Why Pray?

What’s my authority in decision?

The LORD has an amazing plan for our individual lives.  Many believers search in bewilderment for years, waiting on an explicit direction about God’s “will” issued to them.  Surprisingly, the Christian life is not centered upon our talents and how we can use them for Jesus.  This is beneficial, but it is merely secondary.

The hope of our calling is found in intimacy with Jesus Christ, and the forthright path to the knowledge of God through His Son is by a lifestyle of prayer and worship (Matt 22:37-39; Eph 1:17-19).  Regardless of external circumstances, every individual was created to be a holy, passionate lover of Jesus and an intimate partner in executing His plans on the earth.  We believers govern or reign with God by intercession (asking through prayer), and from the place of our steadfast request, we receive what the LORD earnestly longs to give us (Jas 4:2; Isa 30:18-19).  God delights in listening to our cries and in fascinating our hearts through answering.

From Genesis to Revelation, God has chosen intercession as the primary means for mankind to rule with Him.  The best example is found in the Person of Christ, being the Son of God, yet humbling Himself in the form of a Man as the Son of David to be High Priest.  Everything Jesus has done, is doing now, and will do forever is in absolute submission to His Father and most always executed from the place of His intercession (Ps 2:8, 110:4; Heb 7:25; Jn 5:19, Jn 14:10).  This does not negate Jesus’ authority as the express image of God, but rather shows evidence of how God Himself has chosen to orchestrate His kingdom authority.  We must ask because God desires a voluntary partner!

In today’s American Church, many believers have attained a casual, false confidence in “trusting” that God will move and everything, whether great or small, will just happen to come to pass, regardless of the influence of our involvement.  In all meekness, I assert that this presumption is a non-Biblical paradigm of the operation of the kingdom of God.

From the foundation of the world, God has sworn partnership by giving humanity free will in the dominion over the earth (Gen 1:28, Psalm 8:5-6, 115:16). Therefore, man has the right to either delegate his authority to God or Satan.  Can man dethrone God?  Certainly not!   But when man exalts sin and disobedience by intentional choice in the natural, demonic angels are shifted in the heavenlies and are established in power (Lk 4:6, Jn 8:48).   When mankind partners in a corporate agreement with God’s righteousness and justice, the supremacy of the earth is given to His kingdom order (Matt 6:10, Ps 89:14).

No kingdom can be established without a welcoming, submitted body of support.  This life is not a practice game.  We cannot do God’s part, and He will not do our part.