MESSAGE HIGHLIGHT:

Prayer And Fasting Weekend 02 – Ps Sharon Bendixen (WTB)

God promised us that if we would organize and establish prayer, He will  increase and intensify prayer. The increase comes from God and the intensification comes from the Holy Spirit in your heart.

Isaiah 56:7 (NKJV), 7 …I will make you joyful in My house of prayer. Jesus said, My house shall be called a house of prayer. Which means a house of speakings/words to God.  

The Bible talks about many experiences that we can have in prayer. We’re not looking to have the experience – we yield to the Holy Spirit, Who is moving in us. It’s not the experience that makes the prayer powerful, it’s our faith that makes our prayer powerful, because we know God hears us.  

The Bible talks about many manifestations of prayer – calling, weeping, joy, groaning, sighing, praising, shouting, thanksgiving. There’s a time for all of that – different expressions and encounters that we are going to be having with God in prayer.

Sounds of Heaven. We yield to the Holy Spirit, and we give our amplitude to Him. He created us with an amplitude, which means my voice can go soft or loud. God created my voice in His image.

We are with the Holy Spirit in prayer, because you never pray alone. 1 Corinthians 14:15 (NKJV) says, 15 ... My spirit by the Holy Spirit within me prays…. My spirit by the Holy Spirit within me sings. We’re speaking about the Spirit life of prayer now. Not the performance, the religious, dead stuff of prayer. We’re speaking about a living language, a living Holy Spirit, living inside of us, who gives life to our prayer life.

In the morning my first words to God are, “Into Your bright presence I come. Into Your arms I run. I am your son.” And I’m there with God instantly. In the beginning, I would not sense His presence so much. My faith had to grow. God said to me, Don’t even worry about that. You’ve got to focus on what My Word says. My presence is already in you. Your sensitivity to My presence must develop. Your intuitiveness to My spiritual presence. Because it’s not like another person’s presence. You’ve got to develop that knowing of Me on the inside of you.

Praying in the Spirit helps you to hook up with the Holy Spirit.

God wants to restore everybody’s personal relationship with God.

When we yield to the Holy Spirit in prayer, in intercession, in supplication, when we’re making requests, yielding your tongue from your spirit to the Holy Spirit, then it flows from your spirit to your soul, which is your emotions and your intellect, and sometimes your body. It causes your body to tremble.

Your prayer is not powerful because it’s loud. Your prayer is powerful because you’re hooked up with the Holy Spirit and you have faith. But the yielding to the Holy Spirit is important. The Word says from your innermost being  will flow rivers of living water.

Your soul part is that part of you that’s very strong. Your intellect wants to dominate you. The soul part of you, your emotions, you want to be emotional about stuff. Your soul part needs humbling with fasting. David said, “I will humble my soul with fastings (Psalm35:13).” Why? So my spirit can become more dominant. I’m taking extra time reading the Word, singing to Him, just thanksgiving to Him.

The Apostle Paul is talking to Timothy, 1 I exhort therefore, first of all, that supplications, prayers, intercessions, and giving of thanks be made for all men, 2… for all who are in authority. (1 Timothy 2:1-2 KJV). … First of all, before I pray for myself, my friends and my family.

I want to read to you some things that are underlined out of Psalms for you to hear:

·      1 Give ear to my words, O Lord. 3 My voice You shall hear in the morning, O Lord; In the morning I will direct my prayer unto You, And I will look up (Psalm 5:1,3 NKJV).

·     17You have heard the desire of the humble; You will prepare their hearts; You will cause Your ear to hear (Psalm 10:17 NKJV). He’s waiting for our prayers now, so that He can answer.

·       6 Blessed be the Lord, Because He has heard the voice of my supplications! (Psalm 28:6 NKJV).

·      6 In my distress I called upon the Lord, And I cried out to my God; He heard my voice from His temple, And my cry came before Him, even to His ears (Psalm 18:6 NKJV).

I really want to encourage you, pray for the government every day. Just a choice, it’s not a performance. If you just obey the Lord in one thing like this, you will want to obey Him in more things. You can do two minutes just like this (praying for the government), in your car in the morning.

Our prayers today are going to really help you to get to a place of where you love Him so much that you do something about it. Because a born-again spirit loves the Lord. Absolutely. But you’ve got to move from,” I love the Lord,” to “I choose the Lord. I obey the Lord. I obey His Word.”

God immediately interprets our tongues because He gave us this tongue, this language wherewith to address Him. The Wuest Bible calls it dignified elevated discourse, because it’s pure, it’s clear, it’s clean. It’s uncluttered of worldly words.

When I pray for my nation, I say, “I come in the power of one because Your Word says one puts a thousand to flight.” 

Why do you think we want our prayers to increase and intensify? We want them to be more powerful than what they currently are. Dear Lord. I know that our prayers are preventing a lot of things but not nearly enough.

It’s time now. God’s going to pour out of His Spirit, the Spirit of grace and prayer upon us. So that we can rise up in prayer and have the kind of stature and authority in the heavenly realm that can actually deal with the devil on this level. That’s why God is wanting, looking for a legitimate legislative assembly. 

Brother Jerry said that God’s been waiting for us to come to maturity, to release some of these things.  How do we come to maturity? Because we are spiritual, we’re planted in His ecclesia. The thing that gets planted in you is the Word of God that comes from the pulpit – not by just attending church.

The Lord Jesus said to me, this Book is not a lucky dip. That you think you can just pull out a promise at random for yourself. If you are not (planted) at an Ecclesia, at a place that God puts you, you can’t lucky dip a scripture out of the Bible.

Very important – the Lord gave me this – for Christ to be formed in us. The Apostle Paul says, My little children, of whom I travail in birth again until Christ be formed in you (Galatians 4:19 KJV). I am not waiting for my apostle to groan and travail for Christ to be formed in me and birthed in me. I am going to do this all for myself. 

Pastor John said, we cannot become mature sons of God without each other.  I cannot become a mature son of God without my collective greatness of my blood bought family. Your spirit life impacts me, my spirit life to impact you.

Having Christ formed in you is a lifelong passion, desire and zeal. Some of you have never prayed for Christ to be formed in you for yourself, never groaned like this with these scriptures, because you have never had a desperation for that. But today a desperation comes to you from the Spirit of God. You are going to pray for yourself now. Let your spirit speak to God for Christ to be formed.