One of the most common experiences of Christians is having someone on their heart that needs the Lord, but not knowing exactly how to pray for that person. It may be someone who once had a relationship with Jesus but has now walked away or someone who has never given their heart to God. Very often it is a wife praying for her husband or parents praying for an adult child who is not living for the Lord or who never accepted the Lord.

Because these tend to be long-term prayers, we often wonder if our prayers are making any impact at all because we are not seeing life change in the one for whom we have been praying. Often we have prayed for months or even years to see our loved ones begin to seek the Lord but without evident effect. Because the Spirit of God must persuade and motivate without violating the free will of the one for whom we are praying, this process can be very drawn out. Sometimes, God is simply waiting for a defining, life-altering event that he knows is on the horizon. Though the thought that this may be a long, drawn out process may be discouraging, the truth is encouraging. The truth is that the thing that keeps any person from belief is a lie from the enemy that exalts itself against the word of God, but we are promised that divine weapons have the capacity to pull down or demolish those strongholds.

I like the Living Bible’s translation of 2 Corinthians 10:4-5. Speaking of divine or God-powered weapons, that version says, “These weapons can break down every proud argument against God and every wall that can be built to keep men from finding Him. With these weapons I can capture rebels and bring them back to God, and change them into men whose heart’s desire is obedience to Christ.”

Our prayers for unbelieving loved ones must reach these strongholds in their hearts and minds that keep them from receiving the love and truth of God. Because our struggle is not against flesh and blood but against spiritual powers and principalities, our best rational arguments, pleading, manipulations, and even coercion make little headway. Let me suggest a few ways to pray for our lost loved ones that touch these places and tear down the strongholds that keep them in bondage.

First of all, we should pray for God to preserve the life of our loved one while this process of salvation is unfolding. We should not always pray for God to remove their struggles because many of us find God in a struggle or crisis, but we should pray for protection over their lives.

Secondly, we can ask Jesus to heal the broken heart of the one we are praying for. In Luke 4, Jesus quotes Isaiah 61 and says it defines his mission to a lost world. He says that he has come to heal the brokenhearted and set captives free. In most cases, the enemy plants lies and builds barriers through wounds and brokenness. Healing may need to come before captives can be set free and before strongholds can be totally torn down.

Thirdly, we should pray for the Holy Spirit to lift the veil or the deception that Satan has placed over his/her mind through revelation and enlightenment by which that person may begin to see things as they really are. Paul prayed for the church at Ephesus to receive a spirit of wisdom and revelation so that they might grasp what God had done for them and how much he loves them. Certainly, those we pray for need to grasp that as well.

In addition, we can pray for the Holy Spirit to hover over the one we are praying for in order to birth faith and a spiritual hunger in his/her heart. In Genesis, we are told that the Holy Spirit brooded or hovered over the chaos that was on the face of the earth and brought order out of that chaos. Often, those we pray for have a chaotic mind when it comes to the things of God. We can ask the Spirit to help them make sense of God’s truth.

We should also pray that God would put godly people in the path and life or those we are praying for so that they might influence them for Jesus. Even Jesus said that a prophet has no honor in his own town or family. The brothers of Jesus didn’t believe he was the Messiah until after his resurrection. They just could not see him as anything but their older brother and defined him by the childhood rivalries they had experienced. Sometimes we are not the ones to lead a loved one to Jesus, but we are the ones who can pray for God to put someone else in his or her life who can.

We should also bind any spirits that are oppressing our loved one in the name of Jesus, command them to be silent, and to leave that person never to return. We should specifically bind pride, rebellion, lying spirits, spirits of unbelief and religious spirits. We should forbid them from speaking and from continuing to establish any thought patterns contrary to the Word of God. We should declare the destruction of those strongholds by the authority and power of Christ and command them to come down as the walls of Jericho came down. Declaring things in the spiritual realm is often like using a battering ram. Every time we declare God’s power and sovereignty over a spirit or a circumstance we weaken the walls of that stronghold. Eventually, they will crumble and fall if we do not lose heart. We should also declare, in the name of Jesus, that no weapon formed against the one for whom we are praying shall prosper or succeed.

Finally, we may pray for God to assign angels to protect our loved one and to keep the enemy from him/her and to show every lie of Satan for what it is. There are also times that we may need to pray for God to remove an ungodly influence from the life of the person for whom we are praying. That could mean a breakup in a relationship, a job change, or simply a fresh set of eyes through which to view that person.

Warfare is a dirty business. It takes perseverance, faith, consistency and a long-term view of things. It takes aggressive prayer and aggressive declarations. It takes faith that God is in the mix and working even when we cannot see what he is doing. It takes strategy and confidence in the one who leads the battle. When we pray for another’s salvation, we know that we are aligned with God’s will who wants all men to be saved so we can pray with confidence. Our job is to pray constantly and continue to direct the power of heaven toward our loved one with our prayers and to exert the power of heaven with our declarations. God will back us.

And remember, “Let us not become weary in doing good, for at the proper time we will reap a harvest if we do not give up” (Gal.6:9). May you be constantly filled with faith and endurance as you pray for the salvation of another. May you also know with confidence that God is able and willing to tear down every stronghold through your prayers as you war for the soul of one whom God loves even more than you do.

Our greatest weapon in spiritual warfare is prayer. In a microwave world, I often hear Christians express discouragement and doubt when prayers have seemingly gone unanswered after weeks or a few months of praying. We often give up on a prayer and an answer too soon because in our culture waiting for anything is almost a foreign concept. Instant gratification seems to be the norm in everything we do. Unfortunately, patience and endurance along with perseverance are spiritual qualities that God wants to develop in each of us. James wrote, “Consider it pure joy my brothers whenever you face trials of many kinds, because you know that the testing of your faith develops perseverance” (Ja. 1:2-3). If we did not have to wait and persist in many circumstances, we would not need those qualities.

Speaking of our thirst for immediate answers and solutions, Dutch Sheets writes, “We are much like the African cheetah that must run down its pray to eat. It is well suited for the task as it can run at speeds of 70 miles per hour. The cheetah has only one problem, however, in that it has a disproportionately small heart, which causes it to tire quickly. If it doesn’t catch its prey quickly, it must end the chase. How often we have the cheetah’s approach in prayer. We speed into our closets with great energy, we speed to the front of the church, or we speed to someone else for prayer. But lacking the heart for a sustained effort, we often falter before we accomplish what is needed. For our next prayer excursion, we decide to pray harder and faster, when what is needed may not be more explosive power but more staying power – stamina that comes from a bigger prayer heart” (Dutch Sheets, Intercessory Prayer, p.208).

George Muller once wrote, “The great point is never to give up until the answer comes. I have been praying for sixty-three years for one man’s conversion. He is not saved yet, but he will be. How can it be otherwise…I am praying.” Dick Eastman reports that the day came when Muller’s friend did receive Christ. It did not come until Muller’s casket was lowered into the grave and at that moment, Muller’s friend gave his heart to Jesus. Persistent prayer had won the day. Faith reached beyond the grave and accomplished a lifelong prayer. Jesus himself instructed his disciples to “always pray and never give up” (Lk.18:1).

God is not impressed with a world that demands instant everything. He works on his own timetable to fulfill his purposes in the world and in our lives. He will not be hurried by our impatience so we must bend to his ways. Sometimes that includes patience, perseverance, and endurance. Whatever you have been praying for, keep praying. If it is good and godly and is a desire of your heart, keep praying unless God instructs you to do otherwise. Jesus promised that whatever we ask in his name (that is consistent with the will of God) we will receive it. He promised the outcome but did not dictate the time frame. God is a multi-tasker and is often accomplishing numerous things connected to the same prayer. It is never just about you or me. God does things “in the fullness of time,” which means he does them when every part is in place. Typically, nothing happens, nothing happens, nothing happens…and then everything happens at once.

Our part is to believe that God answers our prayers. He is faithful and stands on his promises. Some answers do come in hours but others come in years and decades. If it is important enough you must keep praying and believing that the answer is in the pipeline. It is coming and when the time is right and the forces of heaven converge, your answer will appear. Endure. Be patient. Always pray and never give up.

In the thirty-plus years I have served as a pastor, I have heard many, many believers express doubt over God’s real love or concern for them and sometimes their anger at God when they believed he had let them down. Most of that doubt came from feelings of abandonment over prayers they perceived as unanswered and, perhaps, unheard. Maybe it was the divorce of parents when he or she was a child or the death of a loved one after praying for healing. Perhaps, it was the unfulfilled dream of a marriage and children that an individual had prayed for but which had not materialized. For others it was a tragedy that, in their mind, God should have prevented but didn’t. In each case, a prayer or a season of prayer went unanswered in regard to something that they assumed God controlled or which they assumed was the single key in life to their happiness.

There is no doubt that at some point we will all have to wrestle with the experience of a significant prayer that has seemingly gone unanswered. How we respond to that moment is significant and often sets a course for our spiritual life. It is our fallen nature or our un-renewed mind that assumes God does not truly care about us when a dream of ours does not come to pass in the time frame or in the form we have set in our own hearts.

The first sin was predicated on the suggestion that God did not fully care for Adam and Eve and that he was selfishly withholding the best from them. Satan’s opening gambit with Eve was a suggestion that God was not really as generous as he pretended to be. Remember the question? “Did God really say, ‘You must not eat from any tree in the garden?’” (Gen.3:1).   Satan said that with a tone suggesting that he knew God and it would not surprise him to find God keeping the best things from others. Notice that the question implies that God was stingy by nature and unwilling for Adam and Eve to have many good things in the Garden that would contribute to their well-being and happiness. Eve correctly replied that they could eat of any tree except one – the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil – but if they ate of that one tree, they would die.

Satan then called God a liar when he declared that Adam and Eve would not actually die if they ate of that tree but would become as wise as God. He suggested that the greatest blessing in the Garden was in that tree and the blessing was shrouded by God’s lies. The implication was that God’s denial of the tree to them was costing them the one thing that would make life everything it should be. Satan planted the belief in Eve’s heart that God did not care for her nearly as much as he claimed and was quite willing to withhold “true happiness” from her and her husband. Eve, then, went her own way, ate from the tree, and brought disaster on us all.

The challenge is that our fallen nature or the natural man seems to always gravitate toward that view…even when the Spirit of God lives within us. There is a maxim in the counseling world that says we become angry whenever a person or a circumstance seems to block our goal. When God doesn’t always act as we have suggested through our prayers, our response is often anger at him which results in us carrying an offense toward God – sometimes for years.

It’s not that we end our relationship with God. We just don’t trust him anymore like a spouse who stays married, but simply doesn’t trust the other spouse to act in his or her best interest. When you carry that offense, it is hard to have joy, pray for anything with faith, or risk anything because you are not sure how much God really cares. When prayers go unanswered we can quickly default to the “God doesn’t really love me” mode and distance ourselves from him. Nearly all of us run the risk of falling into that mindset and, I believe that the only safeguard is to spend a considerable amount of time mediating on who God is apart from an experience of disappointment with God.

We’ve all heard the expression. “God is good – all the time.” We may be quick to say amen to that in a conversation but in our hearts we often doubt the truth of that. The key is found in knowing the heart of God and using that knowledge as a lens through which we can view his actions or inactions. We often look at God’s actions or inaction through a different lens – our desires, rather than through a conviction about the heart of God. Let’s face it, even as adults, we can be like children whose perception of whether a parent loves them or not is based simply on whether or not those parents always give them what they want. Any good parent has withheld some request from a child because in the parent’s wisdom they knew that what that child wanted more than anything was not in his or her best interest – although the child could not and would not see it that way.

If children truly believed that their parents loved them with all their hearts and always acted in their best interest (which is the definition of agape love), then they might be disappointed or not understand but would not distance themselves from the parent or begin to distrust them for a lifetime.

In our Bible reading we often look at the broad actions of God and interpret God’s heart through those actions rather than understanding his actions through the lens of his heart. I often find a clue to God’s heart in a verse or two imbedded in a big story and can miss the clues altogether if not careful. For instance, in the Book of Judges there is story after story of Israel turning her back on God and pursuing idols and massive, national immorality. After years of persistent rebellion God would allow another nation to oppress them as discipline in order to draw them back to himself. One verse opens the window on God’s heart in Judges 10:16 where the text says, “Then they got rid of the foreign gods among them and served the Lord. And he could bear Israel’s misery no longer.”

Even though Israel had rebelled again and again and shown disdain for the God who had brought them out of Egypt, the verse reveals that God’s heart hurt with them in the midst of their suffering – even though they had brought in on themselves. God is not distant and uncaring. He loves his children and, more than anything, wants to bless them. When their own actions create misery or demand discipline, he suffers with them just as a parent suffers when they see the awful state of their drug addicted son or daughter.

In 1 Chronicles 15, David had sinned and as the King of Israel had brought judgment on the nation. The Bible says, “And God sent an angel to destroy Jerusalem. But as the angel was doing so, the Lord saw it and was grieved because of the calamity and said to the angel who was destroying the people, “Enough! Withdraw your hand.” Again, even when the actions of his people demanded judgment, the heart of God was moved by their suffering. His heart breaks with every death, every lash of a slave whip, and every beating at the hands of the enemy. In a chapter on judgment to come, the Lord says, “For I take no pleasure in the death of anyone, declares the Sovereign Lord. Repent and live!” (Ezek.18:32).

In the Old Testament we tend to view God as harsh and merciless because entire tribes were wiped out at his command and disasters were released by his word. But what we miss is the love of God protecting the bloodline of Christ from Israel’s enemies so that the entire world might be saved and the accumulated years of God calling nations to repentance through his prophets so that his judgments might be averted. When you read the fine print, you discover that God always went to extraordinary lengths to avoid judging nations and never took pleasure in the death of even the wicked – because he loves even the wicked.

In the New Testament the cross is the ultimate window into God’s heart. While we were still sinners, Christ died for us and Jesus himself said that whoever sees him sees the Father. We always see Jesus as kind and loving. He says that God the Father is exactly the same. God is good and loves each of us all the time. We can pray with hope and confidence because he loves us. Because he loves us he hears us and we can also pray with confidence that God will bring good things to us in time or will say no to the things that would endanger our faith and souls as any good father would. It is through that lens that we must view God’s activity or inactivity in our lives. We may not understand but we can still trust. You must know that before you pray or a loving “No” or delay may give offense when thanksgiving was the appropriate response.

When John the Baptist found himself in prison, he sent men to ask Jesus if he were really the Messiah. He asked because Jesus wasn’t bringing salvation to the world in ways that made sense to John. Jesus replied, “Blessed in he who takes no offense in me.” When God doesn’t act in response to our prayers as we expected, we must not take offense in him either. Being certain about the heart of the Father allows us to rest in his goodness, even when nothing around us make sense.

[This is the 3rd installment of an article I wrote on cleansing locations, especially houses, from the demonic spirits that have established some kind of permanent presence there. In Part 2, I began to discuss “open doors” that allow these unclean spirits to gain access to a home.  We begin this blog with the 3rd open door.]

A third source of demonic presence in homes is the presence of those who serve demonic spirits knowingly or unknowingly.  I am certain that our friend from India had no malice towards Susan and I. He most likely prayed to his “gods” on our behalf or simply prayed to them in our house and that prayer opened the door for their presence in our home as he honored them. We have discovered demonic spirits in new homes without a history, but sensed that some workman who built the house left something of himself there after he moved on. There are also individuals who willingly and formally serve Satan (cult members, etc.) who will dedicate their work to the enemy.

It is also possible that the home was built on property to which some spirit had laid claim. We have discovered that some spirits affect a house because of the property it sits on rather than something in the house – perhaps a location where violence occurred or over a place of worship where false gods were honored or their names invoked. We have also cleansed houses where satanic rituals, witchcraft, séances, etc. took place in the past. These homes can have intense manifestations, especially if the house or property was dedicated to Satan.   A dedication is like handing a deed over to the enemy. That deed has to be nullified by someone with greater authority. In the case of believers, Jesus is the one with more authority.

A fourth source of demonic presence in a home are curses that have been spoken over a family, a home, or property. A curse is an appeal to the demonic realm to visit failure, death, disease, poverty, divorce, etc. on a person, family, tribe, nation or location (See Numbers 22 – the account of Balaam). A curse may come as a result of prolonged, unrepented sin or as a result of words spoken deliberately or sometimes in anger or haste. Demons may be assigned to enforce the curse. Sometimes, it is difficult to define the source of a curse because it may have been assigned to a location or a family in previous generations. Exodus 20 tells us that the sins of the fathers will be passed down to the children to the third and fourth generations. It may be a good practice to make a declaration renouncing and repenting of any sins of your Fathers and asking Jesus to break and nullify any curses that have been operating in your house or family. A sample declaration is provided in the Suggested Declarations at the end of this article.

Solutions:

If any of this resonates with you, then your next question is probably, “What do I do if I think demonic spirits are operating in my house, my business, etc.?” Great question!

Let me take you through a simple process that has always been effective for us. This process is essentially the same as deliverance for individuals and involves aligning ourselves with Christ, renouncing the enemy and his works, declaring authority over the enemy and exercising that authority.

Alignment:

If you are not a believer, the devil has access to you at all times because you have not yet been delivered from the dominion (authority) of darkness (see Col.1:13). Your only way out is to sincerely make Jesus your Lord and Savior. If you are a believer, Jesus has taken away Satan’s legal right to oppress you or afflict you. However, you or those you are connected to may give him back that right. Satan may gain access to you or your home through areas of your life that are not aligned with Christ. He may also have access through the actions or words of others who have touched your life or home in significant ways after they had given Satan a foothold or a stronghold in their own lives.

Jesus taught us to pray “and deliver us from the evil one” (Mt.6:13). It’s always good to begin with a prayer of protection from the schemes, the influence, and the attack of the enemy when you are confronting darkness. After that, in house cleansings, the first step of alignment is to have the one(s) with authority in the home make a verbal declaration of his or her faith in Jesus as the Son of God and his or her allegiance to Jesus as Lord and Savior followed by a verbal renunciation of Satan and all of his works.

You might begin by making a verbal declaration like this:

Heavenly Father, I declare my faith in and allegiance to Jesus Christ as my Lord and Savior and willing place everything I am and everything I have under his authority and lordship. In the name of Jesus I renounce Satan and all the works of Satan and repent of any and all sin in my own life.

If the owner or head of the home has areas of unrepented sin in his or her life or if someone who lives in the home has areas of unrepented sin, that sin may be an open door to the enemy. Sincere confession and repentance followed by renouncing the sin disarms the enemy in that area of an individual’s life and removes Satan’s authority to harass that individual and his or her family. Scripture tells us, “He who conceals his sins does not prosper, but whoever confesses and renounces them finds mercy” (Prov. 28:13, emphasis added).  “Therefore say to the house of Israel, ‘This is what the Sovereign Lord says: Repent! Turn from your idols and renounce all your detestable practices” (Ezek.14:6, emphasis added)!

In addition to personal repentance, we ask the owner, renter, or head of the household (both husband and wife should do this together) to verbally place the house, contents of the house, and the property under the Lordship of Jesus and to dedicate all of that to his purposes. In doing so you transfer dominion of the house and any part of the house from the enemy to Jesus. Joshua declared, “If it is disagreeable in your sight to serve the Lord, choose for yourselves today whom you will serve: whether the gods which your fathers served which were beyond the River, or the gods of the Amorites in whose land you are living; but as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord” (Josh. 24:15).

You should verbally declare something like…

In the name of Jesus, we dedicate and consecrate this home, it’s contents, this property and our family to the service and Lordship of Jesus Christ who has all authority in heaven and on earth. And in the name of Jesus we renounce and nullify any claim that the enemy has had on this house, this family, any contents in this house, or on this property. In doing so, we declare that Satan has no right and no place in this home, in this family, or on this property and is declared a trespasser.

Lastly, we look through the home to identify any objects that may be giving the enemy a place in the home such as the ones listed above – souvenirs, books, dvd’s, music that glorifies sin or violence or death, occult items, pornography, jewelry, etc. that, by their presence, provide an open window for Satan rather than honoring God. We also ask the Holy Spirit to highlight any other objects or areas that need to be removed or given special attention in the house such as places where sin has occurred – beds where adultery was practiced, tables on which occult activities took place, etc. We then ask those in authority to verbally renounce any sins that those objects clearly represent – pornography, idolatry, magic, false religions, fortune telling, adultery, sexual abuse, etc.

Say something like:

In the name of Jesus we renounce and repent of (name the sin) and ask forgiveness for its presence in this house and for our involvement in (name the sin).

Where unforgiveness is involved you may pray something like:

In the name of Jesus, I forgive (name the person) for the wrongs I have received at the hands of (name the person(s)). Because Jesus has forgiven me for the wrongs I have committed, I forgive (name the person(s) and no longer require payment for the wrongs done to me. I release (him, her, them) from the debt they owe and release all judgment to the Lord Jesus Christ. In addition, Jesus I ask you to bless them as you see fit and to work on their behalf for their salvation.

When that has been done, then the owners of the house and the house itself have been aligned with Christ.

IN my next blog, I will finish this article with the process for cleansing and a summary of the declaration a person might make over a house or other location where unclean spirits are present.

I remember when I was a child waiting for Christmas to come. Once school was out for the holidays, we had long days at home waiting for the presents to appear under the tree. At our house, we gave each other presents on Christmas Eve and then Christmas morning revealed the “Santa” gifts. One year in my haste for Christmas, I stumbled upon my parents stash where they had hidden away our Christmas presents. Each present already had our names written on them. I decided that I couldn’t wait the three more days until Christmas to discover the treasures that I would be receiving, so I carefully opened each one to discover what was inside and then carefully wrapped them back. That was, perhaps, my worst Christmas. Not only was I disappointed in what had been chosen for me but all the excitement and anticipation of Christmas was gone. On top of that, when Christmas actually arrived, I had to fake excitement and surprise as I opened each gift. I was never again tempted to unwrap a present before its time.

God’s answers to prayers are that way sometimes. It is hard to wait. We want it now and we want it just the way we described it. Two things can happen when we are impatient with God. The first is that we simply decide that God has said “No” to our prayers because we didn’t see evidence quickly and so we stop praying.   When we stop, God often stops the process that was moving toward our answer.

The second thing is that we can run ahead of God and try to engineer our own solution. That typically has disastrous consequences. Before a battle with the Philistines, King Saul was told by the prophet Samuel to go to Gilgal and wait for Samuel to come and present a burnt offering to the Lord so that God might go ahead of them into battle. As the appointed day waned, Saul decided he could no longer wait for Samuel so he himself offered a sacrifice to the Lord, although Saul was not of the priestly tribe.   Just as he finished the sacrifice, Samuel arrived and declared, “What have you done?” asked Samuel. Saul replied, ‘When I saw that the men were scattering, and that you did not come at the set time, and that the Philistines were assembling at Micmash, I thought, ‘Now the Philistines will come down against me at Gilgal, and I have not sought the Lord’s favor.’ So I felt compelled to offer the burnt offering.’ ‘You acted foolishly,’ Samuel said. ‘You have not kept the command the Lord your God gave you; if you had, he would have established your kingdom over Israel for all time. But now your kingdom will not endure; the Lord has sought out a man after his own heart and appointed him leader of his people, because you have not kept the Lord’s command’” (I Sam. 13:11-14).

Waiting is often required if we want to see our prayers answered. Abraham waited decades after God’s clear promise of a son to see his wife Sara bear their first son Isaac. By the time the prayer was answered, Abraham and Sara both were well beyond the age of reproducing children. However, Abraham continued to believe God regardless of the natural circumstances surrounding the promise.

How do you maintain faith year after year for an answer to a prayer that has not yet come to pass? The answer is that you focus on the unchanging, faithful character of God and the promise he has made rather than focusing on the circumstances or the symptoms. We must choose to trust God rather than our eyes and believe his word rather than the words of Satan who will whisper that God does not keep his Word – at least, not for you. When Satan whispered to Eve that she would not surely die if she ate from the Tree, he essentially said that God does not keep his Word. Saul thought that Samuel had not kept his word so he ran ahead and offered the sacrifice himself. If Saul had waited 30 minutes longer he might have kept his kingdom.

Faith focuses on the promises not the circumstances and we are often forced to wait because God is preparing the way for our answer. Faith believes before a thing happens regardless of the time that is passing or the circumstances we see before us. When Israel crossed the Jordan River and came to Jericho, they were forced to stand on the promise of God that he would give them the land and the city. They faced a walled city full of veteran fighters with men who had little to no combat experience. Then God commanded them to march around the city once a day for six days in silence before he acted. How foolish. How imposing the walls must have seemed. What taunts and jeers they must of heard from those walls.

And yet, God had told Israel that he would give them every place where they set their foot. For six days, they set their feet around Jericho. For six days they marked off their territory in the spiritual realm. For six days they were preparing the victory although they could not see any of that with their natural eyes. On the seventh day, they were told to march around the city seven times, and when the priests blew the ram’s horn the people were to shout and the wall would crumble. By faith they did just that.

Any rational approach to taking the city would have never considered anything like that. It would have seemed utterly foolish. But faith looked at the promise not the circumstances. F.F. Bosworth says, “Faith does not wait for the walls to fall down, faith shouts them down.” In other words, faith is not belief that arises after God has acted but is confidence that arises before he acts, simply standing on his promises.

When you have to wait for answers to your prayers, the focus must be on the promises of God and the character of God who never lies, rather than on the apparent circumstances. A focus on the circumstances gives Satan every opportunity to point out the enormity of the problem before you, rather than the enormity of the God who stands before your problem. Remember…those who wait upon the Lord will renew their strength. Blessings and may your prayers be answered quickly, but if they are not … continue to stand on the promises of God.

Why does God reveal himself through descriptive names such as Jehovah Jireh, the God who provides, or Jehovah Rapha, the God who heals, or I Am, the eternal one? The Holy Spirit has revealed God in dozens of names throughout scripture. Jesus does essentially the same thing when he says, “I am the good shepherd; I am the resurrection and the life; or I am the Alpha and the Omega;” and so on. God and Jesus give us these descriptors because they reveal the very nature of God and Christ. In dozens of ways, they tell us who they are and who they will always be for us. They describe the nature of God because he cannot be any other way. God is not describing a behavior that he might change over time. He is describing who he is and that can never change. That is why the names of God and Christ are so important.

If we know who God is and know who he is always willing to be for us, we can be confident in any circumstance that life hands us. A familiar passage of scripture opens this door a little wider for us. It is the time when Jacob has a dream that includes angels climbing a ladder between heaven and earth with God standing at the top. In the dream, God speaks to Jacob and says, “I am with you and will keep you wherever you go and will bring you back to this land; for I will not leave you until I have done what I have spoken to you” (Gen.28:15).

The word “keep” in the passage is such a little word that we tend to read right over it. But it is a big word in scripture. It is a covenant word from a covenant God that means to provide for, protect, guard, stand up for, defend, and so forth. It is a word that carries the promise of a faithful covenant in which one person will always be there for the other – no matter what the need is. That was God’s promise to Jacob if Jacob would make Jehovah his God. In Numbers 6, the priestly prayer that God commands Aaron and his descendants to speak over the nation of Israel contains the phrase, “The Lord bless you and keep you.” There is that word again.

David understood the power of the term and had experienced the “keeping” of the Lord on many occasions. He declared, “The Lord is your keeper; The Lord is your shade on your right hand. The sun will not smite you by day, nor the moon by night. The Lord will protect you from all evil; He will keep your soul. The Lord will guard your going out and your coming in. From this time forth and forever” (Ps.121:5-8).

In John 17, Jesus prays what is often called his priestly prayer as he asks the Father to watch over those who have been given to him as his departure from this world is near. He prays, “Holy Father, protect them by the power of your name…While I was with them I protected them and kept them safe by that name you gave me…my prayer is not that you take them our of the world but that you protect them from the evil one” (Jn.17:11-12,15). The word translated protect carries the idea of keep. As God kept Jacob, as he kept David, and as Jesus kept his disciples – he prayed for the Father to keep each of us. God will in no way ignore the prayer of his Only Begotten. Because of that, God is your keeper.

They will be called oaks of righteousness, a planting of the Lord for the display of his splendor. Isaiah 61:3

In Isaiah’s prophecy regarding the Messiah, he refers to the people Jesus would someday heal and set free as mean and women who become “oaks of righteousness.” The figure brings to mind tall, powerful, and stately oaks that stand the test of time and withstand the strongest storms.   We all want to be that kind of believer.

This morning, in a men’s group I am part of, we began to discuss the concept of spiritual fruit in the kingdom and how certain trees and vines grow to produce more fruit. One of our men, who owns and operates his own landscape business, told us that certain trees, after germination, grow root systems for up to two years before the trunk begins to appear above the ground. Nutrients and stability come from the root system and without strength there, the tree will eventually fail. As a result, the tree gives all of its energy to growing down before it gives energy to growing up.

As a church that believes in the operation of all the spiritual gifts, it is not unusual to see new believers or believers who have just begun to experience the power of God get very excited and very focused on operating in those gifts. After all, there is nothing like being part of a miracle that God has just released into another person’s life. I think it is appropriate that new believers are hungry for the manifestations of God and want to experience more and more of his Spirit and his supernatural ways.

However, there is one caution that needs to be extended regarding the pursuit of such gifts or even the pursuit of bearing a great deal of fruit in the kingdom of God. The caution is that before we start operating abundantly in the gifts and before we start wanting to bear abundant fruit, we need to make sure that our roots go deep into the soil. Otherwise, the fruit that is produced quickly will wither just as quickly or the weight of the gifts will pull us over and uproot us in the midst of a strong storm.

In Paul’s first letter to the Corinthians, he was quick to point out that they operated, as a church, in all the gifts of the Spirit. In Chapters 12-14, he began to mention those gifts specifically: prophecy, healings, miracles, tongues, interpretation of tongues, words of knowledge, supernatural wisdom, and so forth. That’s pretty heady stuff for a young church.

The real problem for Corinth is stated in Chapter 3. “Brothers, I could not address you as spiritual but as worldly—mere infants in Christ. I gave you milk, not solid food, for you were not yet ready for it. Indeed, you are still not ready. You are still worldly. For since there is jealousy and quarreling among you, are you not worldly? Are you not acting like mere men (1 Cor.3:1-3)?

Although the church at Corinth was producing impressive fruit above ground, the root systems were still extremely shallow. The weight of their fruit or gifts was more than their foundation could support. As a result, there were jealousies, divisions, cliques, arrogance, self-promotion, and confusion in the ranks. The tree was unhealthy and beginning to topple. Ultimately, Paul pointed out in Chapter 13 that the evidence of true spirituality was not to be found first in the exercise of spiritual gifts, but in the exercise of love.

If the analogy is true, then the question becomes, how do I develop a deep root system that provides both nourishment and stability. In practical terms, digging into the Word of God each day and hearing from him is crucial. Jesus said that man does not live by bread alone but by every word that comes from the mouth of God. We need to personally dig into the Word itself, not just books by our favorite author about the Word.

Secondly, we need to be familiar with the whole counsel of God, not just one thin slice of that pie. It’s easy to get excited about prophecy, end-times, healing, leadership, worship, or any other facet of God’s word and pursue only that, listen to sermons about only that, and hang out with others who talk about only that. The problem is that we can develop tunnel vision and stay ignorant about God’s will in all the other areas of life. We can be filled with knowledge about one narrow slice of our faith and have no wisdom, perspective, or character for the remainder of our Christian living. It’s like taking tons of vitamin C but never getting adequate amounts of all the other vitamins and minerals that you need for life. Get in the Word daily, chew on it, talk about it, and ask God about it as you read through entire books discovering God’s directives for a multitude of things.

In addition, putting down roots depends on staying in one place for a while – plugging into a church, serving there, getting to know people, and letting them speak into your life. Too many believers these days shop around…for years. They are spiritual drifters who never stay anywhere long enough to develop meaningful relationships with others. John goes so far as to tell us that if we don’t love the brothers, we can’t love God. If we don’t stay put, we can’t love the brothers – at least not in any substantial ways.

Ultimately, our roots have to go down in a relationship with Jesus. Prayer and obedience facilitate that relationship. Regular times in prayer, praise, and doing what he directs us to do – being doers of the word and not hearers only – deepens that relationship so that when the wind blows, we stand on solid ground rather than shifting sands.

My point in all this is to encourage you to seek the gifts but even more than that and before that, seek to be rooted deeply in the whole counsel of God and in a relationship to Jesus. I am convinced that God is even more concerned about the character and heart of Christ being formed in us than he is in us doing miracles in his name. There is no doubt that God desires fruit, but years of fruit bearing is only possible if your roots grow deep. Be blessed today and put energy into going deeper even before growing taller.

Healing continues to be a controversial subject in the church world. Many churches believe that healing gifts ceased to operate around the end of the first century while others believe that the Holy Spirit is in full operation today, depositing healing gifts in those who have faith for it. My church believes that God still heals through both prayers of faith and through gifts of healing as well. However, even in the most effective healing ministries around the world, some are healed while others are not. The question of “Why?” always surfaces in the face of that reality. Is it them or is it us or is it something else? Of course, we recognize that faith has a great part in healing prayer…sometimes it is the faith of those for whom we pray and sometimes it is our own faith as we pray. But then the question becomes, “How much faith is required for God to move?”

A look at the gospels gives no hard and fast formula for prayers that heal and prayers that don’t. We know that Jesus could not heal many in Nazareth because there was such little faith in the people for healing. “Jesus said to them, “Only in his hometown, among his relatives and in his own house is a prophet without honor.” He could not do any miracles there, except lay his hands on a few sick people and heal them. And he was amazed at their lack of faith” (Lk.6:4-6).

And yet, at other times he healed those who had very little idea, if any, of who he was. The lame man at the pool of Bethesda seemed to have no idea about the healing that was coming his way and yet he stood and walked after being an invalid for thirty-eight years (Jn.5). The man born blind, who was given sight in John 9, seems also to have had very little information about the man called Jesus. At times, Jesus responded to faith with a miracle and at other times he imparted faith through a miracle.

As we pray for people to be healed we notice that some who are healed have little understanding of healing and a minimal relationship with Jesus while other spiritually mature individuals who love Jesus and believe in his power to heal are not healed. There is still a great deal of mystery regarding healing and those who pray for it must be willing to live with that mystery. Many believers who want to see people healed,  hold back from praying because they fear their prayer will not bring healing and that the one they pray for will be damaged or offended when healing does not come. When we think that way, we are ultimately believing that our prayer is the determining factor in healing – was it bathed in enough faith, energized by enough fervency, constructed with all the “right” elements? When we reflect on the reality of healing we know it is the Holy Spirit’s decision, not ours, whether healing will flow through us to another and prayer formula’s or volume have little to do with that release. The standard biblical prayer seemed be, “Be healed in the name of Jesus.” So much for long and eloquent prayers attempting to call down God’s favor for healing.

There is one element in healing prayer, however, that deserves our consideration. That is the element of compassion for the one who is receiving prayer. Both the Old and New Testaments reveal God as a God of compassion (mercy, pity). If you chase the word “compassion” through a concordance, the O.T. references to compassion as a quality of God far outweigh the references to compassion as a quality of men. It’s almost as if that quality is such a godly quality that it is rare to find among men.As you track the references about compassion into the New Testament, we often find it attached to Jesus.

Jesus went through all the towns and villages, teaching in their synagogues, preaching the good news of the kingdom and healing every disease and sickness. When he saw the crowds, he had compassion on them, because they were harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd. (Mt.9:35-36)

When Jesus landed and saw a large crowd, he had compassion on them and healed their sick. (Mt.14:14).

Jesus called his disciples to him and said, “I have compassion for these people; they have already been with me three days and have nothing to eat. I do not want to send them away hungry, or they may collapse on the way.” (Mt.15:32)

Jesus had compassion on them and touched their eyes. Immediately they received their sight and followed him. (Mt.20:34)

Filled with compassion, Jesus reached out his hand and touched the man. “I am willing,” he said. “Be clean.” (Mk.1:41).

There are more references, but you get the point. God – whether Father, Son or Spirit – is often moved to act on behalf of men by the quality of compassion. The word is also translated as mercy, pity, his heart went out to someone, etc. Suffering is not an academic subject to God. His heart is truly moved when he sees the suffering of his people. On numerous occasions those who were suffering asked for mercy or pity from Jesus for healing and deliverance and he healed and delivered.

What about our prayers for suffering people who need healing, deliverance, salvation, provision, and so forth? How often do we actually pray out of duty or approach people as if they were a spiritual project? At times, in an effort to grow in the grace of healing, some of us will pray to receive a word of knowledge from God about someone he wants to heal and when we get a leading we go into the community to find the person God has directed us to and we pray for their healing – usually at places like Lowes, Wal-Mart, or Starbucks (my preferred word of knowledge). But, if I’m honest, at times I have been more concerned about my prayer, me feelings, and seeing the healing than I am the actual suffering of the person.

I have talked a lot in this blog about power flowing through us as we align ourselves with God. I am convinced that before we pray, we need to spend a minute or two aligning our hearts with the heart of God for that person. If we believe that God prompts us to pray or puts people on our hearts for prayer, then it stands to reason that as we pray he wants our hearts to match his. We need to ask the Spirit to give us the compassion of Christ for the individual for whom we are about to pray. If fervency is a quality for answered prayer, then feeling God’s concern will generate that passion for the hurting person in our hearts.

Many of us who pray for a lot of people, including strangers, can pray simply as an expression of obedience or for the Father’s approval or to grow in our willingness to take risks. None of those motives are bad in themselves but the far greater motive is love and out of love flows compassion. I’m certain that matching the Father’s heart is a great key to seeing heaven move in response to our prayers or our commands. In the midst of Paul’s discussion of spiritual gifts, including healings and miracles, he drops in a whole chapter about motivations for exercising those gifts. Of course, the motivation he called for was love (1 Cor.13). Before I pray, I need to check my heart to discern my motivation for praying. If it is not love or compassion for the hurting person standing before me, I’m sure I need to realign my heart with the Father’s.

My prayer for today is, “Father give me the eyes of Jesus to see people as you see them and the heart of Jesus to feel what you feel for them. Match my heart to yours and then give me the wisdom of heaven to know how to pray for the people you love so desperately.”

This, then, is how you should pray: “Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name, your kingdom come, your will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Give us today our daily bread.

Forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors. And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from the evil one. For yours is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever. Amen

Matthew 6:9-13

When his disciples asked Jesus to teach them how to pray, he began with a relatively revolutionary idea – Our Father in heaven. For the most part, Jewish theological thought viewed God as the one whose name should not be spoken and whose presence in the Holy of Holies was as dangerous as it was glorious. He was seen as the Holy Judge of all the earth and the destroyer of the enemies of Israel. He was the thunder and flame on Sinai and the earthquake swallowing up the sons of Korah.

But Jesus spoke to the Father in familiar and intimate terms and encouraged every believer to do the same. That must have been a difficult paradigm shift for most. It still is. One of the great hindrances to receiving the promises and the power of the Holy Spirit is our view of God. When we ask God for healing, deliverance, favor, provision, and protection we often ask with a qualified expectation. We hope he will answer our petitions, but many of us have no confidence at all that he will.

Many of us have a difficult time believing that our Heavenly Father is willing, able, and eager to bless us, heal us, and deliver us from the power of the enemy. We still view him as a God who keeps careful records and who weighs our good moments against our bad moments to see if we have earned enough points to merit an answered prayer. We see him as a Father whose love is conditional, who is beyond understanding, and who often feels like pain and suffering are ultimately in our best interest. Too often, we simply lay the template of our earthly father over our Heavenly Father and expect the same inconsistencies or even anger.  If you had a great father, your prayers are facilitated by your experience. If you had an angry or absent father, your prayers will be laced with doubt until you truly know your Heavenly Father.

So many of us pray, hoping for the best but not really expecting it. Many of us have no problem believing that God will act on behalf of everyone else in the room but struggle to have faith that he will answer ours. We know our imperfections and feel that we don’t meet the standard on God’s measuring stick for answered prayers.

When we are sick, we may pray for healing but wonder if God actually wants us to be ill so that our faith in suffering glorifies him, purifies our soul, or has a purpose beyond our understanding. When we live with emotional pain and brokenness from our own bad choices we may see God as the Father who sternly remarks, “You made your bed, now you can lie in it.” Myriads of believers simply view their Heavenly Father as a distant replica of an earthly father who made promises he couldn’t keep, whose primary emotion was anger, whose love was conditional, or who was loving one day while distant and unpredictable the next.

When we have a mixed view of our Heavenly Father it is difficult to pray with faith or to pray at all. But prayer is the very thing that opens the valve so that the promises and the power of heaven can flow to us and through us. If we view God as distant, angry, or conditional then we will not pray at all (there’s no point in asking) or we will pray as if we have to convince, coerce, or nag God into blessing us.

So how do we understand this God who seems angry and vengeful in the Old Testament but is called “Abba” in the New Testament? John goes so far as to say that God is love and God is light. They key is Jesus. No matter how we understand the Old Testament or what kind of father we had on earth, Jesus clearly stated that he is the way to understand the Father. “Jesus answered: “Don’t you know me, Philip, even after I have been among you such a long time? Anyone who has seen me has seen the Father. How can you say, ‘Show us the Father’?”(Jn.14:9). The heart of Jesus toward the weak, broken, and shameful is the heart of the Father.

If you want to know how much you are loved by the Father, look at the cross. If you want to know how God will deal with your sinful past, look at the Samaritan woman of John 4 and the woman caught in adultery in John 8. Ask yourself how many times Jesus turned down people who came to him for healing and how he dealt with Peter after Peter denied him three times and abandoned Jesus in his hour of suffering.

According to Hebrews, Jesus is the radiance of God’s glory (the part of God’s goodness we can see) and the exact representation of the Father’s being (Heb. 1:3). When you see the heart of Jesus toward the broken and the suffering you see the heart of the Father. When you see the compassion of Christ toward the spiritually clueless you see the Father. When you see the anger and frustration of Jesus toward those who would deny the healing of God for the sick or who would drive sinners away rather than embrace them, you have seen the Father as well. The cross has allowed the love of God to overpower the judgment of God. And God is glad.

When you pray for the power of heaven to be released on your behalf, remember that the heart of the Father toward you is the same as the heart of Jesus. As loving fathers and mothers, we are not always so different from our heavenly Father. I always want the best for my children. When they were young and tumbled off their bikes, I ran to pick them up and bandaged their wounds. When they were afraid I comforted them. When they were confused I taught them. When they were in danger I protected them. When they laughed I laughed with them and when they did wrong I corrected them. All those things were motivated by love and, like most parents, I would have died to save my children.

Our heavenly Father did just that and is much more the loving Father and Mother than we could ever hope to be. When you pray, you can be certain that your Father in heaven is hearing and acting on your behalf. We can’t always know why we have yet to see some prayers answered. There are mysteries yet to be understood. But we can always know the heart of our Heavenly Father toward us. If you have seen Jesus, you have seen the Father. If you have seen the cross you have seen his heart for you. And in this Easter season, you see your absolute hope in an empty tomb. All from the Father for you. Blessings today in Him.

As Jesus went on from there, two blind men followed him, calling out, “Have mercy on us, Son of David!” When he had gone indoors, the blind men came to him, and he asked them, “Do you believe that I am able to do this?” “Yes, Lord,” they replied. Then he touched their eyes and said, “According to your faith will it be done to you”; and their sight was restored. Matthew 9:27-30

The words of Jesus in the text above have always haunted me a little. “According to your faith will it be done to you.” In other words, Jesus clearly stated that faith is a condition of answered prayer and the answer seems to be proportional to the faith. This suggests that in many cases Jesus is willing to meet our expectations for him. If our expectations are low, then he will answer our prayers at that level. If our expectations are high, them he will also answer our prayers at that level. If we truly believe God for healing through doctors, then we are likely to receive our answer through doctors. If we truly believe God for supernatural healing, then we are likely to have our prayers answered at that level. If we don’t believe God is involved in healing at all, then he may well meet us at that level of faith.

When I write that, I hesitate because some were healed by Jesus who did not even know who he was or knew very little about him. The man born blind in John 9 didn’t seem to know much about Jesus, yet Jesus gave him his sight with a bit of a test for faith. After putting mud on his eyes, Jesus told him to go wash in the pool of Siloam and he would see. The man did as he was instructed and he saw for the first time. Jesus raised the dead for those who seemed to have no expectation that Jesus was going to do that. How could they? No one had seen the dead raised for centuries.

As I look at the gospels, in some instances Jesus created faith through miracles and at other times, faith is what created the miracle. It seems to hinge on whether or not a person should have acquired a certain level of faith through past experiences, religious culture, and the testimonies of others. Certainly, Jesus does not require perfect faith and is moved out of compassion as well as being moved by the faith of those who approach him. And yet, he still says that, in many cases, our prayers will be answered according to the faith we have for that answer.

For us, a scan of our faith might be in order. Like many things, we have an aspirational level of faith and an actual level of faith. I aspire to have great faith and so I often convince myself that I operate at that level of expectation. But the faith I aspire to have may not match my actual faith. The man in Mark 9, reflects where most of us are. “Lord I believe…help my unbelief.” I don’t believe that faith compels God to give us what we are asking for. He is still sovereign and our prayer may not be in our best interest, but our faith still pleases him. Faith certainly get his attention and a lack of faith disappoints. How many times did Jesus lament, “Oh you of little faith?”

In many ways, faith equals expectation. What is my expectation of God in any given moment? Do I truly expect him to answer my prayer or am I just hoping that he will without much firm expectation? If my prayers are answered according to my faith or expectation, and I know I’m lacking in some areas of my faith, how do I grow in that area?

I think there are some basic things I can do to grow in my faith. First of all, I can ask for a gift of faith and a greater measure of expectation. In his letter to the church at Rome, Paul said, “For by the grace given me I say to every one of you: Do not think of yourself more highly than you ought, but rather think of yourself with sober judgment, in accordance with the measure of faith God has given you” (Rom.12:3). If God gives us a measure of faith and faith pleases God, then we can certainly ask for more and he will be pleased to give it.

Secondly, our faith is ultimately based on the character of God because he always acts out of who he is. Spending time reflecting on the heart and character of God will increase our expectation. If he is good all the time, faithful all the time, and loving all the time then those traits give us assurance that he hears our prayers and answers those that are in our best interest. Love compels him to do so.

Thirdly, we need to hang around people with greater faith than we have. We need to go where God is responding to that faith with miracles. The more we see with our own eyes the more our expectations rise for what God is willing to do. Go to healing conferences. Go to prophetic conferences. Go to intercessory prayer conferences and hear the testimonies. Go on campaigns to third world nations where God is moving in powerful ways. Go to churches in your area where God is moving in power. Experience is a dynamic teacher that will raise your expectations.

It has been said that faith is the currency of heaven. If that is true, then we should pay attention to our faith and ask for more. We should put ourselves in places where our faith can increase. And we should spend time with people who speak the language of faith rather than the language of doubt. You will probably have to be intentional about all of that and a quest for faith may be involved that demands time and resources. However, the quest will be worth it. Be blessed today by His grace and favor.