for?  You thank God for what He has promised.  If you wait to thank God for it when it happens, you will see very little results happen in your life.  Thanksgiving looses the hand of God to perform what you already believe.  Remember, you cannot thank God effectively unless you remember you were seated with Him in Christ spiritually.  You have to know where you are and when you know where you are, you will know that what you have been promised is done. Now that is reason to be thankful to God.

Have you ever had something happen in your life that was so good you couldn’t contain yourself?  Well, in those times you were so full of joy that you shouted and hollered.  You may have been so overjoyed that psalms, hymns and spiritual songs rose up inside you.  Next thing you know, you are talking and admonishing one another, and people say, “there’s grace in your heart.”  See, it all came about by a decision to meditate, think upon, dwell amidst, and make the things of the Spirit of reality.  You are so consumed by them that they become the very thoughts you think, but the very feelings you feel.  Now there is not only grace in your heart, but hymns, psalms and spiritual songs in your life.  But the Bible doesn’t stop there.  It says, “whatsoever you do in word and deed do all in the name of the Lord Jesus.”  Do you know what that means?  It means do all on behalf of Jesus.

Have you ever listened to someone pray?  You hear them asking God to do things on their behalf, but God is saying, “I gave you power, you do it?”  They will say, “Lord heal them, because I can’t” and God will say, “You heal them, I gave you the power.”  Why do they think they can’t?  Because they still see themselves as the old man they used to be.  That old person they were before Christ didn’t have the power to do, but you are not that old man.  That old man died with Christ and you are now a new man seated in Christ.  You are a new man that has Christ’s name, Christ’s power and has been sent by Christ to do on His behalf and what can that man do?  He can do all things (Phil 4:13). You are risen, you are not going to rise in the rapture, you are risen already.  In the rapture, you are just going to catch up to what Jesus did for you already.  Your identity in Christ is right now.  It is in Christ.  When you get into that holy place in prayer, you walk right into the Holy Place of God and “with boldness, you obtain mercy and find grace to help in time of need (Heb 4:16).  Wait! Did you catch that?  That means you don’t even pray in an earthly realm, you pray in the spiritual realm, in a dimension that gives you immediate access into the presence of God where you get out of God the strength you need to minister in the power of the Spirit.

So Paul tells us, “whatever you do, do on behalf of Christ, do in the name of Jesus, do with an absolute knowledge that you have been made a recipient of the full power of attorney.”  What is a power of attorney?  It is a legal and binding contract or agreement that permits the holder to do all things on behalf of the person giving the agreement.  With that, we can now read Colossians 3:16, “whatever you do, do knowing that Jesus gave you a letter, His will, His living testament, His authority/permission to do all things on His behalf.”  Simply said, Jesus is telling you, “Go, you can sign on my behalf.  You got all my power behind you. Go out and conduct biblical business as if I was there doing the work myself. Whatever you do, do it as a representative of Me, so everybody will know that you are doing it in My name.  Whatever you do, do it in My name!”  Now when Christians and the body of Christ gets a hold of that revelation, they are going to see changes happen before their eyes.  Remember, we are not talking about getting this revelation in our minds, we are talking about getting this revelation into our very spirit, so that we diligently pursue this thing.  Things just don’t happen, we have to diligently pursue them. We have to go after them and get a hold of it.  Whenever you get a hold it, your life will begin to resemble Christ’s life.  You will begin to see people prospering.  You will begin to see people ruling over circumstances.  You are going to see people that nothing can defeat because they got a revelation of this very fact.

“And whatsoever you do, do in the name of Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father by Him”.  How do you give thanks to God by Jesus?  How do I give thanks to God?  You first identify who you are in Jesus and then you identify Christ is your life.  When you do that, you identify you have the Spirit of Christ and you identify that “as He is so are you in this present world (1 John 4:17).” So when you identify that, you lift your heart and hands to God without doubt and fear, and say, “Abba, Father. It is by Jesus…” Guess what happens at that moment?  Your praise goes right out of your heart into Jesus who is sitting at the right hand of God and right out of Jesus’ heart to the throne of God.  That power of praise hits God.  So how do you give praise by Jesus.  You give God total praise by giving the old man absolutely no access to your thought life whatsoever.  You do not identify with the old man you used to be, remembering that man is dead.  You remember, you owe nothing to the flesh.  You are free and you choose to follow God and do what He says. Now when you give praise like that, what happens? When you give the Lord total praise, the praise goes right through the spiritual realm into your life that is hidden with Christ in God.  Only your new life in Christ can gain access to God.

When we pray through the new nature, life goes right into the life that is in Jesus Christ and praise is made unto God by Jesus.  When God turns around, He is excited because praise is emanating right out of Jesus to the throne of God.  Remember God is omniscient (all knowing).  He can identify every individual’s praise in the body of Jesus.  He is not going to mistake my praise for your praise. It is all coming out of Jesus, hitting the throne and God knows whose praise is whose.  Did you know that every praise that has made its way to the throne, has already qualified for an answer?  Once the thanksgiving says “it’s done”, it is put into motion and all things begin to work for your good (Rom 8:28).  So the only way to give Him praise, is to make the throne and the only way to make the throne is to sever yourself from the old person and identify yourself with the new person.  Now once you allow this new nature to operate in you, that new person is living.  He is linked in good with Jesus.  He’s tied to Jesus.  He’s hooked up to Jesus and has the boldness and access to God.  As a result, God hears him, identifying both his petition and his praise.

Romans 13:11-12, 14; “And do this, knowing that now it is high time to awake out of sleep, for now our salvation is nearer than when we first believed. ¹²The night is far spent, the day is at hand. Therefore let us cast off the works of darkness, and let us put on the armor of light. ¹⁴But put on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make no provision for the flesh, to fulfill its lusts.”

Now the Wuest translation of the Bible says,

“and this, knowing the strategic season, that it is an hour now for you to awake out of sleep, for now our salvation is nearer to us than when we believed. ¹²The night has been on its way, and the day has arrived. Therefore, let us at once and once for all put off the works of darkness and let us once and once for all clothe ourselves with the weapons of the light. ¹⁴But clothe yourselves with the Lord Jesus Christ and stop making provision for the sinful nature with a view to a passionate craving.”

You are in a strategic time! Now the Bible is clear about your heavenly identity. So clear that we have to really misappropriate biblical warfare to step out of the authority that He paid for us. Here it tells us that the time we are living in is a strategic time.  There is an opportunity to rise out of sleep.  How many of you know that sleep and slumber spiritually speaking is a byproduct of a lack of knowledge of the Word of God or a lack of willingness to act upon what we know is in the Word.  So when it is talking high time to awake, it is saying, “it is time to get a revelation of the Word of God and do the Word.”  And then it says, “to put on the armor of light”.  How many of you know what the armor of light is?

The Bible talks about putting on the whole armor of God (Eph 6:10-19).  It talks about the helmet of salvation.  How do you put on the helmet?  You put it on by thinking and meditating on the salvation He gave you, Scripture relating to that salvation and what that salvation provides.  All of a sudden, your mind is guarded by a weaponry or piece of armor that God provided for you.  Now how many of you know that the devil attacks the mind?  That is why you need the helmet of salvation.  You put on the helmet of salvation by making a conscious decision to wear it.  So the armor of light is the armor of God and every piece of that armor you put on is put on by consciously deciding it is available and wearing it.  When you put it on, you are protected.  When you know the Word and you have it in your mind, your mind is protected by the Word so that when lies and doubt come, you will say, “No!” to them because you know the Word.  When you got the belt of truth on, then you are prepared to run, you are prepared to fight, you are prepared to move, you are prepared for every activity in life because you know the truth.  When you are prepared to spread the gospel, it is like you have shoes on that can lead you to the battlefield. When you know the Word of God, it is like you got the sword of the Spirit.  The point I am trying to make is that you can consciously meditate on who you are in Christ, your heavenly position through Him and by getting that revelation out of the Word of God, you can be dressed for and be protected in the middle of any battle.

So it is high time to wake up and you wake up through revelation of the Word of God.  It is high time to put on the armor of light, but it also high time to put away from you once for all the works of darkness.    God said, “Make a decision to peel off, to take away, to put away from you the old nature.” That tells me that God is telling born again Christians to remember that they were born again and to make a decision to once and for all say “I will no longer struggle with my old nature.  I will never again doubt whether or not I am what the Bible says I am.” How many of you know that it doesn’t mean you will not be tempted?  You can never just make a decision to put away the works of darkness and never have to deal with them again.  No, you can make a decision to put them away from you, by disassociating them and disclaiming them.  You say, “No!, that ‘s not me!” Now they will keep trying to come around but because you made a decision that they are not you, you can have authority over them every time they try to come around by saying, “that’s not me! I put that away from me.  I am a new person.  I am wearing the armor of light.”

Now watch what it said here and this is the key verse, “Put on the Lord Jesus Christ and make no provision for the flesh, to fulfill the lusts thereof.”  The Wuest translation says, “clothe yourself with the Lord Jesus Christ and stop making provision for the sinful nature.”  Simply said, Wear the Word. The Word is alive (Heb 4:12).  Put it on. Put it in your heart.  Put it in your mouth.  Put it in your mind and put it on your body.  Put on the Lord Jesus.  That means when you put the Word on, you remember that you are everything that the Word says you are in Christ.

In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth, but during this period of creation God created the most precious of all things – man.  The Bible tells us that God created man from the dust of the earth and breathed the breath of life into Him and they became a living soul.  The man was created perfect in every way, sinless as our Savior.  This man was made into the image and likeness of our Creator.  He had intelligence.  He had purity.  He had health without sickness and disease.  He had resources without lack.  He was rich and cared for by our Creator.  He was given stewardship over all the earth to rule and reign, and to subdue the earth and all that crept upon it.  This same man who walked in the coolness of the day with our Heavenly Father, with free will bowed his knee to God’s arch enemy, Satan.  That day marked the fall of man and the change of life as we know it. From this time forward, the world would feel the effects of sin brought about by the rebellion of this first couple.  Through this couple all creation was cursed.

 Yet, no matter how bleak life may have appeared, God in His love, prepared the way to restore man back to Himself.  Through millenniums of rebellion and sin, the day had finally arrived and God sent an angelic messenger to proclaim the coming of a Savior.  A special child was to be born, anointed by God to be the Savior of the World.

 So let’s journey together through time to the day of the birth of this great King.

 ²⁶Now in the sixth month the angel Gabriel was sent by God to a city of Galilee name Nazareth, ²⁷to a virgin betrothed to a man whose name was Joseph, of the house of David. The virgin’s name was Mary. 

 Thousands of years after the fall of man, God sends His angel Gabriel, to Nazareth.  There he appears to a young woman named Mary, who was promised in marriage to a man named Joseph.  In these times, to be promised in marriage was a serious event as it was as binding as the marriage itself. How so? Among the Hebrews, the betrothal was the only legal part of marriage which could not be broken off except by a bill of divorce.  During the time between the betrothal and marriage day, the woman was to remain pure and untouched, yet on this very night, Gabriel comes to Mary to tell her she is to conceive a child.

 ²⁸And having come in, the angel said to her, “Rejoice, highly favored one, the Lord is with you; blessed are you among women!”

 There standing before her was this most magnificent angel.  Her eyes could hardly believe what she saw, much less grasp the words that came out of his mouth.  What did he call her? Highly favored one!!  Did she hear right?  Yet in her ears rang the words, “the Lord is with you; blessed are you among women!”  How could that be?  What did she do that deserved such a great honor?  She was no different than any other woman, so she thought.  Enraptured by the angel before her, she continues to listen, yet feeling trouble in her heart about all she had heard.

 ²⁹But when she saw him, “she was troubled at his saying, and considered what manner of greeting this was. ³⁰Then the angel said to her, “Do not be afraid Mary, for you have found favor with God.

As Mary listened to this angelic messenger, a peace began to overtake her.  Though her mind had not yet fully grasped the seriousness of his words, she received great peace in her heart as these words rang in her heart “you have found favor with God.”  That seemed to calm her a bit, but a curiosity also began to rumble around inside her too.  Why was this angel here?  What did he want with her?  Why was she receiving such a greeting?  As she tossed around her thoughts, she heard Gabriel say,

 ³¹”And behold, you will conceive in your womb and bring forth a Son, and shall call His name JESUS.

 Hold up!  What did he just say?  Conceive???  How could that be?  She wasn’t even married yet and to this moment, still a virgin.  Wait a minute?  Conceive!!!

 ³⁴Then Mary said to the angel, “How can that be, since I do not know a man?”

 Better yet, when would this happen?  How was she going to explain this to her soon to be husband, Joseph, not to mention the rest of the family and neighbors?  To be found with child now would be a sure death sentence.  How long could she hide she was with child?  Sooner or later she would begin to show and everything that would follow would be set in motion.  Lost in the moment, Gabriel’s Words gain her attention once again and again she listened as he continued to convey this message from God,

 ³²”He will be great, and will be called the Son of the Highest; and the Lord God will give Him the throne of His father David. ³³And He will reign over the house of Jacob forever, and of His kingdom there will be no end.

 “Oh, my”, she thought.  She wasn’t conceiving an ordinary child.  This child was to be great.  In amazement, she realized that who she was to conceive was not just human, but he was divine in nature.  He was the Child of the Almighty God, but how could that be?  How could she, a human woman, conceive this great Son the angel described?  She was all ears now, she just had to know.

 ³⁵And the angel answered and said to her, “The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Highest will overshadow you; therefore, also, that Holy One who is to be born will be called the Son of God.

 As the shock of his words began to settle, she knew that she was chosen for this time. Resolved in her heart and with solid resolution, Mary answered,

 ³⁸… “Behold the maidservant of the Lord! Let it be to me according to your word.” And the angel departed from her. (Luke 1:26-38)

 But hold up, what about Joseph?  God wasn’t going to let Joseph figure this whole thing out on his own was he?  How would Mary explain it to him?  Who in their right mind would believe her?  Yet, she knew in her heart that God had a plan. Settled, she need only prepare for the days that lay ahead, and so she did.  Meanwhile, God in His love paves the way for Mary and sends His messenger to Joseph.

 ¹⁸Now the birth of Jesus Christ was as follows: After His mother Mary was betrothed to Joseph, before they came together, she was found with child of the Holy Spirit. 

 What!!  Mary, pregnant?  How could that be?  He had not lain with her.  So how then could she be pregnant?  Could he have been wrong about her?  He loved her, but could he still love her?  Could he look into the eyes of this woman, he was betrothed to and see her the same?  Yet as much as he wanted to be angry, his love for her raged inside him and yet, he couldn’t bring himself to be with her.  He could not keep to his agreement of marriage.  She had broken the covenant.  She had lain with another, shattering the trust he held in his heart for her.  Still yet, his love for her still raged and that was enough for him to divorce her quietly.  She would have to deal with her deceit alone, but at least she would be alive to do it.

 His love for Mary, his wife, was deep.  In those days, an unfaithful woman was stoned to death.  Even though he could not bear to be with her, he could bear less the guilt of her death.

 ¹⁹Then Joseph her husband, being a just man, and not wanting to make her a public example, was minded to put her away secretly.

 Wrestling with what he felt in his heart, he goes to bed only to be visited by the angel of the Lord, who revealed to him what had happened.  In this dream, Joseph was told that the child his wife conceived was of the Holy Spirit and divine in nature.

 ²⁰But while he thought about these things, behold, an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream, saying, “Joseph, son of David, do not be afraid to take to you Mary your wife, for that which is conceived in her is of the Holy Spirit. 

 Relieved, that his trust had not been broken, Joseph continues to listen and so hears,

 ²¹And she will bring forth a Son, and you shall call His name JESUS, for He will save His people from their sins. ²²So all this was done that it might be fulfilled which was spoken by the Lord through the prophet, saying: ²³”Behold, the virgin shall be with child, and bear a Son, and they shall call His name Immanuel,” which is translated, “God be with us.”

 What!!! He was to be the human father of the Son of God.  With his mind racing, he is aroused from sleep ready and willing to do all that had been revealed to him in this dream.  Oh, how relieved he felt.  This woman that he loved was true to him and yet honored among women to have been chosen to carry such an anointed child.  His heart felt no regret.  He loved her and he knew that.  Freely yielding to the message, he prepares to take her hand in marriage and prepare for the coming of the King.

 ²⁴Then Joseph, being aroused from sleep, did as the angel of the Lord commanded him and took to his wife, ²⁵and did not know her till she had brought forth her firstborn Son. And he called His name JESUS. (Matthew 1:18-25)

 That day was a joyous one.  This woman he loved with all his heart, was now his and already, in excitement, the thought of being a father, not just any father, but the father of the Son of God, was raging around inside.  He could hardly contain himself.  He was so honored and proud.  He had heard the stories told of this coming child, but who would have thought that he would be the one this child would be born to?

 As the days and months came and went, Mary began to show.  Her time was drawing near and now to add to all that needed to be done, Caesar, calls all to a census.  It couldn’t be the worse time.  She was due to deliver the child soon, and travel was not easy.  Many would be heading for their home towns to register their families, but what could he do?  Relenting to the arduous task, he packs what he can carry on a donkey, and prepares Mary for the journey.

 ⁴Joseph also went up from Galilee, out of the city of Nazareth, into Judea, to the city of David, which is called Bethlehem, because he was of the house and lineage of David, ⁵to be registered with Mary, his betrothed wife, who was with child.

 The journey is long and the road is rough and bumpy, but Mary was holding doing well.  As they travel, he can only stare at the beauty of his wife.  Oh how he loved her.  Every day with her was a memory he would treasure.  Traveling with her made the trip seem to pass by with a quickness.  Before he knew it, they had reached Bethlehem.  He knew he had to find shelter quickly, as the child was soon to be born, but sadly, all the places were full.  What was he to do?  After a long day, he finally finds a place, but it was not what he had expected.  No matter, though, it was warm and there was plenty of straw to make their stay a comfortable one.  All that mattered was they were together.   As they settled in for the stay, Mary goes into labor and after a time, she brings forth the long awaited child,

 ⁷And she brought forth her first born Son, and wrapped Him in swaddling cloths, and laid Him in a manger, because there was no room for them in the inn.

 It’s finally over, and there the child lies, quiet and full of innocence.  As the peace rushes through every fiber of your body, you begin to take inventory of this little bundle of joy.  Two eyes and a button nose, ten fingers and ten toes, yes! They are all there.  You grab for a swaddling cloth and carefully wrap this new life in it.  Picking up the bundle, you cuddle him in your bosom, smiling at the thought of the days, months and even the many years that lie ahead.  Your mind rushes to the frequent feedings and the supplying of his every need.  You smile at the thought of watching him grow before your eyes and imagine as you see the newness of things peak his curiosity.  As you glance down at the beauty in his eyes, you begin to wonder what he will be like, but you don’t hesitate to worry because you are prepared to take each day as it comes. For now, let’s just enjoy the feel of this tiny nugget of life that rests in your arms. Meanwhile as you enjoy this nugget of joy in your arms, the Bible says, that the angels were at work.

 ⁸Now there were in the same country shepherds living out in the fields, keeping watch over their flock by night. ⁹And behold, an angel of the Lord stood before them, and the glory of the Lord shone around them, and they were greatly afraid. ¹⁰Then the angel said to them, “Do not be afraid, for behold, I bring you good tidings of great joy which will be to all people. ¹¹For there is born to you this day in the city of David a Savior, who is Christ the Lord. ¹²And this will be the sign to you: You will find a Babe wrapped in swaddling cloths, lying in a manger.” ¹⁵So it was, when the angels had gone away from them into heaven, that the shepherds said to one another, “Let us now go to Bethlehem and see this thing that has come to pass, which the Lord made known to us.”

 Oh, how you wanted to shout from the mountaintops the joy you felt.  Oh, how you wanted to proclaim this joyous occasion.  People just had to know, but how?  Suddenly you look up and there before you stood the shepherds with smiles on their face.  They could hardly believe their eyes.  You could see by their faces that they knew who the child was and that thought brought joy to your heart.  As they marveled at the tiny bundle that laid in your arms, the thought of heavenly rejoicing filled the air, as these words flooded the atmosphere,

 ¹³And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host praising God and saying: ¹⁴”Glory to God in the highest, And on earth peace, goodwill toward all men!”

 Christmas is a time of celebration for it is the birthday of our Savior.  It was a time that God came in the flesh to earth to dwell among us.  It was a time of fulfillment of promise that what lay ahead was now a reality, and through this child, man would be reconciled back to God.  It is a time to celebrate and rejoice for through the promises of this child, heaven had come to earth to set everything right.  We now had the promise of an eternal future and what lay ahead as we wait for His second coming is so much greater than we can ever imagine.  As you meditate on this special time of year, rejoice, for the King was born and through His sacrifice, man was restored to fellowship with the Father.  Through Him, we were given access to God and to a chance of eternal life.  Choose today life…  Choose today the King….

 Choose this day who you will serve…

 So that is why God wants you to set your mind on good thoughts.  Good thoughts are those that are according to the will of God.  As you think according to the Word of God, the Spirit of God will cause you to be transformed and changed into the very thing you are thinking on – for as he thinks in his heart, so is he (Proverbs 23:7).  It is for this reason, you must set your affections, set everything about you toward your new nature.  As you give way to your new nature, as you meditate on it, you will begin to be exactly what that nature says you are.  Now Colossians 3:3, tells us we “died, and our life is hidden with Christ in God.”  Our old nature died with Christ and our new person we have become has risen up with Christ.  Now most of us know very little about this new person we have become.  That is a good thing from the enemy’s viewpoint, for the more ignorant we are of who we become, the less chance we will operate in the power this new person possesses in the Spirit.  It is for this reason, that we now learn and it is for this reason, we now take the time to find out what the Word of God says about him.

 Now, I bet you think you know all about him, but do you really?  If you knew what you needed to know, you would be what the Bible says you are.  Now I won’t dispute you may have a rational awareness of them, you may even have an informative knowledge of him, but until you have an experiential revelation, you will not know how to yield to this new nature.  Before you can rule and reign in life by Christ, your mind has to be transformed though the Word of God.  The Bible says, “You died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God.” That means that when Jesus was buried, your old life was hid in that burial. When Jesus rose, your new life was hid in His resurrection. So when you set your affection on that fact, you begin to see that and your spirit begins to be illuminated to that.  How to you receive illumination?  You meditate and think about your new nature.  The more you do, the more you find out. The more you find out, the more you are changed from glory to glory. (2 Corinthians 3:18).  The Bible says, that you are changed because you are beholding as in the mirror the glory of the Lord. Now why is that important?

 The glory of the Lord will change you.  As you begin to get revelation of your new identity in Christ, you will realize that the God’s glory is your glory.  As change takes place you will begin to associate yourself with Christ in such a way, that you will look at Him with an open face, boldly declaring that very fact.  You will see yourself joined with Christ, one in nature with Him, knowing that when He rose from the dead, you rose with Him. When He ascended into heaven, you ascended with Him.  When He sat down at the right hand of God, you sat down with Him.  Now somebody with a closed veil will not see this revelation clearly.  They will not see themselves one with Christ.  They will say to themselves, “Yes, I believe that is Christ, but this is me down here.”  They are not going to be changed by His glory because they do not believe that what He did for them provided them with the privilege of receiving the very provisions He paid for.  For those who get the revelation and come with an open face, they will say, “Wow! That’s me in Christ.  I am the righteousness of God in Christ Jesus (2 Corinthians 5:21).  Did you get that? You are not “a” righteousness of God; you are “THE” righteousness of God.

Now meditating should be an easy thing, if all we had was God’s influence in our life, but there lurking in the invisible realm is an enemy.  While you are trying to focus your affections on the things which are above, he is injecting thoughts in your mind, saying, “but you are a sinner!”  Yes, that’s right; he will speak into your thought life lies that will get your mind to lose focus on the things of God.  To prevent that from happening, you must monitor your thoughts. When thoughts contrary to the Word of God enter your mind, you must tell the devil, “No! No! That sinner is dead in Christ. That is not me. I am a new creation, with a new way of thinking.” Then you have to meditate on that fact.  You have to see in your mind’s eye that old nature dying with Christ.  You have to see him dead in your mind’s eye.  You have to see that old nature buried.  Then as you do, you find out a new person rose with a new identity and with a new authority.  When you see yourself in Christ, when you realize that He is in you, you will always look at the adversary from your heavenly perspective and see yourself seated with Christ.  You will see Christ’s glory as your glory.  Now if you will be diligent in the things of God, if you will study the Word of God, if you will do what you ought to do and pray in the Spirit, you will graduate from one level of glory to another.  Remember, God does not put limits on your spiritual growth.

So how do you find out who you are in Christ? You get in Christ with your thought life.  2 Corinthians 5:17 says, “if anyone be in Christ, he is a new creation.” The moment you make Jesus the Lord of your life, your spirit man will experience a new birth, become a new creation and now abides in Christ.  The moment you make Jesus the Lord of your life your new identity, your heavenly perspective, your heavenly authority, the glory He gave you, and everything He gave you pertaining to life and godliness (2 Peter 1:3) are hidden in God.  So how do you get in Christ in your thought life? You meditate on the Word of God continually.  Now in order for you to claim the benefits of that new nature, you have to find out about him.  Let me explain.  From the time your mother gave birth to you until this very moment in life, you grew and matured into the person you are now.  Your life is a continuous cycle of learning through your past experiences, failures, successes and personal relationships.  Every day of your life, you have been on a venture to find yourself and with each day, you learned more about who you are – your likes/dislikes, your strengths/weaknesses, your desires and more.  In the same way, you now have to invest time in learning who you are as a new creation in Christ and how to live in the realm of the supernatural.  How do we find out about our new nature? We study the manual of life – the Bible.  Within the pages of this book, you will find everything you need to know about your new nature in Christ, and through diligent study and meditation, you will be transformed into the image of Him.

 Now let’s look at Colossians 3:4, “When Christ who is our life appears, then we also will appear with Him in glory.”  You are going to appear with Him in glory because He is your life, so that means if you want the new life of Christ to be active, visible, effective and flowing through you, you have to go to Christ in your thought life.  You have to go to Christ in your meditations.  You have to receive from Christ through an act of faith everything He already gave you in your new identity.  Now how do you do that?  How do you go into Christ? You go into the Word of God.  You go beyond the ink.  You have to pray in your heavenly language, meditate on the Word of God until the living Spirit takes your spirit into a revelation and dimension in God where the Word lives.  As a result, you will receive from Christ that portion of yourself that He resurrected when He rose from the grave 2000 years ago.  When you get a revelation of that fact you will say, “I am a person who never quits.  I am a person who never fails.  I am a person who never falters. That’s me! I am consistent. I am abounding.  I am unmovable.”  Before you know it, the joy of the Lord begins to rise inside you.  What has happened?  You looked to Christ and began to change from glory to glory.

 Let me give you an example.  Have you ever known a person who was diagnosed with a disease?  As he continues to see doctors, they tell him he is going to die, that the disease is incurable.  That person comes home and every day they pray to God for a healing.  He reads the Word of God looking for food to feed his spirit.  As he begins to continually feed upon the promises of God, the Word of God begins to live in him.  The Scriptures he has read a thousand times in the past begin to take on a life in him. Suddenly, a supernatural injection of revelatory knowledge goes right out of the Spirit of Christ into his being and he shouts, “I going to live.  I am not going to die.”  What has he done?  He has begun to cash in on something that was available to him all the time.  Now you don’t get that through thinking with your intellectual mind.  You have to go beyond the rational mind and get into a realm where the rational is not your authority.  You have to get into the realm of the Spirit, where the Spirit of God causes the Word of God to live inside you because faith comes by hearing the Word of God (Romans 10:17).  It is at the moment of revelation, that the Word becomes rhema and your spirit man says, “I got it, that’s it!”

Suddenly the Spirit of the Lord begins to show you His healing power.  This Word that you had read so many times and didn’t do anything, all of a sudden rises out of your spirit and becomes God’s method, God’s living ability to get the power of that revelatory Word into your spirit.  Now why is God trying to do that?  Because He wants you to become what He has paid the price for you to be.  Christ died not just so you can go to heaven, but so you can be changed internally in order that you might live a changed person in heaven.  Did you know that if Jesus died for it – a new identity, a new perspective, and then we ought to invest in the thing and pursue it.  God loves you too much to keep you where you are.  You need to change.

 Let’s look at Colossians 3:5, “Mortify your members which are upon the earth…”

 Look at the key word “members”.  Members where?  That’s right. On the earth.  Some people think that means the body, but it is not talking about the Bible. It is talking about the old nature that will continually come back to your remembrance not because it is not dead, but because the devil knows that if he can only get you to think on it, the old nature will experience a resurrection in your life.  That means that those members that used to walk around in doubt and unbelief are not you.  No, that’s the dead man who died when you believed in Jesus Christ, but the devil is the accuser (Revelation 12:10).  He will come back and try to remind you in order to get you to meditate upon it, for as long as you think, you will be.  When you meditate on it, then the resurrection of the old nature will rise up and dominate your life.  Now the Bible says, “Mortify those members which are where?”  Upon the earth.  Now where is the man writing from?  He is writing from the earth, but you can be on the earth and not talk of the earth realm, not write out of the earth realm.  You can be on the earth and live from heaven.  You can be on the earth and see from heaven.  Why?  Because you are not relating yourself with the person who you used to be on the earth.  You are relating yourself with the person you are in Christ in heaven.

 So you tell the enemy, “that’s not me! This is who I am” and although you re here, subject to the laws of the natural realm, you are actually in the spirit realm.  You are above the circumstance.  You are above the principalities and powers.  That is why you must seek those things which are above because you are risen, because your old man is dead, because your life is hid with Christ in God.  You got a new life.  You are not on the earth in your position.  You are not on the earth in your identity.  You are not on the earth in your viewpoint.  You are not on the earth in your ministry level.  You are not on the earth in your conduct.  You are a heavenly creature born again in the Spirit of the Lord to live miraculously and to think supernaturally.  So every time an old thing tries to creep up, you have to look at it from a heavenly perspective.

 This is where the enemy gets people.  This is the key point of failure in many people’s faith walk. It is when they begin to think their hands are tied because they are subject to something they cannot overcome.  Look at problems people face – unhappiness, financial problems.  What are they doing?  They are coming down from the position and identity, and they are operating on such a low level realm that the thing Jesus died for, the curse of the law of poverty is now dominating their thought life.  Why is that?  They have been meditating on it from the wrong perspective.  See you can look at finances, but if you look at them from the heavenly viewpoint, they look small.  The key is to look at these things from a heavenly perspective and position of authority in God.  You are not subject to the circumstance.  You must know that you have the authority through Jesus and that authority will exemplify and manifest itself strong in your life if it is a byproduct of an experiential revelation of where you are in God.  When you spend time in a heavenly place, you will deal with life from a heavenly perspective.

 The Bible tells us in Colossians 3:9-10, that the deeds of the old man belong to the old man.  Why is that important?  The devil will try to get you to claim the deeds of the old man, the one who died and say they are yours.  The Bible tells us that the wages of sin is death (Romans 6:23), so we must remember that the deeds of the old man belong to the old man.  That old man is dead. By nature, the old man is the child of the devil.  He acts like the devil. He talks like the devil and he receives retribution of being like the devil.  He lives under the curse.  He can’t be blessed.  That’s why the devil knows all he has to do is get you to identify with him and he’s got you operating under the curse.  You can’t be blessed if the old man is living.  You cannot put the old man to death unless you take him out of your thought life.  Every time he tries to rise up in you, say, “that is not me! The deeds of the old man belong to the old man.  He fails. He doubts. He gets sick. He’s the one that lies! I am a new man. He thinks right. He acts right. He is blessed in his going and in his coming.  He is blessed in his thought life.”  When you do that, you put off the old man.  Now this doesn’t happen automatically.  It is a process and happens over time.

Remember, you must strip him off. You must put him away from yourself.  As you do, you will gain things.  Colossians 3:10 tells us to put on the new man, the person you are after you are saved, the person who is constantly renewed with an advanced and perfect experiential knowledge and which is in the image of the One who created him.  You put him on.  You remember you got him at the resurrection.  You remember you are changing into the image of God.

We must understand that when we got saved, we experienced a new birth and became a new person.  This new person is different than the person we used to be before we got saved.  This person has a different way of looking at things and thinks differently than the person we used to be.  If you begin to allow that new person to dominate your life, you will begin to see the results that God intends for you to have and you will begin to experience them as you live for the Lord.

Because we believe in the gifts of the Spirit, the anointing of the Holy Ghost, healings, miracles, deliverance, authority over devils, it is important that we build a foundation and teach every believer their identity, position, and God given rights so that they are not engaged in a battle that they find themselves struggling to win.

But did you know that when you fight, you have to learn both the offensive methods and the defensive methods of fighting.  You have to know how to defend when the enemy attacks.  A good biblical foundation regarding your heavenly identity and being able to look at things from a heavenly perspective gives you the ability to defend when the enemy attacks you because you know your rights and you don’t allow him to get away with something that he has no right to get away with.

When someone is going to do warfare, they got to know first of all, that they cannot be defeated in warfare.  They have to know that the enemy has no ability to overcome them and the only way to know that is to find out your identity according to the Word of God. That way you know how to live consistently and be instant in season and out of season (2 Timothy 4:2).  That way you realize that everything you face on the battlefield of life has been answered and has been provided for in the Word of God.

Let’s turn to Colossians 3:1-5 (Memory Verses) 1 If then you are raised with Christ, seek those things which are above where Christ is, sitting at the right hand of God. 2 Set your mind on things above, not on things on the earth. 3 For you died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God. 4 When Christ who is our life appears, then you also will appear with Him in glory. 5 Therefore put to death your members which are on the earth: fornication, uncleanness, passion, evil desires, and covetousness, which is idolatry.

I want to draw your attention to some things here. The Bible says, “we ought to seek the things which are above.” Another tranlation of the Bible says, “the things above be constantly seeking”. That means in order for you to seek the things which are above constantly and set your mind on them, we have to first of all, know what the things above are.  The Bible said, “if then you are raised with Christ…” Do you believe that when Jesus rose from the dead, you rose with Him?  That’s right! When you rose, you rose a different person then when you died.  Now most people look to the cross as the end, but the cross is not the end, it is the beginning.  Thank God for the cross, for without it, there is no beginning.  Praise God for the burial because without it, there is no death to your old nature.  Glory be to God for the resurrection because without it there is no new identity that can live on the inside of you.  Most of us are so mindful of the death of Christ that we fail to cash in on the resurrection of Christ.  Now Colossians says, “if then you were raised with Christ…”

That means you rose again victorious over death, hell, grave, sickness, sin and disease.  So that means that God expects you to do something with with the information.  He said “this is what you ought to do, constantly be seeking the things which are above.” Now Jesus said, “Seek ye first” what?  that’s right! The Kingdom (Matthew 6:33)

There is no better place to depict or project a revelation of the kingdom of God then heaven itself.  Heaven is the perfect place to see the kingdom in action.  Why? because heaven is a place where God’s Word is settled. There’s absolutely no turbulence, turmoil, contradiction or doubt regarding the rulership or the kingship or the dominion of the Lord.  Jesus Christ in heaven is Lord of all. There’s no one arguing, no one trying to overthrow His authority in the third heaven. He is King of Kings. Now the Bible says, “we are seated with Him in heavenly places (Ephesians 2:6), so if we want to bring the kingdom of God and the power of God into the earth realm, we have got to have a heavenly perspective.  We have got to come at warfare, at the enemy, the world and life from a superior position of authority.  We dont fight to overcome, we fight because we have already overcome.  We dont fight to get the victory, we fight because we already have the victory.  We are already risen with Vhrist. We are already seated with Christ and the Bible says “if then you are raised with Christ, then constantly be seeking the things which are above and constantly set your mind on things which are above.

Christians seem to think that spirituality has nothing to do with what they believe, what they meditate upon or what they invest in. They want God to just show up and do it, but it is not like that.  “If then you are raised with Christ, set your mind on those things which are above.”  That means you have to meditate upon your position, your identity and your new nature in God. Remember, man did nto invent creativity. Man did not impart to himself the power to imagine.  It was God who made man.  All men, regardless of their salvation have God-given abilities to go places in their mind.  If you think, you will find out you are thinking in pictures.  You will find out that you are relating to something.  Man has the ability to follow his thoughts.  Try it one day.  Just think about someone in anger and think about them in disappointment and think about them in resentment, and then run into that person.  You will have a very hard time being nice to that person.  You will have a very hard time communicating with that person.  What they have set their mind upon has set them up to become a slave to the thing that they have chosen to meditate upon.

Well by the same token, you cannot think good about God, His Word or your position in Christ before you begin to draw near to Him and you being to actively experience the reality of the thing that He has provided for you. So the Bible says, “if you meditate upon the Word of God day and night and let not the Book of the Law depart out of your heart and mouth, but learn to do everything that is written in it, you will make your way prosperous and you will have good success (Joshua 1:8)

Most of us know that, but you see knowing it is not enough.  Knowing it does not ensure a short cut to receiving that thing.  When you get a revelation of the finished work, it’s going to take meditation, thinking upon, analyzing, evaluating, studying, digging into the Word of God until you receive the reality and the power of those things.  Until the experiential power is flowing through you, you haven’t arrived and even when the power is flowing, you still haven’t arrived.  So what do you do?

You seek those things. We constantly set our minds on those things which are above.  Now the things I am talking about are related to your position in Christ, your authority through Christ and your identity through Christ.  You are not who you used to be so in order for you to really experience that, you have got to start thinking on who you are.  You have got to start speaking in relationship to who you are.  In order to operate as a person of authority you have to see yourself from a biblical perspective, find out where you are seated in God and find out what Jesus has paid for you to have.

People go around for many years and then the power of the thing they are seeking begins to flow through them. Understand this! Every man will eventually yield to one power or the other. He will either yield to demonic spirits or the Spirit of God. He will either have demonic supernatural power or Godly supernatural power.

The Bible said we have been given the Holy Spirit (1 Thes 4:8).  The Holy Spirit of God gives us the ability to open every dimension of ourselves to the supernatural embodiment, incarnation, residence of the Lord Jesus Christ.  Now He’s inside us, but the more you pray in your heavenly language, the more you will get out of the natural, rational realm. The more you let the power of the Spirit live in you, the greater the sphere of influence that God gives you will be in your life.  So He said, “Constantly be setting your mind on the things which are above.” So what happens is – those things which are above are the real provisions that jesus has for you – your identity in Christ, your new nature through Christ, your authority through Christ, your victory through Him, and your heavenly perspective through His Word are realities that will never become real to you unless you constantly set your mind upon them. That means both conscious and unconscious effort.

Remember the marks of a true intercessor: a sense of human need, a Christlike love in the heart, a consciousness of personal impotence, faith in the power of prayer, courage to persevere in spite of refusal and the assurance of an abundant reward (A. Murray)

God sees what is happening in the world and His heart grieves.  Why? Because He sent Jesus upon the cross to beat the hand of evil down in order to bless His people with the best.  He has and always will be willing to release all His Word says He has provided. Christ destroyed the power of sin in our life.  He destroyed the power of sickness and disease.  Through His death we were given delegated authority to spiritually rule this earth, yet we fail to take control over the power of Satan.  We have been given UNLIMITED divine access to the Father, but through ignorance we fail to use it.  God is calling for His people to return to Him in prayer and intercession, the channel by which His power is released into the lives of His people in the world. Prayer changes things, but it is the most misunderstood and underused weapon in the Christian arsenal.  God is calling and looking for those who are willing to learn how to pray in SPIRIT and TRUTH.  He is looking for those who will lay aside what they thought they knew in terms of prayer and learn true, unadulterated, pure and powerful prayer.  Are you one of those people?  Are you ready to change the world, the cities, your life and more?

“God does nothing but in answer to prayer. (J. Wesley)”

“God has limited His work on earth and made it dependent upon the prayers of His people.  The measure of His power and blessing on earth is determined by the measure of intercession arising before the Throne Room.  Through intercession, we pray into being God’s will on earth as it is in heaven (Cerullo)”.  Listen all people of God, listen to the cry and urging of God’s Spirit to return to Him in prayer.  The Bible is firm when it says,

“You have not chosen me, but I have chosen you, and ordained you, that you should go and bring forth fruit, and that your fruit should remain: that whatsoever you shall ask of the Father in My Name, He may give it to you. (John 15:16)”

Intercession is the most powerful form of prayer in that it is the prayer that Christ prays on His throne.  Through His prayers, He is waging war in the heavenlies, tearing down and destroying strongholds of the enemy that hold the world’s people bound.  He has given you His power and authority.  All of heaven is at our disposal.  He has PROMISED to give us whatever we ask in His name.  The Bible tells us His will for us.  It outlines His promises clearly, but to access these answers we must pray prayers emanating from the throne room of God into the world.  We cannot pray powerless prayers from our soulish man and expect God to answer.

How many know what intercession is?  Intercession is standing in the gap on behalf of people, cities, and nations; It is exercising our delegated authority, pleading the promises of God in faith.  It is bringing God’s kingdom down upon the earth so that His will be done on earth as it is in heaven.  Intercession goes beyond prayer petitioning God to meet your own needs.  It is praying on behalf of others.  It is not a five-minute prayer listing names of people that need to be saved and delivered.  It is getting into the face of God mourning, weeping, travailing and waiting before Him to answer, not letting go until the work is complete.  It involves willingness to stand in the gap for someone other than ourselves.   An intercessor is important because they are able to effectively plead on behalf of another because they are willing to give their life for another.  They are wiling to lay aside their own interests and as much as possible take their place.  It is not substitution for sin.  That was Christs stand.  To intercede on behalf of another, we must be willing to sit where those we intercede for are sitting.  We must identify with their needs adn feel their infirmities so that we can gain a position of prayer to effectively intercede.

“He Who did not withhold or spare even His own Son but gave Him up for us all, will He not also with Him freely and graciously give us all things? Who is there to condemn us? Will Christ Jesus, Who died or rather Who was raised from the dead, Who is at the right hand of God actually pleading as He intercedes for us? (Romans 8:32, 34)

Christ is giving unceasing intercession for us, so to understand the depths of intercession, we must look to Him.  He is calling us to join Him in this work where our intercession will also flow from the Throne to the world. Christ gave us the responsibility to continue on the work He started.  He equipped us with His power through the Spirit who is a spirit of supplication, to release His intercession through them.  He gave us the authority to do so in His name.  Too many of us pray ineffective prayer using our natural minds.  Your natural mind cannot know the mind and will of God.  In the natural mind, you are limited in ability and do not know how to pray.  You must recognize that fact and develop total dependence on the Holy Spirit to help.

“Likewise the Spirit also helpeth our infirmities: for we know not what we should pray for as we ought: but the Spirit itself maketh intercession for us with groanings which cannot be uttered. And He that searcheth the hearts knoweth what is the mind of the Spirit, because He maketh intercession for the saints according to the will of God (Romans 8:26-27)”

Do not worry.  God knows your natural mind does not know how to pray.  That is why He sent His Spirit for you to rely on.  Through His Spirit you will receive a divine capability to pray.

“The life of Christ flowing through us and the words of Christ living in us, these give power to prayer. They breathe the spirit of prayer, and make the body, blood and bones of prayer (Bounds)”

There are over six billion people in the world and only one half of those have heard the Name of Jesus. There is something definitely wrong with that.  The problems of the world go beyond the surface of issues such as homosexuality, pornography, drugs, abortion and others plaguing our society.  The root of the issues goes well beneath the symptoms.  It is time for us all to rise up in powerful prayer and go to the root to eliminate the strongholds that exist below the surface.  Treating the symptoms does not destroy the issue, it only covers the problem temporarily.  It’s time to destroy these strongholds permanently and to do that we must rise above the ordinary prayer and intercede with power.

To do that, it starts with you.  You must change, becoming so spiritually dissatisfied that you refuse to stay where you are.  You must enter into an experience where you know that you have  the power through prayer that Christ promised.  God didn’t not intend for the church to be what it is today. Evil Spirits recognize the power and authority of God operating through us, that is, if we are walking the life of Christ in faith.  The only way we will see entire nations and cities transformed and a great harvest of souls is for something supernatural to occur in the church.  We need God to breath His Spirit upon us once again and raise up intercessors who have the power, who know what it means to pray and intercede before God with delegated authority (Cerullo).  We have this same delegated authority that Jesus had 2000 years ago in us.  It is greater than any power and authority known to man and Christ wants to activate it through your prayers.

There are three major phases of intercession: Identification, self-sacrifice, power and authority.

Phase 1: Identification:  To understand this phase of intercession, we have to take a look at Christ, our High Priest-Intercessor.  How so?  Christ identified with us by taking upon Himself the form of flesh and blood. He left the glories of heaven and became one of us so that He would feel our infirmities and be qualified to intercede on our behalf.  In the same way, we must also be will to identify with those for whom we are interceding, at the point of their need.  We must so identify with them that we take their burdens upon ourselves, feel their pain and sorrow and present their needs before the Father as if they were our own.  As an intercessor, you are able to plead effectively because you give your life for another, you have laid aside your own self-interest and as much as possible, you have taken their place.  This is true intercession.  True intercessors must be willing to sit where those they pray are sitting.

Phase 2: Self-Sacrifice:  Christ paid the ultimate price by laying His life down for us.  In the same way, we must come to the place where we are willing to lay down our own lives sacrificially on behalf of those for whom we are praying.  Self must be crucified!  We must be willing to lay aside our own desires and give ourselves sacrificially through prayer and fasting on behalf of the needs of others.  Remember, it is the Holy Spirit who lays a burden upon our hearts for others and calls us to intercede.  During intercession,  as we fully yield ourselves to the Holy Spirit, He will pray through us.  As we begin to pray in the Spirit in unknown tongues, the Spirit begins to travail and make intercession “with groanings which cannot be uttered”.  When we pray in the Spirit, we build  ourselves up in the most holy faith. When we face circumstances that seem overwhelming or impossible in the natural realm, and we begin to pray in the Holy Spirit in tongues, the Holy Spirit intercedes for us. He comes to our aid and releases His power within us to overcome every obstacle and trial we face.

Phase 3: Power and Authority:  As self begins to die and we allow the Holy Spirit to have full control to pray through us with groanings and gushing of the Spirit, we then enter into that realm of power and authority that is ours in Jesus’ name.  We have gained a powerful spiritual position through intercession where we are about to speak a word of “deliverance”.  We are clothed with authority by the Holy Spirit and it is from this position of strength the “greater works” of Jesus are done in His name.  This is true intercession.  The place of power and authority is not something we can obtain in our own strength.  It is a place that the Holy Spirit will bring us into as we yield ourselves to Him.

The role of an intercessor is a high and holy calling.  God wants you to become an intercessor, but it involves consecrating and setting yourself apart for fasting and prayer, waiting before Him and not letting go until the work has been done.  Christ has given His body a prayer mandate.  He has given us the awesome privilege and responsibility of joining Him in intercession and fulfilling His will in the nations through our prayers.  He has also given us the delegated power and authority, through the Holy Spirit to demolish Satan’s strongholds, heal the sick, cast out demons and do even greater works than He did, in His name.

He has chosen you and ordained you to bring forth fruit that will remain. Allow the Spirit to have full control to pray through you. Through prayer we can move the hand of God, break through  all natural limitations and tap into His unlimited power.

Pray this prayer:

Father, thank You for the awesome privilege and responsibility  you have given us to come before Your throne and intercede on behalf of lost souls in our cities and nations.  Give us Your heartbeat for souls!  Open our eyes to see the lost through Your eyes of compassion.  Bring us to a new level of strategic intercession where the Holy Spirit is praying through us, travailing and interceding for souls to be won into Your Kingdom.  Anoint us by Your Spirit to pray with the delegated authority You have given us.  Remove every limitation and hindrance that will prevent us from fulfilling our Holy calling of intercession before Your throne.  Lord Jesus we accept Your prayer mandate and the call to pray prayers from Your Throne in the power and authority of Your Name, to heal the sick, cast out demons and minister to the desperate needs around us with signs, wonders and miracles following.

“While Jesus was in Bethany in the home of a man known as Simon the Leper, a woman came to Him with an alabaster jar of very expensive perfume, which she poured on His head as He was reclining at the table. When the disciples saw this, they were indignant. “Why this waste?” they asked. This perfume could have been sold at a high price and the money given to the poor.” Aware of this, Jesus said to them, “Why are you bothering this woman?  She has done a beautiful thing to me. The poor you will always have with you, but you will not always have me.  When she poured this perfume on My body, she did it to prepare me for burial.  (Matthew 26:6-13)”

[This story perfectly illustrates the meaning of true worship.  Can you see it in your mind's eye.  This woman rushes to her room and runs to her chest of drawers.  Ruffling through its contents, she finds a carefully wrapped alabaster bottle filled with the most precious of perfumes.  As she looks down at it, she remembers it worth, but inside her heart she bursts to share it with the Master.  What would He say? What would He think if she poured it upon Him out of the love she felt in her heart?  Would He be angry or would He see into the depths of her soul and see how deep her love was for Him?  As her thoughts imagine that moment, she can hardly contain herself and rushes to the object of her adoration.  This woman gave her most valuable possession to show her heart felt love for the Master. Now that is some kind of worship!

Yet, worship is a important key to answered prayers.  In fact, most fail to realise that worship is a powerful form of prayer that brings Gods glory down and puts the enemy to flight. Sadly, most Christians are ignorant to this fact.  Yet still, God is looking for true worshippers.

Worshipping God is critical and vital for true worship in the Spirit as it ushers you into the Holy of Holies, that is, into the very presence of the Father.  It is a divine encounter with God.  For this reason, it is important to understand what worship is, so lets begin by looking at its meaning.  The Greek word for worship is "proskyneo" meaning to prostrate oneself, give reverence to.  Did you catch that?  It is an act of adoration and reverence, a rendering of divine honor, esteem and love towards God and Christ.  That's right, it is an outward display that brings us in direct contact with God. Through worship we give value and worth to the object of our worship. While worshipping the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ, we are pouring out our love for Who They are rather than what They have done for us because worship centers on Who God is, while praise and thanksgiving involves giving to God and thanking Him for what He has done. The Bible tells us,

"He who brings as offering of praise and thanksgiving honors and glorifies Me" (Ps 50:23)

Thanksgiving is an aspect of prayer whereby we recognize and give thanks to God for all His blessings. Like praise, it is a type of prayer that draws the heart away from self and centers it upon God.  This is why when we come before God we need to begin by worshipping, thanking and praising Him before we present our needs.  Jesus said that true worshippers would worship in spirit and in truth.  In a world of idolatry, man has turned his back on God to worship power, money, sex and the world's pleasures.  God is searching for true worshippers.  He desires those who will build a living memorial to Him through worship, like Mary, who poured out lavish worship on the Lord Jesus.

Many Christians in the church are holding onto idols in their hearts.  Many have placed their families, careers and pursuit of worldly pleasures first place in their lives instead of the Lord and their worship for Him.  These things have become their idols.  There are others who have put the work of the Lord and ministry, above the Lord.  Ministry has become their god.  They have exalted the work of the Lord above the Lord Himself. They have become so busy in their work for the Lord that they neglect to spend time in His Presence worshipping Him.  This is spiritual idolatry.  The Father is looking and yearning for those who will worship Him wholeheartedly, who will not just honor Him with their lips and say they love Him, but will truly worship Him.

To gain a clearer understanding of what true worship really is, lets look at the life and example of Abraham.  God wanted to know Abraham's heart and whether or not he loved Him above everything else.  He directed Abraham to sacrifice his beloved son, Isaac.  Abraham obeyed God. When he reached the place of sacrifice, where God had directed him to go, he left his servants saying, "Stay here with the donkey while I and the boy go over there.  We will worship and then we will come back (Gen 22:5)".  Abraham, in obedience to God, was on the way to offer Isaac on the altar as a sacrifice to God. Yet, he said, "we will worship".  He believed God, who had given him the promise that through Isaac and his seed he would become a father of many nations.  He was willing to offer his son in worship on the altar knowing that God would be able to raise him from the dead.  Abraham's worship involved his willingness to give God the thing of greatest value and that was dearest to his heart - his son, Isaac, for whom he had prayed and believed God for.  It involved more than just words.  He didn't just tell God how much he loved Him.  He worshipped God and poured out love through his act of obedience and faith.

True worship involves our verbal expression of adoration and praise as well as our actions.  As you give yourself as a living sacrifice to God and come before Him, pouring out your love and worshipping Him for Who He is, He receives your worship and in turn, gives Himself to you.  His glory comes down and His Presence is manifested.  The Father is not withholding Himself from us.  He is just waiting for us to break through all man-made traditions and formalities and come into His Presence and worship.

Ignite the powerful weapons of worship, praise and thanksgiving to defeat the enemy.  We are to face our circumstances and things coming upon the earth before the Lord's return, not with fear, but with the "High Praise" of God in our mouths and the two-edged sword of His Word in our hands.  This is an hour when God's people must declare His praises among the nations.  God has made us to be a "royal priesthood" to proclaim His praises to the end of the earth.  Something happens in the spirit realm when God's people begin to truly praise, sing and worship Him.  There is a release of new freedom that comes forth.

Begin your time alone with the Father by first worshipping Him for Who He is: The Great I AM; Jehovah Jireh, Abba Father; Jehovah Shalom; Jehovah Nissi; Jehovah Rapha; All powerful; Ancient of Days; King of Kings; Lord of Lords; Savior; Redeemer; Deliverer; Lamb of God; Lion of Judah and soon coming King.  One of the first things to do during worship is to recognize the awesome glory, majesty and holiness of God.  He alone is holy.  As you come into His Presence, honor and praise Him for His holiness.  He is perfect in all His ways. Praise Him for His mercy, His loving kindness and His faithfulness.  Begin to thank Him for what He has done for you. Throughout your day, wherever you go, praise Him and tell Him how much you love Him.  During your worship time, shut away with Him, God wants you to abandon yourself in worshipping Him.  Worship and praise God with a passion, forgetting everything, losing sight of what anyone will say and totally losing yourself in Him.   The key to experiencing God in His fullness is to humble ourselves before Him, lay aside all pre-conceived ideas and cry out to Him with all our hearts.  Cast off your robe of pride and self-sufficiency and begin to sing, shout, and dance before Him.

Pray this prayer:

Father, my heart rejoices to know that You love me with an everlasting love and that You desire my worship and praise. You alone are worthy of all praise, honor, glory and blessing! I am hungry for You! My spirit cry out to know You in a greater capacity. My love you and desire You above everything else.  You are the only true and living God.  You are high and holy and I lift You up and exalt Your holy name. I praise and worship you because You are full of mercy, grace and truth. I desire to know You in Your fullness. With all my heart I want to worship You in Spirit and in Truth.  Teach me to open my alabaster box of true worship and worship You in Spirit and truth. (Cerullo)]

]]> http://oilofthespirit.wordpress.com/2011/08/27/break-open-your-alabaster-box/feed/ 1 0.000000 0.000000 0.000000 0.000000 Pastor Rosa Kelly http://oilofthespirit.wordpress.com/2011/08/27/a-holy-summons/ http://oilofthespirit.wordpress.com/2011/08/27/a-holy-summons/#comments Sat, 27 Aug 2011 05:04:15 +0000 Peshitta Ministries http://oilofthespirit.wordpress.com/?p=404 ]]> “What is prayer?  Prayer is a spiritual force through which God releases His immeasurable, supernatural power to meet the needs of His people and establish His will and Kingdom upon the earth.

For all those out there crying out to God – Know, there is absolutely no limitation or circumstance that can hinder God’s power from being released in answer to your cry.  How do we know?

“Call unto me and I will answer thee and show thee great and mighty things which you know not (Jer 33:3)”

If you are reading this, God is calling you to a life of prayer and intimacy with Him.  Shake yourself from complacency.  Commit yourself to God in prayer.  Every relationship requires time spent alone with your partner getting to know them.  During that time with them, dialog takes place and through that dialog, you gain insight into the inner most part of your partner.  God is your partner.  Ask yourself, do you spend enough time with Him to truly know who He is?  Do you listen to His heart as much as He listens to yours?  Is your attention fully on Him during those times or is your mind divided on other things, giving Him what is left over after a busy day?  Do you reach out to Him before your day starts and seek His advice before beginning anything major?  Do you trust His advice by acting upon it or does it toss around in your mind and get shelved?  Do you come to Him to tell Him how much you love and adore Him, or is most of your time vetting your needs?  Do you pray for others as much as you pray for yourself?  Do you see Him as your partner or your place of supply and demand?  Where are you with respect to your partner, God?  Do you reverence Him and fight for time with Him as you would a human mate?  Where does He fit into your daily life?  What’s the first and last thing you think about each day?

These questions will gauge where your heart is in God.  It’s time to wake up for the day is coming where people will be so consumed with the world and its pleasures, that His coming will come upon them unaware.  Are you so preoccupied with making a living, taking care of family and enjoying life that God gets the leftovers?  Are you spiritually disabled as a result, too busy to pray? Have your spiritual eyes and ears grown dim to his call.  God is specific in saying, “Watch and pray always”.  This is not an option, it is a command, a command that will save our lives as the enemy searches for whom he may devour.

Shake yourselves! Rise up out of your sleep! The hour is late and there is no time to sleep or to become careless. This is a time to become vigilant in prayer.  It is time to seek God’s face, to receive His direction, His anointing,  and His power to equip and prepare you for this hour! Rise up! Come and wait before Him. As you remain in His Presence He will reveal Himself to you.  He will speak to you.  He will release all that you need to walk in His power and might to accomplish His will.  Now is not the time to get spiritually lazy.  It not the time to get consumed with life’s circumstances and activities, giving God what remains of your day, if you give God anything at all.  It is time to go beyond the “bless me” state in your prayers where you focus only on yourself and your needs and pray for the needs of others.

Prayer is a powerful force in the earth and most Christians have no idea how to tap into that power.  Jesus said,

“And whatsoever ye shall ask in my name, that will I do,that the Father may be glorified in the Son (John 14:13-14)”

Jesus pulls no punches when He makes this statement.  He will do whatever you ask in His name, but there is a condition attached to this promise concerning how we ask.  Christ’s intention is that through prayer we would reach up into heaven and bring down His Kingdom on earth.  He intended that we would use this power and authority in His name to reach the very throne room of God and to bring heaven’s resources on earth so as to fulfill His will.  So what’s the problem?   Christians either fail to pray or lack prevailing prayer.  The church has become so spiritually impotent that when Christians face challenges, they are powerless to overcome, powerless to manifest the power of the Spirit that is in them.  They lack the faith to produce the results that the Word so strongly promises for them.

The needs of the world are ever-increasing and the only hope is for the church to learn to prevail in prayer at the feet of Jesus.  Ask yourself, are you willing to dedicate yourself to rising up to a new level of prayer?  Do you want a fresh revelation and experience in prayer that demolishes the strongholds of Satan?  The world needs answers to prayers.  People need their lives and situations changed.  They need to see the Spirit demonstrate His power in their life, so they can see that God is concerned.  God is true to His Word and His desires are to be involved in the activities of this world.  We are the tools by which He uses, but what if that tool places itself upon a shelf only to collect dust or only uses itself when convenient?  What if the tasks it sets itself to do are only focused around its own needs?  What if the tool is dull or broken?  It is time to shake the people of God out of their slumber so that the Spirit can empower them through the anointing to pray energized prayers that will shake the gates of Hell, loose those bound in chains of darkness and bring God’s Kingdom on earth.  Heaven is not only for the future, when we die.  Heaven is here and now.

Prayer is a life style.  The Bible tells us, “Pray always with all prayer and supplication in the Spirit, and watching thereunto with all perseverance and supplication for all saints.”  Do you see it?   God commands us to pray always, at all times, on all occasions using all kinds of prayers and supplications, but did you catch the second part?  PRAY IN THE SPIRIT.  WATCH IN PRAYER.  PERSEVERE IN PRAYER.  Prayer is no joke, it is a must, a life saving devotion to God. The call to prayer is first and foremost a call to a living, vibrant relationship with God and Christ.  It is a call to know His heart, to come into His Presence and to commune/fellowship with Him continually.  It isn’t a 15 minute, microwaveable hurry up and give God thanks prayer.  It isn’t a fit me in before I go to sleep or work prayer.  It isn’t a venting session.  God created us to fellowship with Him, but how many of us pass up that opportunity?  Our very success in life depends upon our relationship with the Father, yet we have time to do everything but that, fitting God in the openings or when convenient.  Yet, if it is really something we want to do, we will find time.  Is prayer something you really want to do?

When we pray, we are standing in the King’s reception room (Spurgeon).  There we are at a vantage point because there  we are in the Almighty’s Presence.  What a beautiful place to be!  In His presence we can commune or talk, but how many of us give God a chance to talk back?  Do you listen to see what He has to say?  Prayer is a dialog, that is, it is a two-way conversation, yet most of us pray a one-sided prayer, never really sitting still long enough to hear God’s answers and thoughts on the matter.  During prayer, we are to minister to God, showering Him with our love and then wait silently in worship and adoration for Who He is.  God longs for our love and ministry to Him, yet our prayers are normally filled with requests for things or favors that need to be granted.  Our Father is interested in a love relationship.  He is looking for those who will worship Him in spirit and truth.  This relationship involves more than a 5 minute devotional or a short prayer before you fall asleep.  It involves communing with God through the entire day.  Wherever you are, God is there so there is always opportunity for conversation, though God is looking for those quiet moments together also.    God wants a relationship with us that is not only us giving ourselves to Him, but Him giving Himself to us.

The number one priority in prayer is getting into God’s Presence, that is, establishing a personal relationship with Him.  Are you hungry for God’s Presence?  Are you crying out to know Him more intimately?  Communion with God involves passionate desire from your innermost being.  There must arise in you an insatiable desire to know Him and to live in continual communion with Him.  That process takes time alone with Him waiting on Him, getting to know Him, and allowing His words to take root in your heart.  When you do, your prayers will rise to a new level.  Become consumed with a passionate desire for God.  Set your priority in prayer to first and foremost spend time communing with the Father and Christ.  Set aside time in prayer to seek His face and not just His hand in blessing.  As you come into His presence, acknowledge Him for who He is.  Take time to be silent before Him listening to hear His voice.  In prayer it is better to have a heart without words than words without a heart. (Bunyan).  Communion is a dialog.  True communion is listening for God’s voice to know His will and direction.  The more you develop intimacy with Him, the more you will be able to hear and discern His voice.  There in His Presence, you will receive a divine life flow of His anointing and He will pour out His love upon you.    Draw from His strength.  Allow Him to reveal Himself to you.  The call of the Spirit is your call to return to a personal, intimate relationship with our Creator.

Pray this prayer:
Holy Spirit, teach me to pray.  Father, Thank you for paying the ultimate price giving me divine access into the Holy of Holies, into your Presence.  I have heard the wooing of Your Spirit to draw near to You in a  more intimate relationship and am hungry for Your Presence.  I long to hear Your voice, to know Your heart, to fellowship with You.  Jesus, Thank you for the blood You shed making it possible for me to come boldly into our Father’s Presence.  I desire You more than life itself.  You are everything I need and all that I desire.  Draw me to Yourself in a deeper dimension of intimacy, greater than anything I have ever known.  Reveal Yourself to me. Open my eyes to see and know You in all Your power and glory.  I give myself wholly to You.

]]> http://oilofthespirit.wordpress.com/2011/08/27/a-holy-summons/feed/ 0 0.000000 0.000000 0.000000 0.000000 Pastor Rosa Kelly http://oilofthespirit.wordpress.com/2011/08/26/beyond-ordinary-prayer/ http://oilofthespirit.wordpress.com/2011/08/26/beyond-ordinary-prayer/#comments Sat, 27 Aug 2011 00:01:32 +0000 Peshitta Ministries http://oilofthespirit.wordpress.com/?p=396 ]]>      There are many of us out there aggressively seeking a more intimate relationship with God, but where do we begin that pursuit? How do we get there?  I am so hungry for God, hungry to know him experientially, hungry to get beyond just Him being words on a page of a Bible. I bet there are many who are looking for their burning bush or their “on the Road to Damascus” experience, but I must ask you a question. Would you open your heart’s secrets and desires to just anyone? What would it take for you to open yourself up and share those most cherished dreams and heartfelt desires?
Yet, many of us enter into God presence whether that be in a sanctuary or in the privacy of our own home carelessly. We come to Him with our minds preoccupied with our daily activities, our circumstances and while we sit, God fights for our attention in the midst of the tangled ball of thoughts. Let’s take this point home, have you ever sat in church and while the pastor speaks, your mind wonders to what you will do when church lets out or what you will eat because you are hungry or even looked at your watch to see how much longer before church is over? The answer to these questions will give you an indication of the true spirit of your worship.  How do you approach God?  Do you see Him for Who He is are for what He can do for you?  Do you reverence and awe Him or treat Him like one of your best buds?  Your attitude toward Him determines your level of intimacy as no one in their right mind will open up their heart to someone who really truly doesnt care.  Just as you guard your heart from hurt and disappointment, sharing it with only those who earn your trust, so too, does our Father in heaven.

      God has always desired for us to draw close to Him, as evidenced by His creating Adam at the very beginning of time. This is the only time that any man walked with God as He truly intended and though Adam fell, God never stopped yearning for our intimacy with Him. How do we know? He sent Jesus so that we would be restored. Through Jesus’ sacrifice we were given access to God’s throne room where we can present our prayers and petitions before Him. God cries out from the depths of His being for us to come to Him in true worship and praise.  Prayer is one vehicle in which God made available to do that, but so many who pray really do not pray as they should so we are going to take a journey to learn how to pray in the same powerful, unlimited dimension as Jesus, that place where nothing is impossible to us. Now whether you get there is determined by you and the attitude you take. Ask yourself, are you satisfied with living as you are or are you ready to experience the full potential of the true power of prayer that Christ intended for His people?

      Now it doesn’t matter where your prayer life is now. Christ is calling you to rise above your current state and join Him at His side where your prayers will change cities, nations and groups by His power. To do that you must set aside all traditions and preconceived ideas of what you thought prayer is and be willing to move into a new realm and experience in prayer. True prayer is more than reading prefabricated prayers from a book or repeating eloquent words to impress those who are listening around you. Prayer is a means to move God’s hands to produce His will here on earth. Our natural minds can not get us there. We must move from the natural into the realm of the supernatural where there exist no limits and where all things are made possible. To get there, we need the power of the Holy Spirit for prayer is born of the Spirit.

      It is only through God’s Spirit we can truly learn to pray for He is the giver of all prayer. Though there are many books that can teach us the prayer, there is no better teacher then Jesus, our Great Intercessor. Through His Spirit we will be enabled to pray prayers that are motivated, directed and divinely energized by Him. Remember, we are not alone in our quest to learn. Even Jesus’ disciples (Luke 11:1) sought out Jesus, asking, “Lord, teach us to pray, as John also taught his disciples.” I am sure these disciples were much like us, praying traditional prayers learned from their worship in their synagogues through the priests. One of the greatest experiences of the disciples was witnessing the prayer life of Jesus who lived in unbroken communion and fellowship with the Father. Any Bible reader knows that He would rise early in the morning long before others and slip away to pray. Before every major event in His life, He would spend time alone with the Father.

“The Son can do nothing of Himself, but what He seeth the Father do: for what things soever He doeth, these also doeth the Son
likewise.” (John 5:19)

     The great victories Jesus experienced during his ministry on earth all began in prayer. Prayer is the key that unlocks the storehouses of God’s infinite grace and power (R.A. Torrey). Jesus was no different from us. He could not win these victories by His own strength no more than we could. He came to earth as a man stripped of His divine abilities. He walked as we did and toiled as we toil, but through it all, He never depended upon Himself. He did absolutely nothing independent of the Father. Everything was a result of what the Father revealed to Him while He was in His presence during prayer. Jesus sacrificed time to be in the presence of God. It was there that God would reveal His will to Him. It was there that He penetrated enemy lines. It was there He fought the battle and won. Can you imagine what was running through the minds of His disciples as they listened to Him pray? I am sure they hungered to pray just like Him. In answer to their heart’s cry, Jesus began to teach them the Lord’s prayer. This prayer set forth a pattern for us to follow, breaking the traditions set forth by the religious leaders of that time and even today.

True prayer must come from our hearts, not our heads.  It is not just words and phrases we repeat as a routine or formality.  It involves us coming before the Father with our hearts, in total admiration and submission.  God does not desire for us to give Him only a portion of our heart, He wants it all.  That’s right! God wants our whole heart.  How do we know?

“And ye shall seek me, and find me, when ye shall search for me with all your hearts” (Jeremiah 29:13)

It is said to say that many Christians pray what they learn, their words empty and hollow because they are spoken through the ability of their mind and do not pour out of the depths of their hearts.  To go beyond ordinary prayer, we must get beyond the head knowledge and traditions and cry out from the midst of our heart “Lord, break through the dead, dry traditions and teach us to pray!”  God is not a God removed some where in heaven, far from our reach.  He is not a God that is unapproachable or inaccessible.  He is a loving God who desires to be intimate with us.  There is no place in the Bible where He did not reveal Himself to His people looking for intimacy and fellowship.  How do we know?  Before we were ever even created, God already had a plan to redeem man.  He gave the ultimate sacrifice so that we could be restore to Him in intimacy and communion.  Through Jesus, we were given another chance to have a new intimate relationship with God.

     To get beyond an ordinary prayer, we must have a fresh revelation of God.  We must know Him, not just talk about Him.  We must know that He desires to p0ur out good things in our life.  We must know that He has provided everything we need and is just waiting for us to ask.  We must know that He is looking for opportunities to manifest His power on our behalf.

 ”For the eyes of the Lord run to and fro throughout the whole earth, to shew Himself strong on behalf of them whose heart is perfect toward Him.” (2 Chronicles 16:9)

When we live in the place of intimacy with our Father, the prayer of faith and its answers will be the natural result..  To go beyond ordinary prayer, we must know that we must come before the Father with our whole heart, knowing Him intimately as our Father. True prayer is much more than asking our God for things.  It is a vital, living relationship with a childlike simplicity, in faith, trusting and knowing He desires to pour out into our lives.

Now we must understand that it is through Christ that we have divine access to the Father by the Spirit.

“For through Him we both have access by one Spirit unto the Father” (Ephesians 2:18)

 True prayer begins in our spirit.  We are commanded to pray in the Spirit.

“But ye, beloved, building up yourselves on your most holy faith, praying in the Holy Ghost” (Jude 20)

God is a Spirit and is not bound by time and space.  The only way we can know Him is by the Spirit dwelling inside us.  It is our Spirit who ushers us into God’s presence.  It is our Spirit that prompts us to pray.  It is our Spirit who teaches us to pray.  It is our Spirit who guides us in our prayers, giving us a faith and strength.  To become a great prayer warrior, we must be willing to go beyond ordinary prayer to a place beyond the natural mind. We must develop a total dependence on the Holy Spirit because only He can enable you to know the heartbeat of God, only He knows God’s priorities and will.

“True prayer is the Holy Spirit releasing the mind and will of the Father in us, and then giving the divine unction and utterance to speak the word of faith to accomplish it. (Cerullo)”

To go beyond an ordinary prayer, we must break through the natural barrier so that the Spirit inside us can pray, that is, we must stop trying to pray according to our natural understanding.  When the Spirit prays, the will of God goes forth.  His prayers never go unanswered. We must seek to be filled and under the full control of the Holy Spirit. The more we surrender our life to Christ and die to self, the more we allow the Holy Spirit room to work in us to release His power through us.   True prayer is a way of life.  It is the highest and holiest work to which man can do.  The extent of the abiding is the exact measure of the power of prayer.

Pray this prayer:

Father, thank you for placing Your Spirit within us giving us divine access to Your throne room.  We submit ourselves fully into Your hands.  Holy Spirit, have full control in our lives! Teach us to pray! Reveal to us the Father’s heart, His will, and His vision for our lives, families, cities and nations.  Father, impart to us divine ability to pray prayers that will release Your power and anointing to bring salvation, healing and deliverance.  Anoint us to pray prayers that will result in Satan’s strongholds being destroyed and Your Kingdom and will being established in every nation.