Keep Praying Until You Get Your Answer
Our words have the power of life and death. So when we pray, our words matter; even after praying, we need to be mindful of what we speak. However, this doesn't mean we must be so careful that it feels like we are walking on eggshells.
August 22, 2022
Our words have the power of life and death. So when we pray, our words matter; even after praying, we need to be mindful of what we speak. However, this doesn’t mean we must be so careful that it feels like we are walking on eggshells. We need to pray so that our words align with God’s words. Our words are an indicator of what’s inside our hearts. If we are constantly talking rubbish, we need a change in our hearts, not just words. When we feed ourselves with God’s words, and our hearts are flooded with the Word, then the Word of life and peace will flow out of us.
If our body goes out of balance, we have a disease. The body is healthy when every system in the body is balanced. Likewise, we need a balance in our prayers.
Ephesians 1: 17 (ESV) – that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give you the Spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of him,
A balanced prayer is a prayer of thanksgiving and persistence. Persistence shows that we depend on God and cannot do anything without Him, thus killing the boast of flesh. While thanksgiving indicates that God has already done what we have prayed for, and we have received it in our spirit. Everything that we are praying for today is already finished at the Cross. However, if our prayer is an extreme of either persistence or thanksgiving, we face an error. When we are only persistent and not thankful, we present God as someone who does not care about us. We only keep asking (or begging) what we need. And if we are only thankful and there is no persistence, we will become complacent and not depend on Him to take us into newer dimensions of glory. Our prayers need to come from a place of thanksgiving, and we need to do it persistently.
Why should we pray persistently?
Often, we lose our heart as we believe and pray for something when it takes time, or our prayer loses its intensity and becomes just another ritual.
Luke 18: 1-8 (ESV) – And he told them a parable to the effect that they ought always to pray and not lose heart. He said, “In a certain city there was a judge who neither feared God nor respected man. And there was a widow in that city who kept coming to him and saying, ‘Give me justice against my adversary.’ For a while he refused, but afterward he said to himself, ‘Though I neither fear God nor respect man, yet because this widow keeps bothering me, I will give her justice, so that she will not beat me down by her continual coming.’” And the Lord said, “Hear what the unrighteous judge says. And will not God give justice to his elect, who cry to him day and night? Will he delay long over them? I tell you, he will give justice to them speedily. Nevertheless, when the Son of Man comes, will he find faith on earth?”
This parable shows a widow who persistently sought a judge to receive justice against her adversary. Jesus tells us that we need to pray persistently to have justice against our adversary. There is no need for us to pray if our adversary, the devil, and his principalities did not exist. In the person of Christ, God has given us everything that we need as our inheritance. Since we have an adversary who does not want us to possess our inheritance, we need to pray persistently. God expects us to pray as it shows we are rooted in our faith. It shows we are dependent on God. We must not forget that our miracle is one prayer away.
Our miracle is one prayer away.
Rightfully ours:
The widow knew she needed justice from the adversary who was keeping her away from her inheritance. The issue in our prayers is our lack of knowledge of our inheritance. We are unaware of what has been stolen from us. Thus, unlike the widow who persistently sought the judge with her case, we fight in vain as we are oblivious and ignorant. Therefore, knowing these details of our fight is significant.
If we had received some land from our grandfather as an inheritance, but someone encroached on this land and is building a mall on it. We would go to the court and file a case. The Judge would expect us to prove that the land belongs to us. We will be required to present documents that authorise us over the opposition party to rule the case in our favour. Similarly, first, we need to know what the enemy is stealing from us. Second, we need to have authentic documents that tell about our ownership of the inheritance. Without an understanding of the same, our prayers will be futile, and we will continue to live defeated lives, which is much lower than the potential of God’s word in us.
The Kingdom of God is given to us freely. We pray persistently with thanksgiving because God has already released it. But the forces of the devil’s are fighting against us so that we live complacent lives. As the sons of God, we need to be violent enough to conquer our inheritance and walk in the fullness of our inheritance.
Matthew 11: 12 (ESV) – From the days of John the Baptist until now the kingdom of heaven has suffered violence,[a] and the violent take it by force.
Changed Hard Disc:
2 Corinthians 5: 17 (ESV) – Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation.[a] The old has passed away; behold, the new has come.
Another translation for ‘in Christ’ is ‘enfolded in Christ’. When we receive Christ, we become a new creation wrapped around Him. Our old identity is gone, and the new identity, which is our inheritance, is given to us. When a virus infects a computer, it takes much expertise to remove it. Sometimes the viruses affect the device so severely that changing the entire hard disc is the only fix. God did not just clean us, but He changed our hard disc. He has made us a new creation who is born from above. The word ‘new creation’ translates to a species that never existed. Christ’s crucifixion has neither restored us to Adam’s glory in the garden nor the prototype of Jesus, born out of Mary. We are a new creation, created in the prototype of Christ who died, resurrected, and is seated at the right hand of God.
We do injustice when we compare our lives to our past and drive our identity from fallen Adam. So if we find things in our lives that are not new, we have full right to pray and remove what is illegally present in us. We need to become like Caleb and Joshua, who were ready to conquer the promised land because they knew it was their inheritance. When the ten spies were busy figuring out how is it possible, they trusted the promise of God. We need not suffer the same pattern of sickness or sin again. We face the same problem repeatedly because we have become complacent with sin. Bible says, “the one who is born of God can not sin.” CAN NOT! It is an impossibility. We need to pray and declare the righteousness of God over our lives.
An Ambassador:
2 Corinthians 5: 20 (ESV) – Therefore, we are ambassadors for Christ, God making his appeal through us. We implore you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God.
As an ambassador of Christ, we belong to Christ and represent the Kingdom of God. When an American ambassador starts living in another country, he lives by the standards of his own country. The property they live in reflects their government. And if there is any lack or need, they get their resources and aid from that country. Similarly, if our experiences do not match the standard of heaven, we need to ask God for resources to represent Him as He is. In other words, we need help from heaven for our lives to represent heaven. So that when someone encounters us, they encounter heaven.
When Jesus sent His disciples (Matthew 10), He asked them not only to preach the gospel but also to demonstrate the Kingdom. Our destination and origin is heaven; therefore, our lives should showcase heaven. If it is not, we have every right to call for justice and resources. It is unfair for us to be the ambassador of heaven without its resources. If we don’t ask, we won’t receive it. If our life does not look like Christ, we have every right to fight to become like Christ. We don’t have to manage our life in the little we have; we have to live in its fullness.
The righteousness of God on Earth
2 Corinthians 5: 21 (ESV) – For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.
Righteousness is God’s nature. When we look at our lives and see patterns such as anger issues, mood swings, and financial instability, we should not get comfortable with it. We need to believe and declare the righteousness of God. The righteousness of God has the power to set right anything that is wrong, oppressive, or out of order in our lives.
The purpose of a mic is to amplify the speaker’s voice. If the mic does not amplify the voice, it means it’s malfunctioning. Likewise, the righteousness of God amplifies our original design, which is associated with ruling and reigning. When we hear the word righteous, we think of a righteous judge or a righteous King. We want a righteous ruler to rule rightly and justly. So if anything on earth does not represent the authentic design of God, the righteousness of God sets those things right. The righteousness of God will create divine possibilities to make things right. And if things need to be restored, the righteousness of God will restore them.
The Bible calls us the righteousness of God. In the chaotic world, we are chosen to reveal the justice of God. When God sees us, He sees us exactly as Jesus. If Jesus who knew no sin could become sin, then we who know no righteousness can become the righteousness of God. We have the right standing with God. This is our inheritance. This is what we are praying for. Our lives should correlate to the life of Jesus. And we have absolute power to fight our case.
Effortless living
Fighting in prayers is not an act of striving. In Christ, effortless life is our portion. But the meaning of effortless living is not a lack of work or comfortable life. Effortless living is when we don’t stress or depend on our work. Though the work of God is done through us, it’s God who does the work. Sometimes we do not get the answers to our prayers because we focus on how they will be answered rather than believing God for it. The how is not our responsibility. The Father in us is working through us. When Jesus cursed the fig tree, he did not care how it would happen. He spoke to the tree and walked off. The next day when the disciples saw the tree, they were surprised to see it happen, but Jesus was not affected by the outcome. We need to stop wondering about how God will work, instead believe and let God function through us.
Authorisation of our Inheritance
Colossians 2: 13-15 (ESV) – And you, who were dead in your trespasses and the uncircumcision of your flesh, God made alive together with him, having forgiven us all our trespasses, by canceling the record of debt that stood against us with its legal demands. This he set aside, nailing it to the cross. He disarmed the rulers and authorities and put them to open shame, by triumphing over them in him.
The Cross and the blood of Jesus is our authorisation. The message of the Cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but it is the power of God to those who are being saved (1 Corinthians 1: 18). The Cross is the best evidence for us to believe that we have our inheritance. We are not earning our inheritance with prayer. That is one extreme of praying persistently without thanksgiving. It is easy for our minds to make us believe that it is our prayers that are getting us our inheritance. However, it is the finished Work of Christ on the cross that makes us partake of the inheritance that God has for us. When God created the earth, God gave man authority over the earth. Anything that has to happen on earth needs the authority of man. Since God has given the authority of earth to man, He works through us on earth.
Altars: authorisation and continuity on earth
When Abraham heard God’s voice, he built an altar to honour God. An altar is a physical place where we bring sacrifices to honour God. In the spiritual realm, the altars that Abraham built gave God the authorisation and continuity to invade those spaces. Therefore, when his son or grandson came to these places, they reaped a hundredfold harvest and experienced heavenly dreams. The same is true even in today’s times; when we build altars for God, we give Him authorisation and continuity.
Thus, altars are powerful because they give permission and access to the supernatural to invade and remain on earth. However, altars work for the demonic realm as well. If anyone in our previous generations has built an altar for the demons to invade their lives, their presence and oppression will be felt in our lives.
Repeated patterns of fear, shame, guilt, condemnation, sickness, etc., are enough evidence of demonic altars in our lives. Every demonic altar stands on the offering of sin. The devil doesn’t have any power on earth. However, by deceiving humans, the devil uses our power to attack us. When we sacrifice hearts, honour, food grains, or animals to the demonic forces, we experience demonic manifestation. That is how the devil uses human’s power to demonstrate fancy things. By building demonic altars through repeated patterns of sin, we give him the authorisation to kill, steal and destroy what is rightfully ours. Thus, our prayers become ineffective when we have demonic altars in our lives.
When food is left outside for days, it attracts maggots and roaches. Similarly, when we fail to deal with the issues of life in the presence of the Lord through prayer and Word, it attracts demonic oppression automatically. Whenever the Israelites built altars for false idols and gods and turned their faces away from the Lord, God would always warn them that they were stepping out of the covering of His covenant. As soon as their faces were turned away from the Lord, Lord’s protection was lifted, and they entered into slavery. But every time they repented and came back, the first thing they did was break those evil altars and rebuild altars for God.
The only way to set free from the pattern of sin or sickness is to break those altars and rebuild altars for God. In the new covenant, we do not construct a physical altar for God because our bodies are the temple of the Holy Ghost. But we need to declare that the blood of Jesus is the highest covenant that defeats every other covenant over our lives made by our forefathers. The message of the Cross is the greatest altar that we have in our lives. We have the authority and power to fight against demonic tactics using this covenant of union with God.
We are fighting for our inheritance in Christ. Our lives must be exactly like Christ’s because that’s what His blood did for us. We don’t have to strive but just receive this life in Jesus as a gift. Jesus came to give us life and to give it to us in abundance. So if we are not living this abundant life, we need to be violent enough to conquer what was stolen from us. The blood of Jesus authorises us to fight our case. We are a new creation who are the ambassadors of Christ and operate in the righteousness of God.
Role of prayer
1. Prayer opens our eyes because we don’t know when we are deceived. It gives us the revelation of freedom, which helps us to fight for what is ours.
Deuteronomy 29: 29 (ESV) – The secret things belong to the Lord our God, but the things that are revealed belong to us and to our children forever, that we may do all the words of this law.
Every hidden treasure that is revealed unto us belongs to our children and us. So we need to pray for this revelation. And when it is revealed unto us, we have the right to pray and declare until we possess it.
Ephesians 1: 18 (ESV) – having the eyes of your hearts enlightened, that you may know what is the hope to which he has called you, what are the riches of his glorious inheritance in the saints,
2. Prayer opens the doors that were closed demonically for generations. Satan has closed many doors to prevent us from overflowing in the kingdom.
Psalms 24: 7 (ESV) – Lift up your heads, O gates! And be lifted up, O ancient doors, that the King of glory may come in.
No doors or strongholds can stand against our Lord and Father. When we have the revelation that Christ in us is the King of glory, the ancient gates that were closed will open for us.
To access our inheritance, we have to pray persistently without losing heart. Our best life, which is the fullness of Christ, is awaiting us. The kingdom of God is not for the faint-hearted who are polite with the devil. The kingdom of God is our inheritance, and we need to fight for it.
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