When I, Pastor Chris, was a junior in High School I went skiing up at Crystal mountain. As my friend and I were skiing down the hill, we decided to duck under some ski boundary ropes with warning signs that said, “Caution: Cliff”. As we continued, I found myself at the top of a narrow, near vertical icy shoot. I planted my pole to ski down, but didn’t realize that the back of my ski went into the mountain. I went to turn, I flopped onto my side and started cartwheeling down the shoot. As I bounced down this icy shoot surrounded by rocks, I remember opening up lines of communication with the Lord that had not been used for a very long time. “If you get me through this, I will devote the rest of my life to serving you.” It took six long years for me to make this shaking prayer a reality.
It is amazing how quickly we turn to prayer when we are desperate, but it is not only in desperate times that we are created to pray. Prayer is one of the most life-altering, legacy-leaving portions of the Christian faith. Do you want to see lives changed? Pray. Do you want to leave a rich legacy of Jesus lovers in your family line? Pray. Do you want to see God move in our city? Pray.
Created to Rule
From the beginning, God has created you to rule. You have a sphere to oversee on behalf of God. Satan does not want you to know your authority because He is scared that you just might exercise it. According to Genesis 1:26, God has given mankind legal authority to execute his will in history. What this means is that you matter. God said that we would be created in His image and would act on His behalf in the visible realm as He acts in the invisible realm. What an amazing truth to meditate on.
God created us like Him so we could communicate with Him and exercise His will in history. This is what it means to be an ambassador of Christ (2 Corinthians 5:20). It is the Lord’s plan that we would be so in tune with His will and desires that they would come into existence through our prayers. God wants to work on earth but like invisible sound waves, he wants to do it through a vehicle that will take what is invisible and make them visible. The sound waves are all around us but are unusable without a radio to capture it. Prayer is the communication link between the visible and the invisible world.
Human/Divine Cooperative
Prayer is a human/divine cooperative. This means we could actually be holding back what God wants to do because we have not connected to the doing of it. Not because we are more powerful than Him but because He is waiting for a human person to do it through. I believe there are amazing things that the Lord is wanting to do as we give ourselves to a lifestyle of prayer. Take a look at Elijah’s life in 1 Kings 18 to see this human/divine cooperative at work through prayer.
Prayer that moves things in the visible and invisible realm comes from the place of abiding. The Lord desires that we would be so close to Him that we gain His heart about what we are praying for. Prayer that comes from the place of a deep abiding relationship with the Lord, will bring deep blessing over our cities and nations. Let’s draw close to the Lord in this hour to gain His heart and pray His will into existence as His chosen vessels.
John 15:4–5 (The Message)
“Live in me. Make your home in me just as I do in you. In the same way that a branch can’t bear grapes by itself but only by being joined to the vine, you can’t bear fruit unless you are joined with me. “I am the Vine, you are the branches. When you’re joined with me and I with you, the relation intimate and organic, the harvest is sure to be abundant. Separated, you can’t produce a thing.