Tag Archives: heaven

Weapons of Our Warfare – Pt. 4 – Prayer

“Simon, Simon, behold, Satan demanded to have you, that he might sift you like wheat, but I have prayed for you that your faith may not fail. And when you have turned again, strengthen your brothers.”– Luke 22:31-32

It’s one of my favorites verses on prayer.

He could have prayed against the sifting. He could have prayed all the things we pray when the enemy picks a fight with someone we love.

But He would have been praying “No”, while the Father was saying “Yes”.

What Jesus did pray is so very telling. It reveals what the enemy was after in his scheming and sifting and the arrows he aims.

{Our faith has a target on its back.}

As I said in my last post, the devil isn’t trying to get us to not believe in God, he’s going after our trust in God. Our confidence in His goodness and His faithfulness and all that He claims to be.

Jesus knew what satan was after, so Jesus prayed for what satan was after.

Likewise, the Holy Spirit knows what satan is after, knows what the Father has said yes to, and what He has said no to, and knows what needs to be prayed.

Romans 8:28 ~ “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 through wordless groans.”

Ephesians 6:18 ~ “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.”

Jude 1:20 ~ “But you, dear friends, by building yourselves up in your most holy faith and praying in the Holy Spirit…”

Satan wanted Peter’s faith. Jesus used prayer as a weapon against that scheme. Peter still got sifted, but discerning prayer protected what the enemy was really after, and caused that sifting to work for the good of not only Peter, but his fellow believers.

For some of us, our prayers are primarily requests for God to do what we think He should do, or, if we’re honest, what we want Him to do. And while we may follow it with ‘thy will be done’, our minds and our hearts are convinced, or at least hoping, that His will is the same as our will. I know this because I lived it for far too many years. Prayers that are motivated by the wants of our flesh are no kind of weapon.

Jesus knew that part of Peter’s sifting meant that Peter would deny Him. Deny even knowing Him, after everything they had experienced together. If it were me, I would have prayed that God would prevent the sifting, so that I wouldn’t endure the pain of the denial. Those are the prayers I prayed for years. Change him, so that my life will be easier and I won’t cry all the time. Let me get this job so that I can stop worrying about money. Get me out of this situation Lord, it’s so uncomfortable. Make them move so that I don’t have to deal with bad neighbors. Anyone else? No? Ok, just me then.

Our praying is a danger to the enemy when it is motivated by God’s heart, not our own. When it sounds like ‘Father, show him Your love for him‘ instead of ‘change him.’ When it’s our declaration of God’s provision and goodness instead of our fear of not having enough. His purpose vs our comfort. His love for our neighbor instead of their relocation. The plans and purposes of heaven instead of my politics.

This kind of praying doesn’t go unnoticed by heaven. Or by hell.

But I would rather be in the enemy’s crosshairs because I’m wrecking strategies of darkness, than be left alone because I pose no threat.

Be a threat, beloved. Pray fervently. Pray often. Pray His will, not yours.

P.S.– There is a place for praying for our own needs and even our wants. For casting all of our cares upon Him, in being anxious for nothing but in everything by prayer and supplication, with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known to God. That is not the kind of prayer I am addressing here. We have a good, good Father who inclines His ear to us when we speak to Him, cry out to Him, or just want to pour out our heart to Him. But when it comes to spiritual warfare, to the battle that rages against us, our families, and the Church – we need weaponized prayer. Prayer that calls down the heart and will of God. Prayers that echo heaven.

what are you doing in the presence of God…

It started a couple of years ago, actually. This feeling would creep up whenever the talk turned to more of God. More of His presence. Something about that didn’t sound right to my spirit, but I didn’t know why.

Not too long ago, a well-known preacher (one of my favorites, in fact), spoke about this very thing, this hunger for more of God’s presence. I understood the point he was trying to make, but that creeping uneasiness was now full-on stalking me. Still, the very next time I was in prayer, I told God I just wanted to be in His presence, told Him I wanted more. So He said something back to me.

Do you not know that you are a temple of God and that the Spirit of God dwells in you? – 1Corinthians 3:16

Presence. Dwelling in me.

“I am crucified with Christ; and it is no longer I who live, but it is Christ who lives in me.”—Galatians 2:20

Where is there more than that? Where will I find more presence than Jesus living in me? Just what is this hunger for more?

Why are we hungering for something we have dwelling within us? I think if we’re going to be hungry, raise our hands and fall on our knees and cry out ‘more Lord’, we should know why, shouldn’t we?

Maybe not. Maybe there is no rhyme, no reason. Maybe God follows the rule to ‘always leave them wanting more’. Maybe we want all of Him and all of Him doesn’t fit inside jars of clay. Maybe we all just instinctively know that there must be more.

Maybe we need a different question. Maybe God asked me a question that won’t leave me be. Maybe you need to hear it too.

How are you stewarding the presence you already have?

My soul feels sucker-punched. And since we’re wanting more, there’s more.

What are you doing, in the presence of God?

What are you saying, in the presence of God?

What are you watching, in the presence of God?

What are you thinking about, in the presence of God?

How are you loving, in the presence of God?

How are you serving, in the presence of God?

How are you living, with Christ in you, the hope of glory?

Everywhere we go, we bring the presence of God with us. How are we stewarding that presence? Who around us is hurting? Who is struggling? Who needs encouragement? Who needs to see light in the darkness? Who needs to witness the goodness of God in a corrupt world? Who needs to see the integrity of Jesus, the faithfulness of Jesus, the willingness of Jesus to draw near when others pull away?

Then there’s this. Are we entering the room with ourselves in mind, looking for our own needs to get met, wanting, needing attention? Do we come in complaining, discontent, or distracted? I’m talking about the grocery store. The gas station. Our jobs, our churches. I’m talking about our homes.

Or this. How powerless are we living? How addicted are we? How much weakness do we claim? How defeated do we feel? How less than, unworthy, unwanted, unvalued do we believe we are?

I don’t think there’s anything wrong with hungering for more of God. There is a very real ache in the Beloved, a longing, a yearning, for Jesus. But I think we may have become preoccupied with believing the answer is found here, usually in a really good worship service/revival meeting/conference. But let’s just be honest about this thing.

We go to all the worship services and are genuinely moved to worship. We attend the conferences and leave with our treasures, our takeaways, our nuggets to ponder. We attend all the things, go where we think His presence is going to be ‘poured out’. And often, we do encounter Him through conviction, through worship, through a revelation of truth.

But it doesn’t make it go away, does it? We still long for Him. We still want more. We’re still hungry for His presence.

Because this isn’t heaven. 

Until we see Him face to face, something in us will continually long for more of Him.

But I think God may be asking us why we want more when we don’t really know what to do with what we already have within us.

I think He’s asking what we’re doing here, in the presence of God.

raise the bar

I was reading the story of the widow’s offering from Mark 12, and I really thought that’s what I would write about. But then I kept reading.

“As Jesus was leaving the temple, one of His disciples said to Him, “Look, Teacher! What massive stones! What magnificent buildings!” Mark 13:1

And all I could think was “we’ve set the bar way too low”. Impressing humans isn’t all that hard.

Got a lot of money? We’ll give you the best seat in the house and oddly enough, we’ll give you free stuff. Because you’re rich and we’re impressed and it makes perfect sense that dinner would be on the house.

Beautiful? Wanna know how impressed we are by your beauty? We will stop eating. Stop. Eating. And we will get cut on, injected, plumped up and rearranged so that we can look like you. Because you’re pretty. And we find that impressive.

Good at your job? So good you’re famous? Well then we’re gonna need your autograph, mister.

And if you’re a star in the sports world…forget about it. We are your best friend. We’ve got your back. Cause you hit that ball like a boss and that impresses us.

If you move us at all, you too can become the next best thing. The preacher, teacher, worship leader we all rave about and secretly wish we could be.

There’s a reason that the bar the world has set for impressiveness is so low. They don’t know God.

The Body of Christ has no excuse for a low bar. 

“Lift up your eyes and look to the heavens: Who created all these? He who brings out the starry host one by one and calls forth each of them by name. Because of His great power and mighty strength, not one of them is missing.” Isaiah 40:26

We know this God. He lives in us and we belong to Him. He is our Father and we are His children.

He has always been and will always be. He owns heaven and earth. He spoke the world into creation and formed a man out of dust. He can make mountains melt like wax and He gave the seas their limits. Demons tremble and darkness flees from His presence.

He hung every star and He knows their name and He knows the number of hairs on every head and every time a bird falls, He knows.

He brought water from a rock and rained down food from heaven. He keeps the snow and hail in storehouses and He knows where the lightning begins. The sun and the moon, light and darkness…they all obey His commands.

He can feed 5,000 people with a few fish and some bread and have leftovers. He walks on water, tells the storm to calm down and brings the dead back to life.

He stepped out of heaven to take the punishment for our sins. He died for sinners so that He could call them friends.

And because death could not hold Him, it will not hold us.

There is no power like His power and nothing, nothing at all can stand against Him. Nothing is too hard for Him. His Name is above every other Name and in that Name the blind see and the lame walk.

He pours out His Spirit and we dream dreams and we prophecy and we call Him Abba. Papa. Father. He pours out His Spirit and we are changed and we know what we never knew and we see what we had never seen.

He is clothed in splendor and majesty and the heavens and the earth declare His glory and rocks are ready to praise Him if we won’t. Rocks will praise Him if we won’t.

His throne is in heaven and ten thousand upon ten thousand angels encircle Him, crying “Holy!”. And all of heaven is waiting and the day will come when they will wait no more. The seals will be opened and the horses will be called forth. The day of reckoning will come upon the earth.

And those who are His will see their salvation at last.

Beloved, we should raise the bar for what impresses us.

holy moments

I spent some time in worship the other night, alone in my living room with my (current) favorite worship songs, and the book of Revelation. Holy moments with God. Here is what it looked like as I wrote in my journal – 

“Majestic. Holy. Fire. With eyes that burn, You pull the cry of “Holy!” from everyone near You. All of heaven worships You. They see what I cannot, and their cry at what they see is “Holy!”. How can my cry of worship be anything other?”

Both during and after my time of worship, these words kept coming to me – “He is on His throne. Seated in the place of absolute sovereign power and authority.” And there are two sides to that coin.

God is the one enthroned in the place of power and authority. That means He determines beginnings and ends and in-betweens. Life and death are in His hands. Kings and rulers are lifted up and brought down by His hand. Times and seasons and all things uncontrollable…are controlled by Him, and Him alone. Like it or not, believe it or not, it is what it is. There is a God and He is on the absolute highest throne. There can be no coup. (It’s been tried. Didn’t end well.) It is His universe, created by Him, and for Him. There is none like Him. None before Him. He has always been, and will always be. He is surrounded by lightning and thunder, fire, and creatures not of this world, and all who are there are crying out “Holy, holy, holy”. Because He is God, and He is worthy of every holy moment of worship.

And yet…

He loved.
                     He came.
                                      He died.
So He could call me Beloved.

“What else is there to want? What more could I need? You are my God. All of my days I will live to seek Your face, to know Your heart. I want my whole life to cry out ‘Holy!'”