Pastor Susan…
I want to read a couple scriptures this morning as we set ourselves to pray. Welcome, by the way, everyone who’s online and here in person. We’re going to be praying into the plans of God today. I’m excited about that. I’m glad that you’re here. I’m Pastor Susan, by the way.
Ephesians 1:17 says this… I’m reading Amplified Classic. But as I do, I want this to go deep into your spirits this morning because this is who we are. This is the place that we’ve been given. This is the God we serve, and it’s important as pray-ers that we pray from this place that I’m going to read about, which is a place of victory, right? And we don’t pray from down-under prayers, desperate prayers, pleading prayers, kind of “on our last leg” type of prayers. But we pray authoritative prayers because we know who we are, right? And we know what Jesus has done. And it’s good to be reminded of that in a world that’s really wacky.
It says this in verse 17… And I love this, the Apostle Paul whom Jesus appeared to and gave the revelation of the church and actually gave him the revelation of what happened through the resurrection, the redemptive work of Christ. I’m so glad that God has made His will known to us. So let’s listen to this. Read it with me.
“For I always pray to the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, that he may grant you a spirit of wisdom and revelation of insight into mysteries and secrets in the deep and intimate knowledge of him by having the eyes of your heart flooded with light.”
Why is that?
“So that you can know and understand the hope to which he has called you and how rich is his glorious inheritance in the saints, his set apart ones, and so that you can know and understand what is the immeasurable and unlimited and surpassing greatness of his power in and for us who believe. And he demonstrated this.”
This is what the Bible says. Paul said this is what He’s done, and here’s a demonstration of how mighty that strength and power is that’s working in us and for us “as demonstrated in the working of his mighty strength, which he exerted in Christ when he raised him from the dead and seated him at his own right hand in the heavenly places, far above all rule and authority and power and dominion in every name that is named above every title that can be confirmed not only in this age and in this world, but also in the age and the world, which are to come. And he has put all things…”
All means all, right?
“…all things under his feet and has appointed him the universal and supreme head of the church. A headship exercised throughout the church, which is his body.”
That’s us!
“The fullness of him who fills all and all for in that body in us collectively lives the full measure of him who makes everything complete and who fills everything everywhere with himself.”
We’re going to keep reading into chapter two because he’s carrying on the thought.
“And you, the church, he made alive when you were dead and slain in your trespasses and sins, in which at one time you walked habitually. You were following the course and the fashion of this world. You were under the sway and the tendency of this present age, following the prince of the power of the air. You are obedient to and under the control of the demon spirit that still constantly works in the sons of disobedience, the careless, rebellious, the unbelieving who go against the purposes of God. Among these we as well as you once lived and conducted ourselves in the passions of our flesh, our behavior governed by our corrupt and sensual nature, obeying the impulses of the flesh and the thoughts of the mind. We were then by nature children of God’s wrath, heirs of his indignation, like the rest of mankind. But God so rich is he in his mercy because of and in order to satisfy the great and wonderful and intense love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses He made us alive together in fellowship and in union with Christ. He gave us the very life of Christ himself. The same new life with which he quickened him, the same. For it is by grace that you are saved, delivered from judgment and made partakers of Christ’s salvation.”
Here we go, verse 6:
“And he raised us up together with him, and he made us to sit down together giving us joint seating with him in the heavenly sphere by virtue of being in Christ Jesus. He did this that he might clearly demonstrate through the ages to come, the immeasurable, limitless, surpassing riches of his free grace in his kindness and goodness of heart toward us in Christ Jesus.”
I love that. And this is the place from which we’re to live. This is the place from which we’re to pray. This is the place from which we’re to minister. It’s a place of heavenly seating. It’s a place of authority. It’s a place of complete victory.
Last scripture that we’re going to read together. Second Thessalonians 3:1. And we’re going to be praying for the church because this authority and dominion is what the earth is groaning for… for the sons of God to be manifest, for us to stand in our authority and to function as the body of Christ. We’ve done it in little bits and pieces, maybe some more than others, but collectively, God is wanting us to arise and exercise that authority, right? So we’re going to pray about that today and then 2nd Thessalonians 3:1 says,
“Furthermore, brethren, do pray for us that the word of the Lord may speed on, spread rapidly run its course and be glorified, extolled in triumph even as it is done with you, and that we may be delivered from perverse, improper and righteous, wicked, actively malicious men for not everybody has faith and is held by it. Yet the Lord is faithful and he will strengthen you and set you on a firm foundation and guard you from the evil one.”
This is God’s promise to us in the midst of a dark world. We’re in the world. We’re not of the world. And we’re of another kingdom. That’s what it means to be an ambassador. You’re a sent one. We are here, right? We’re here in this earth realm, but we live out of a different kingdom. And I love that. And that’s where we need to be. And that’s why we’re going to pray about this acceleration. We’re going to pray about the church and where we need to be functioning right in this time. There’s a lot of work to be done, and we’re not going to do it by living down under, by living beneath our rights and privileges in Christ. We’re going to do it by knowing who we are, by embracing the identity that God has said we are and walking and living out of that revelation of who we are. Because that really is who we are, right?
Prayed…
So Father, we come together as your church just where you are.
Father, we’re so grateful that we’re not victims. We’re victors. We have nothing to fear for You’ve already defeated our enemies and you have seated us in Christ, that place of supreme victory and authority.
You’ve given authority to the church.
And so we thank you, Father, that just as Satan and names and titles are under the feet of Jesus, these things are under our feet because you raised us up together with Him and you’ve seated us with Him.
Sickness is under our feet. Fear is under our feet. Lack is under our feet. Disease is under our feet. Corruption is under our feet.
Father, we pray into your plan, the will of God… the plan you have to reach every nation with the glorious Gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ.
We pray for the nations.
We pray for the rapid spreading, the acceleration of your Word, your Word being preached and taught … being exalted and glorified and magnified in our nation, in our city, in the area of Minneapolis
I lift up the United Kingdom. I’m lifting up Europe. I’m lifting up the nations of Europe, of South America, of North America, of Central America, of Asia.
Father, we’re lifting up the Pacific and the islands of the Pacific, Australia. We’re lifting up all the continents to you.
And we say, “Let there be light!” Light where there’s been darkness. We say light in the name of Jesus, the light of God breaking through… breaking behind those closed doors, areas where there has been gross darkness.
We say let there be light entrances. We say “Open up. Open up. You open up to the Gospel. You open up in the name of Jesus.”
Father, we’re lifting up the leaders of nations, political leaders, governmental leaders, and we pray right now for the salvation message of the Gospel to reach them…
Father, thank you for opening doors to people of influential, military leaders, drug cartel leaders.
Ways, ways, ways to reach them…
We pray about the going, the sending, the going, going, going, going. The Great Commission…
Father, we thank you for making ways for people to get in and to get into places that seem to be closed… Places that have been dark, places that have been cut off, places that have been dangerous.
Father, you deliver your people from evil men and you make a way. We pray for those ways. We pray for those entrance points.
Father, I thank you for people of peace… I thank you for those connectors… connectors in places, in communities, in cities, in people groups, in language groups, in tribes… key people, people with many connections, people of influence. Lord, we lift them up and we pray for their full salvation. Their deliverance from the kingdom of darkness.
Father, we’re asking you for divine connections that you connect us with those… We pray the blood of Jesus over them for their protection.
We lift up those Middle Eastern countries, the 10/40 window countries. Father, you’re making away when there seems to be no way … we lift up those ways.
And Father, I ask you for the big asks for you to do the miraculous things … all things are possible… And so, yeah, I hear that word in my spirit. Translations, translations, translations.
