 
...
and everybody said? Amen!
Ephesians 6:11-13
Can you think of anyone who God is not angry with? In fact, it is the influence of the adversary He opposes. But, if
He didn't care, He wouldn't be angry. Since we are made in His image through our faith in Christ, it is understandable we
would be angry with things not right. So, we are angry with ourselves for His sake - but we are angry with others too because
we depend on their witness as they depend on ours. Anyone worked up in emotions enough to believe they are losing their mind
can rest assured God always knows where it is. No matter who we are, or the situation we are in at this moment, God passionately
knows about it and Jesus Christ is living through it with us because all existence of all things is poured through Him on
the Cross. As we are lifted up into His resurrection by faith in Him, there is no one who can hold disdain against our redemption.
It is a shame a lot of churches are not doing their job. In fact, the church is in the heart as God's Truth flows up
through our inner being in response to faith. This is in the now, as we deal with the tasks at hand. God is now; yesterday
and tomorrow are never now, so we are in the position to respond to Him right where we are. "Right where we are" is not our
physical location as much as it is to whom we are obligated unto God. Our true life is Christ's resurrection. Only He knows
who He intends us to be. Praying takes practice and getting used to.
We have, in life, taken on habits that we identify with and these habits of believing ourselves to be a certain way
is very difficult to allow to change - simply because the newness of the right of ourselves in Christ does not feel familiar.
It seems wrong to the flesh because we realize that the person we have been wasn't really us at all. That leads to the understanding
that much of our life in the past was a waste and a service to destruction. This causes us to feel despair about who we have
been and then who we are.
We feel the hopelessness of our failures and then identify with them. The tendency then is to focus our failures onto
what we believe are the failures of others. This is because the adversary wants us to believe we are not God's children -
that we are not worthy of His love. In fact, we are not worthy of God's love as the Bible says. Only Christ is worthy - it
is Him who holds our reality in His victory over all we suffer from and fret over. Because of this, we can, moment by moment,
do all we do for His sake.
We do not have to live by the false church's rules of conduct - what we
do and cannot do because of the law of right and wrong - as we respond to the now of what is at hand, we will find that doing
for God's sake will automatically bring us into doing less wrong. We will feel the "need", less and less, to gratify our shortcomings
by finding attachments and excitements in order to obtain emotional fulfillment. The core of true life is not emotional -
it is understanding a sense of purpose without resentment and we can feel good about that. The joy of the Lord is wonderful
but the purpose of following Him is not to get the joy. It is to be of service to Him.
Prayer
The common reference to prayer we use from the Bible is in Matthew chapter 6 (Popularly called, "The
Lord's Prayer", this scripture is actually "The People's Prayer". The Lord's prayer can be found in the gospel of John chapter
17).
Matthew 6:1-16
1 But take heed that ye do not your righteousness before men to be gazed at by them - otherwise at least, reward have
ye none with your Father who is in the heavens.
2 When, therefore, thou mayest be doing an alms, do not sound a trumpet before thee just as the hypocrites do in the
synagogues and in the streets - that they may be glorified by men. Verily I say unto you, they are getting back their reward.
3 But thou, when doing an alms, let not thy left hand know what thy right hand is doing;
4 that thine alms may be in secret, and, thy Father who seeth in secret will give it back to thee.
5 And when ye may be praying, ye shall not be as the hypocrites because they love, in the synagogues, and at the corners
of the broad ways, to take their stand and pray that they may shine before men; Verily I say unto you, they are getting back
their reward.
6 But thou, when thou wouldest pray, enter into thy closet, and fastening thy door, pray unto thy Father who is in secret,
and thy Father who seeth in secret will reward thee.
7 And, being at prayer, use not vain repetitions just like the nations, for they think that in their much speaking they
shall be heard;
8 do not, therefore, make yourselves like them, for God your Father knoweth of what things ye have need before ye ask
him.
9 Thus, therefore pray ye: Our Father, who art in the heavens, Hallowed be thy name,
10 Come may thy kingdom, Accomplished be thy will, as in heaven, also on earth:
11 Our needful bread give us this day;
12 And forgive us our debts as we also have forgiven our debtors;
13 And bring us not into temptation but rescue us from the evil one.
14 For if ye forgive men their faults, Your Father who is in the heavens will forgive even you;
15 But, if ye forgive not men their faults, neither will your Father forgive, your faults.
Prayer is each of our communication with everyone's Father in heaven. It is a personal and direct laying down of ourselves
before the source of our existence. It is impossible to follow God's will by giving a prayer of "Show" in the presence of
and to others, except for the reverent example of leadership. Our reward through prayer is the life giving reality of the
Spirit of Truth, the Holy Spirit. The power of this sacrifice of our ego and self-interest is pleasing to God as He brings
us to who He intends us to be. Anyone we would rather not be praying for is someone we should be asking for forgiveness. God
loves people, not what they’ve done.
God's plan for us, generally for everyone, is to be a witness of Him, through the doing of all that we do, throughout
a day for His sake. We do not need to display an act of prayer to others because our very living in the moment will be a witness
of Truth. Any measure of faith we may have is a gift from God to us. Our faith is drawn from the faith Jesus used to face
the cross. The power of prayer is the power of active conflict resolution. It is not a magical formula to obtain the desires
of the pride of life and self fulfilled exuberance – though the joys and blessings from God bring the delights of life
only He can deliver through our steadfast faith-action efforts.
The symbol for prayer is the hands together, or the folded hands. The reason for this is submission to allow God to
be God. This reverence to God is a stopping of the flesh for a time. We cannot accomplish many worldly deeds with our hands
together. But, it is more. The process of prayer with the focus on our hands is to put our attention exactly where we are
in the moment. When emotions and thoughts come to our awareness, the noticing of our hands allows us to understand to give
up these emotions and thoughts to Christ, Who then brings our existence to the Throne of Grace.
If we get caught up in the thoughts and the emotions we have, we are drawn away from the moment and back into the reason
we went to prayer in the first place. When it is realized we have forgotten, for a moment, to give these thoughts and emotions
to God by keeping our awareness on our hands in humbleness before Him, the remembering will once again allow us to put our
cares at His feet. When we notice emotional stirring in response to right thinking, it is the moment to thank God for it allowing
the desire to hang on to our awareness of accomplishment to be lifted up to Him while our attention is brought back to our
praying hand or hands. Eventually, it will be understood that it is not necessary to put the hands together. Just being aware
of one of your hands at any time will be sufficient to follow God's will.
Hope, rather than faith, is in the category of the feelings of wishful expectation. Faith, rather
than hope, is an ongoing choosing of activities in response to accepted promise. It takes practice to accept the awareness
of reality from God and the adversary will work to interrupt our efforts by making our prayer an effort. After a time, we
learn to pray by accepting that God is in control and we are not. This is not to say we are to refrain from thinking about
our concerns and needs as we give them up to Christ, or that we are not to vocalize our heartfelt desires. Just the opposite
- it allows us to pour out our selves to God in a way that gives to Him the opening to pour His life into and through us.
At the same time, matters that we consider are beyond our control tend to push us to give in to the circumstances. And, if
we are not cautious, we will become complacent in 'over-trusting' that God will sort things out without our active involvement.
When we pray for others, we are accepting our oneness with them in Christ and therefore we are another at that time
for their sake. We ask for Mercy for us, for them, at the same time we are asking for Mercy for them, for us, so that the
weight of oppression and torment may be lifted - by our taking on, through Christ, their infirmities. The shield of protective
Grace around us in this activity keeps us well, but we may experience some of the symptoms of the problems of another. In
addition, we often will be attacked by the adversary, in and through some area(s) of our own life, to divert us from our work.
However, we cannot pray for someone in the sense that our words become the words another can identify with for their comfort.
Although the fellowship of lifting others up through this method will build faith and lead to prayer, it is not prayer itself
because the individual must put their-self before Jesus Christ to be lifted up, through their position in living with respect
to others, into His victory.
It is beneficial to consider the person we are most angry with in life and ask God for forgiveness for ourselves for
their sake. As we are through praying for one person in accepting God's promise of will, we can then move on in prayer to
the, then, person we are most angry with. Eventually, we will find we are left with our-self to forgive for God's sake because
of the anger we have for holding others responsible for our own pain and frustrations. These responsibilities belong to us
only in and through Christ's responsibilities for everyone, so we need to be thankful for His grace and kindness to consider
us when we have no right for consideration.
Empathy with another's difficulties, and the companionship of a shared moment of confirmation of faith for strength
of resolve, is not prayer. It is part of the process of repentance. When we have wronged another and/or another has wronged
us we must first respect to whom they are responsible according to marriage, parentage, and friendship so that we do not encroach
upon the authority of God in another life. It is the duty of the one’s involved to confess their error(s) in order to
ask for forgiveness so as to not demand the right of choice away from the other. Prayer is not a “make do” coping
skill even though it brings the comfort of hopeful expectation.
Prayer is designed specifically
to bring results that overcome the situations we have been trying to deal with in precisely and honestly solving divisional
conflicts by acknowledging who we are according to our promises, and the promises others have made to us, with God’s
promises of Scripture as our guide. The priorities of misaligned authorities are the source of self protectiveness and generates
unintended betrayals which are resolved through faith and togetherness by a casting off of prideful compensations for the
fears about our errors in harming others.
Dignity of place of responsibility always takes priority over who the people are and what they may have done or not
done. A man will pray, always including his wife, “Have mercy on her as You have mercy on me…” and a woman
will pray, always allowing for her husband, “Have mercy on me as You have mercy on him…” Exploitation and
misunderstandings will be minimized even though they cannot be entirely eliminated as we put our hand to the tasks of actualizing
our direction. This, then, can be brought to the Throne of Grace in prayer. Intercession in prayer for another is standing
in for that person, before God in Jesus Christ, in the way Jesus stood in for us all on the Cross.
But, the other must understand to use the authority God gave to them to give up their own will in accepting the will
of God. Often it is through the humility of asking another for forgiveness. Sharing where it hurts, and what the hidden difficulty
is about, with your wife or husband is similar to telling a doctor where it hurts so he can know how to help. A medical doctor
can only try with what he has through his training, skills, and available remedies. A woman or man in marriage with their
spouse have the power of God through shared faith unto healing and salvation in Jesus Christ that is sure and true to release
life and love, away from the bondage of fears to reach out, in bringing together our desires with His.
This gives us a chance to be fully responsible for one another and it respects our position in the Body of Christ.
We can be who God intends us to be instead of who we believe we are, or think we want to be. True freedom is through responsibility,
and responsibility is the joy of discovery. Caution: Education, experience, and intuition can be a substitute in any situation
instead of a support for the revealed knowledge from God. Motivations and intentions from our own desires can be directly
opposed to the will of God when we need to have results to alleviate our hardship and adverse frustrations.
James chapters 3 and 4
"Words are the soul's ambassadors,
who go Abroad upon her errands to and fro."
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