Prayer review, Part 18: Concluding principles; Begin John 15:17.

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1. What the Lord does not remove He intends for us to resolve in some other way within the framework of our spiritual life through the function of the ten problem solving devices.

 

People often want you to pray for them when they are hurting, and it may be God’s means of promoting them.

 

2.Prayer is a vehicle of assistance for the use of certain problem solving devices.

 

a. Rebound: Ps 66:18

If I regard wickedness in my heart,

The Lord will not hear;

 

b. Filling of HS: EPH 6:18

With all prayer and petition pray at all times in the Spirit, and with this in view, be on the alert with all perseverance and petition for all the saints,

 

c. Faith rest: HEB 4:16

Let us therefore draw near with confidence to the throne of grace, that we may receive mercy and may find grace to help in time of need. Matt 21:22, “Everything you ask in prayer, believing, you shall receive.”

 

d. Grace orientation: 1 Peter 3:7

 You husbands likewise, live with your wives in an understanding way, as with a weaker vessel, since she is a woman; and grant her honor as a fellow heir of the grace of life, so that your prayers may not be hindered.

 

e. Doctrinal orientation: James 1:5

 But if any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask of God, who gives to all men generously and without reproach, and it will be given to him.

 

f. Personal sense of destiny:Phil 1:19

For I know that this shall turn out for my deliverance through your prayers and the provision of the Spirit of Jesus Christ,

 

g. Personal love for God: Phil 1:9

And this I pray, that your love may abound still more and more in real knowledge and all discernment,

 

h. Impersonal love: 1 Thess 3:12

may the Lord cause you to increase and abound in love for one another, and for all men, just as we also do for you;

 

i. Sharing +H of God: Phil 1:3-4

 I thank my God in all my remembrance of you, always offering prayer with joy in my every prayer for you all,

 

j. Occupation with Christ: 2 Kings 6:4

Then Elisha prayed and said, "O Lord, I pray, open his eyes that he may see." And the Lord opened the servant's eyes, and he saw; and behold, the mountain was full of horses and chariots of fire all around Elisha.

 

We live in an age of the greatest power that has ever been given to the ordinary believer. The power at your disposal is phenomenal, but you will never touch it without straightening out your values and functioning on a consistent basis with the spiritual skills.

 

You do not need a miracle from God; you have far superior power to miracles. God does not need to perform miracles, when He has given us assets that were pioneered and tested by Christ in the dispensation of the hypostatic union.

 

You have more power available to you than all of the Old Testament miracles put together. Paul was asking the Lord to bypass the basis for his final promotion to Jeshurun status, and God’s answer was “No, No, No. Apply, apply, apply.”

 

3. Thorn in the flesh suffering is the divine initiative of grace for the function of God’s power. We should not ask for its removal.

 

Paul’s thorn was designed for the function of grace orientation to pass the final test of Paul’s spiritual maturity.

 

Paul’s suffering was designed to be part of the principle of ROM 8:28, “For we know that to those who love God, He causes all things to work together for good, even to those who are called on the basis of a predetermined plan.”

 

Paul’s suffering was designed to have grace orientation and personal love for God the Father deployed and functioning on the FLOT line of his soul. If God answers Paul’s prayer and takes away the thorn in the flesh and removes the suffering, it would destroy the only offensive action left to Paul to reach the highest stage of the spiritual life. However, the benefit to Paul’s prayer is the recollection of these truths and understanding of what it took to overcome.

 

4. Suffering is your friend, not your enemy. Certain categories of suffering for blessing are absolutely necessary for spiritual momentum.

 

Use your problem solving devices for the execution of the predesigned plan of God for glorifying God. When you pass this kind of a test, the elect angels are standing and cheering you.            

 

5. Effective prayer is the result of spiritual growth, but never the means.

 

6. You are not spiritual because you pray; you pray because you are spiritual.

 

John 15:16 "You did not choose Me, but I chose you, and appointed you, that you should go and bear fruit, and that your fruit should remain, that whatever you ask of the Father in My name, He may give to you.

 

John 15:17 "This I command you, that you love one another.

 

As we have defined agapan love: A mental attitude impersonal, unconditional love from mature virtue that recognizes the value of an object, producing a self-sacrificial preference and regard for its benefit even if hated. It is without sin and is not motivated by any affection or attraction.

 

This is the greatest power the universe has ever seen. In all the destructive evil and hate of the creatures of history that makes even the non-angelic and non-human forms of life groan in deficiency, this love overcame it all.

 

From 1992 - 1995 200,000 Muslim citizens were killed by Serbs in genocidal pursuit.

 

In 1994 in the east African state of Rwanda 800,000 Tutsi people were killed by Hutu militia in genocide in 100 days. That's an average of 8000 per day.  

 

In Cambodia from 1975 - 1979 2,000,000 innocent people were murdered through starvation, work exhaustion and execution under the leadership of Pol Pot.

 

Nazi holocaust - 6,000,000 exterminated. At its highest Auschwitz killed and cremated just over 9000 in one day.

 

Rape of Nanking - 300,000 killed in six weeks by the Japanese Imperial Army.

 

In 1932 - 1933, Joseph Stalin, leader of the Soviet Union, set in motion events designed to cause a famine in the Ukraine to destroy the people there seeking independence from his rule. As a result, an estimated 7,000,000 persons perished in this farming area [avg. slightly over 19,000 per day and at its height in 1933, 25,000 per day], known as the breadbasket of Europe, with the people deprived of the food they had grown with their own hands (starvation death is one of the cruelest). [Interesting note here is that Stalin knew the rich landowners and the educated would be his biggest resistance so he could rid of that class first].

 

The first genocide of the 20th Century occurred from 1915 - 1918 when two million Armenians living in Turkey were eliminated from their historic homeland through forced deportations and massacres. 1.5 million died.

 

These are just a few of the 20th century. If we went as far back as recorded history we would see the true capability of man.

 

This is the world that God inserted His love into:

 

John 3:16

 "For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish, but have eternal life.

 

By justice, if God stops certain evils then He has to stop them all. That would eliminate free-will and His creatures would just be automatons. The solution was to give Christ through His love. Every act of sin in the history and future of mankind was given to Christ.

 

For the first time, now that the love is a historical reality, the power of this love has been given to believers. Agape love is a love of power and virtue. It is not human personal love or human sincerity or human patronization.

 

Your agape love, if you realize its potential in you, is a gift to the world that can overcome its evil.

 

Since the world has not embraced this love through faith in Christ and subsequent faith in His word, the evil fervently persists. For those who do embrace this love then the evil is conquered in their own soul. Love never fails "you."

 

Holding the potential of such power to overcome all things, Christ mentions it most often in His brief introduction into the Church-age.

 

John 13:34 "A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another, even as I have loved you, that you also love one another.

 

John 13:35 "By this all men will know that you are My disciples, if you have love for one another."

 

John 14:15 "If you love Me, you will keep My commandments.

 

John 14:21 "He who has My commandments and keeps them, he it is who loves Me; and he who loves Me shall be loved by My Father, and I will love him, and will disclose Myself to him."

 

John 14:23 "If anyone loves Me, he will keep My word; and My Father will love him, and We will come to him, and make Our abode with him.

 

John 14:24 "He who does not love Me does not keep My words; and the word which you hear is not Mine, but the Father's who sent Me.

 

John 15:9 Just as the Father has loved Me, I have also loved you; abide in My love.

 

John 15:10 "If you keep My commandments, you will abide in My love; just as I have kept My Father's commandments, and abide in His love.

 

John 15:12 "This is My commandment, that you love one another, just as I have loved you.

 

John 15:13 "Greater love has no one than this, that one lay down his life for his friends.

 

John 15:17 "This I command you, that you love one another.

 

Last statement of our Lord’s prayer:

John 17:26 and I have made Thy name known to them, and will make it known; that the love wherewith Thou didst love Me may be in them, and I in them. "