Monday night I was falling asleep and I heard in my mind,
"Pray for sinners." I bolted
up in bed and as soon as I realized what had just happened, I thought to
myself, "That's it? Pray for
sinners? God You could have told me
anything, but You picked this?" It seemed
so mundane, and to tell Christians to pray for sinners seems like a foregone
conclusion. I thought, "God surely
You don't expect me to just tell everyone You said, 'Pray for sinners', because
their reaction is gonna be like, 'Well, duh.
Thanks for the earth-shaking revelation.'"
It is extremely rare that I hear the Holy Spirit that
clearly. So rare, that it always catches
me off guard. And so far, on those rare
occasions in which I have heard the Spirit in mind so clearly, the words I hear don't seem
very earth-shaking. But that is exactly
what we see in Scripture. Scripture
tells us that God uses the weak and foolish things of the world, the lowly and
despised-- the things that are not, so that He can bring to nothing the things
that are-- so that no one can boast in His presence (1 Cor 1:27-29). That is why God changes the course of history
through nondescript mangers. He pours
out Living Water in the isolated, scantly populated deserts of Galilee. He redeems through unknown Carpenters. One thing I have learned though, is that when
God does speak, He is always communicating something important, but He wants us to seek
Him further for the true depths of understanding, because that is how a conversation works and that is how you have
a relationship with someone. So,
although in my own thinking and understanding I didn't really know what He
meant by "pray for sinners", I knew He would give me the deeper
understanding I needed if I were to faithfully seek His presence through
prayer. Which is exactly what I did over
the next couple days, and this is what was laid upon my heart by the Holy
Spirit to communicate to believers:
The
misguided and misdirected among the human race are not your enemies (Luke
23:34; Acts 7:60; Eph 6:12). They are
the pitiable slaves of your true enemy [Satan].
Just
as scripture says that those in Christ are slaves to righteousness (Rom 6:18),
those not in Christ are slaves to wickedness (2 Peter 2:19). They are the children of their father, the
devil (John 8:44). They are children of
wrath (Eph 2:3), sons of disobedience (Eph 2:2, Col 3:6), and workers of
iniquity (Matt 7:23).
Pray
for sinners because you are going to be tempted to hate them, despise them,
feel contempt and bitterness toward them, and feel discouraged by them, which
will tempt even more believers into apostasy (2 Thess 2:3).
Pray
for sinners because the devil works through them to batter the church and wage
war on the church. The weapons of your
warfare and defense are not carnal, but divinely powered to demolish
strongholds, arguments, presumptions and wicked machinations in the spiritual
realm (2 Cor 10:4).
Pray
for sinners because you are the only ones who will. You are the only voices in heaven crying out
to the Advocate on their wretched behalf (1 John 2:1). You are a nation of priests, you are the sons
and daughters of Your heavenly Father, crying out for the salvation of those
who hate you (1 Peter 2:9; Matt 5:44,45).
Pray
for sinners because beware you think you stand, lest you fall (1 Cor 10:11-13).
Pray that you yourselves are not tempted
(Luke 22:46; 2 Peter 3:17).
Pray
for sinners because they are lost and do not know the way. You are the representatives of the heart of Christ,
Who came to seek and save the lost and call sinners to repentance (Luke 5:32; 19:10).
Christ
fought the greatest battle that has ever been won, and He waged it through
prayer.
He
defended Peter through prayer (Luke 22:32).
Christ
would remove Himself from the crowds to pray (Luke 5:16; Matt 14:23; Mark 1:35;
Luke 6:12; Luke 9:28).
His
prayers were intentional and done in isolation, and He purposefully sought the
presence of God.
The
night before His death, He covered His disciples and the mission which was
entrusted to them in prayer (John 17).
The
early church operated through prayer (Acts 1:14; 2:42).
God has been really burdening me with the understanding
that we will not spiritually survive the days ahead without prayer. I cannot stress this enough. You cannot underestimate your enemy and for
crying out loud, we have got to get out of the mindset that we are just
supposed to twiddle our thumbs while we wait for Christ to take us home. WE ARE AT WAR PEOPLE! And we're DYING OUT HERE, while lukewarm,
armchair Christians try to convince everyone that we're just supposed to
"rest in Christ" until He returns. Paul clearly teaches that we are in a battle
we are expected to fight in. Why would
we need armor IF WE AIN'T FIGHTIN' NOBODY??
Paul teaches that we are at war with rulers, authorities, and powers of
this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms
"therefore put on the full armor of
God so that when the day of evil comes,
you may be able to stand your ground, and after you have done everything, to
stand" (Eph 6:12,13). Well
guess what....WE ARE LIVING IN THAT DAY OF EVIL. That "day of evil" has come, we're
chest-deep in it, and there aren't many of us out here swinging a sword because
nobody has time to pray. If you ain't
prayin' then you ain't even on the battlefield.
For the most part, Western Christianity is abysmally
lacking in powerful, consistent, heartfelt prayer.
You are lucky to find a church nowadays that even has prayer meetings,
and for those few that still do, it is usually only the same few people that actually
show up. Heck, you are lucky nowadays to
even find a Christian that consistently goes to church (Heb 10:25). The key element about the term "Body of
Christ" is that all the parts need to be together to work right. There are too many people trying to have an
isolated relationship with God and they have no spiritual accountability to other believers (Prov 27:17; James 5:16) and are
thus, spiritually ineffective and inert.
Throughout the last week or so, the phrase, "Rise Up", keeps going through my
mind over and over. The other day I was
sitting at my computer working and the thought entered my mind, "To Rise
Up, You Must Begin On Your Knees."
Indeed, we rise up to the throne of God to present our supplications and
requests by getting on our knees in prayer.
We rise up against rulers, authorities and powers of this dark world and
against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms by getting on our
knees in faith that our Father has given us the victory. We rise up in victory, by
humbling ourselves before the throne.
Rise Up.
"The Spirit
himself testifies with our spirit that we are God's children. Now if we are
children, then we are heirs--heirs of God and co-heirs with Christ, if indeed
we share in his sufferings in order that we may also share in his glory. I consider that our present sufferings are
not worth comparing with the glory that will be revealed in us." (Rom
8:16-18)
"Now we have
this treasure in jars of clay to show that this surpassingly great power is
from God and not from us. We are hard pressed on every side, but not crushed;
perplexed, but not in despair; persecuted, but not forsaken; struck down, but
not destroyed." (2 Cor 4:7-9)
"And pray in
the Spirit on all occasions with all kinds of prayers and requests. With this in mind, be alert and always keep
on praying for all the Lord's people." (Eph 6:18)
"Devote
yourselves to prayer, being watchful and thankful." (Col 4:2)
"Pray without
ceasing." (2 Thess 5:17)
"Stand firm then,
with the belt of truth buckled around your waist, with the breastplate of righteousness
in place, and with your feet fitted with the readiness that comes from the
gospel of peace. In addition to all this, take up the shield of faith, with
which you can extinguish all the flaming arrows of the evil one. Take the
helmet of salvation and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of
God." (Eph 6:14-17)
