Prayer and the Great “If . . . Then” promise of Jesus – Part 5: The Dynamics of Prayer
When we pray, especially as intercessors, our prayer is always the second step; Jesus is already praying within us, if we remain in Him and His words remain in us. We do not call upon the Holy Spirit to join us in our prayers; we enter into what the Holy Spirit is already doing. Paul tells us this about prayer:
“In the same way, the Spirit helps us in our weakness. We do not know what we ought to pray for, but the Spirit Himself intercedes for us with groans that words cannot express. And He who searches our hearts knows the mind of the Spirit because the Spirit intercedes for the saints in accordance with God’s will (Romans 8: 26, 27 NIV).
God is always praying within us, manifested, at least sometimes, as groans that, at first, we cannot express. Our responsibility is to give words to the Spirit’s groanings and release these words into the world, believing the promise. Why is it possible to make sense out of these groanings? We can know the mind of the Spirit because we have Christ’s Spirit, the mind of Christ. Here is what Paul wrote in excerpts from 1 Corinthians 2: 10 – 16:
“The Spirit, not content to flit around on the surface, dives into the depths of God and brings out what God planned all along . . . Spirit can only be known by spirit – God’s Spirit and our spirit in open communication. Spiritually alive, we have access to everything God’s Spirit is doing . . . “Is there anyone around who knows what God’s Spirit is doing?” has been answered: Christ knows, and we have Christ’s Spirit” (MSG), also translated as, “But we have the mind of Christ” (NIV).
God has already initiated the prayer in our mind because it is what is in His mind. We cannot even think about interceding if the Holy Spirit had not already implanted that prayer in our spirit and mind through His rhema word or His written word.
It is as if our imagination is lit up by God’s spoken (rhema) word to us manifested as a specific thought or word, or as groanings perceived in our spirit. God works within us to show us the future He wants to bring to pass His will for us, our family, neighborhood, church, country, or the world. He gives us a desire to pray for healing, peace, more joy, revival, or whatever He speaks into our hearts. Then, when we give words to these imaginations through prayer, God promises that what we have prayed for, what we have wished for or imagined, will be done according to our prayer.
Our prayers make the invisible visible. Our prayers are the means, the conduit, for God’s will, God’s plans, and God’s purposes to become real, tangible, and effective on earth as they are in heaven.
We work with God and His Spirit, and through our imagination (our spirit, mind, and will) to pray for that which does not yet exist, as if it does. Through our prayers and God’s power released by our prayers, the world changes. This is the source of our hope – we do not have to stoically and passively endure what the world throws at us. When we live ‘in Christ’, walking in His words, we can change the future. Not in our power, but in partnership with God and His eternal plans.
Creating a reality that does not yet exist through prayer is illustrated in Scripture by Ezekiel’s vision in the Valley of Dry Bones. The Valley of Dry Bones represents Israel’s condition in exile. God spoke to Ezekiel and told him to prophesy to the bones:
“Then He said to me, “Dry bones, hear the word of the Lord! I will attach tendons to you and make flesh come upon you . . . I will put breath in you and you will come to life . . . “. So I prophesied as I was commanded . . . And as I was prophesying, there was a noise, a rattling sound, and the bones came together, bone to bone” (Ezekiel 37: 4 – 7 NIV).
Next God commanded Ezekiel to prophesy to the breath, and the breath entered them.
In both cases, God made His will known to Ezekiel and then said, “Now you do it”.
God’s power made all this happen. But He used Ezekiel’s prayers to make the bones come to life and for breath to enter them. Ezekiel prayed or prophesied for something that was not, as if it was.
Granted, it was a vision. But in reality, God did bring Israel out of exile and gave them new life, culminating in the giving of the Messiah. So, Ezekiel’s prayer did ultimately bring the dry bones to life.
Another example from Scripture describing the power of prayer if we remain in Him and His words remain in us is found in Isaiah 61. In this chapter, God is telling Israel (and us) that we will be anointed to be “priests of the Lord” and “ministers of our God”. Like Aaron (Exodus 29: 6 – 9 NIV), God will place on us a turban, anoint us with oil, and clothe us “in a garment of praise” through the work of Jesus. In this way, we will be ‘in Christ”, open to receiving His words. Then through our prayers, “they (we) will rebuild the ancient ruins and restore the places long devastated; they (we) will renew the ruined cities that have been devastated for generations” (Isaiah 61: 4 NIV).
Through God’s power remaining in us as we remain in Him, God will use our prayers to transform the cities that have been devastated for generations because of idolatry and demonic oppression. I have always taken the ‘ruins and cities’ to be a metaphor for the spiritual condition of our hearts, because Isaiah 61 begins with a description of Jesus’ mission: “to heal the brokenhearted” (Isaiah 61: 1 NKJV). As we pray, we will bring into existence something that did not exist before. We will pray for something that is not, as if it is. Our words uttered in prayer, coupled with the power of God as we remain in Him and His words remain in us, have creative power.
The future belongs to the intercessors.
“Not in your own strength for it is God Who is all the while effectually at work in you energizing and creating in you the power and desire, both to will and to work for His good pleasure and satisfaction and delight” (Philippians 2: 13 AMP).
“If we are sharply attentive to what God wants of us (if we are attentive to His still small voice, His rhema word speaking to us), we can very modestly, in the strength (power) of God, anticipate the impossible: we can expect miracles within that delimited sector in which we have been set to work. We should expect miracles, because God who has called us to act at this precise point also is at work within us” (Wink, ‘Engaging the Powers’, pg. 307).
The promise of God within the context of His conditions, “Ask whatever you wish and it will be given you” is the promise of signs, wonders, and miracles. These are lacking in many churches in the Western World today – and it is signs, wonders, and miracles that will breathe life back into Christ’s Body, just as they did in the early church.
“May we not disrespect Jesus either by asking thoughtlessly to the right (e.g. “name it, claim it”) or by not asking at all, unbelievingly, to the left (“answers to prayers don’t happen anymore like they did in the earliest church”). Jesus clearly challenges His disciples in this remarkable verse (John 15: 7): “Try Me!” (Bruner, The Gospel of John: A Commentary, pg. 885).
Do you believe this promise of Jesus’? Do you believe that if you remain in Him and His words remain in you, you can “ask for whatever you wish and it will be given you”? Remember, Jesus makes this promise 5 times in John, at least once in 1 John, and 2 times in the Sermon on the Mount. He even says, “I tell you the truth, My Father will give you whatever you ask in My name” (John 16: 23). He is deadly serious about this promise. Am I? Are you?
Why did Jesus set things up this way? So that through our prayers, God will be glorified!
In the final part of this series titled, ‘Prayer and the Great “If . . . Then” Promise of Jesus – Part 6: The Promise and the Elephant in the Room’, I discuss the promise and what it means for our lives with Jesus in the world, and the elephant in the room – unanswered prayer.
John