Everything we could ever need for life and godliness has already been deposited in us by his divine power. For all this was lavished upon us through the rich experience of knowing him who has called us by name and invited us to come to him through a glorious manifestation of his goodness.
2 Peter 1:3
Commission to Pray
The great commission is to pray “on Earth as it is in Heaven.” This was the original standard with Jesus. He moved through His ministry with a gospel of purity and power, and invited people to join Him in something we call the Kingdom of Heaven. So, what is the Kingdom that Jesus mentioned, and how do we become a part of it? A Kingdom culture is the reality of His world affecting our world, and we enter into this realm of influence through prayer. Paul says that we are called God’s ambassadors of this Kingdom in the book of Corinthians, “We are ambassadors of the Anointed One who carry the message of Christ to the world, as though God were tenderly pleading with them directly through our lips. So we tenderly plead with you on Christ’s behalf, “Turn back to God and be reconciled to him.”” (2 Corinthians 5:20) However, we can not become influential ambassadors of Heaven without prayer. This call on our lives to become an influence in society is given to us by the Father so we can represent Him well. And this influence begins to take place after we undergo spiritual transformation. Some believers have attempted to transform their lives through self-determination, but it doesn’t work that way. Authentic transformation only comes from being immersed in the presence of God, and prayer becomes the road we take to get there.
Heaven and Earth are two worlds waiting for the children of God to establish a supernatural connection. Remember when the disciples asked Jesus how they should pray? They had this desire to learn how Jesus pulled Heaven down into Earth. Has prayer ever been deficient in your life? I know that I have gone through times of prayerlessness myself, and I can tell you that I wouldn’t recommend it! The absence of prayer has the ability to cause a form of lack. Prayer is the tool that God gave us to agree with Him for His will to be done on the Earth. From the scripture below, Jesus shows us that God’s will is for what’s in Heaven to come into the Earth.
your kingdom come,
Matthew 6:10
your will be done,
on earth as it is in heaven
Kingdom Culture vs. Church Culture
As stated earlier, the commission to pray was the original standard with Jesus. And this gospel of power and purity that worked well over 2,000 years ago still works today! I am not sure why a believer would ever go a day without praying, because it is so vital to every child of God to walk into their divine calling and destiny with a lifestyle of prayer. God designed the Church to become a Kingdom culture, which as you know is the reality of His world affecting this world. Right now in America, there is such a difference between Church culture and Kingdom culture. Church culture is a group of believers that agree upon a set of values. Kingdom culture is shaped when believers begin operating in purity and power. It is rather obvious in America, that Church culture has not operated in purity and power. Because of this, the culture has dramatically changed, and we are looking more and more like Sodom and Gomorrah. What we need to do is get into the presence of God through prayer, both individually and corporately, to go from Church culture to Kingdom culture. Only then will we be able to influence the seven mountains of our culture, which are: Media, Government, Education, Economy, Religion, Family and Entertainment/Arts.
Purity and Power
Purity and power are the two legs the Church should stand on. Purity is the nature of Jesus that is formed within us. Holiness is not a list of rules, but it is the actual beauty of God. Purity is not about performing a list of rules for God, but it is the way we represent God to the Earth. Apostle John wrote that when we see Jesus, we will be just like Him (1 John 3:2). It is impossible for someone who has seen Jesus as He is to desire to become anything else. Prayer opens our spiritual eyes to seeing Jesus in all His purity, and that encounter influences our mindset and the desires of our hearts.
Power is necessary for the demonstration of the miracle love of Jesus. The real love of God brings solutions to impossible situations. And every miracle that takes place demonstrates and proves that Jesus rose from the dead. The Bible says that the testimony of Jesus (miracles, signs and wonders) is the spirit of prophecy (Revelation 19:10). The power of God brings us to wholeness, and it enables people to endure difficulty until the miracle comes.
Stay on the Path!
Culture becomes shaped by how well we do purity and power. There is a path of a believer in Kingdom culture, and we must be careful not to leave His walkway. On either side of this path are two possibilities. On one side there is a quenching of God’s Spirit, and on the other side is the grieving of God’s Spirit. When we put even one foot out of the boundary of God’s path, we lose our influence in His Kingdom culture. So, what is the difference between the two? I never understood this until Bill Johnson explained it in a sermon. Quenching the Spirit is to not cooperate with the life-giving force of the resurrected Christ that is wanting to flow through you and me to impact the world around us. It is essentially stopping the flow of God’s power. Grieving the Spirit is when our attitudes, thoughts and ambitions become opposed to God. We grieve God’s Spirit with sin, and a lack a purity. When we loose our purity, we become a bad influence to those around us. Both quenching and grieving the Spirit are happening in the Church culture in America and all over the world. Some churches neglect God’s power because they do not believe in the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit will not go where He is not welcomed, thus, these churches are not seeing healings and miracles. Other churches are grieving the Holy Spirit by preaching a different gospel and having leaders in places of influence who are operating in sin and disobeying God. How many pastors and leaders have been exposed within the last year for having secret sexual affairs? It is a problem in the Church that grieves the Holy Spirit deeply. He cannot operate in a group of people that dismiss His call to purity so that they can look palatable to the world. We must operate in purity and power, there is no other way for a disciple of Jesus to live.
The Kingdom of Abundance
The Kingdom of God is a kingdom of abundance. The resurrection of Jesus broke the power of sin, sickness, and poverty. Now, there have been teachers who have taken this concept out of its original context. We know it as the prosperity gospel. It is a different gospel than what Jesus taught, and I want to make some important distinctions between the two. In the teachings of the prosperity gospel, it is believed that we can manipulate God to have prosperity. Some believe that a Christian should always be well and have money, and if they become sick or poor…they are not doing it right. This is a similar theology as the friends of Job. They believed that if you were good, only good things would happen to you. And if you were bad, bad things would happen. But God taught us through the story of Job that sometimes bad things happen to good people. Now, it is not God’s will that bad things happen, but we live in a fallen world that has been influenced by Satan and has something called free will. That means that sickness can still operate in a life of a believer, but God does not want that sickness to stay. That’s why Jesus came! He came to bring life! He came to bring solutions.
A thief has only one thing in mind—he wants to steal, slaughter, and destroy. But I have come to give you everything in abundance, more than you expect —life in its fullness until you overflow!
John 10:10
This is good news! This is the Kingdom of abundance. Apostle John says this, “I pray that you are prospering in every way and that you continually enjoy good health, just as your soul is prospering” (3 John 1:2). It becomes clear that in the same measure God wants our souls to prosper, He wants us to have resources and health. Healing and restoration of resources brings glory to His name, and He enjoys showing others this aspect of His nature. It doesn’t mean that everyone who becomes a believer will never be sick or have financial issues, but it does mean that they have the “phone number” of the best doctor and financial officer. But we must learn to dial that “number” to receive His solutions.
You Can Never Exhaust God’s Resources
You can never exhaust God’s resources because He can do exceedingly and abundantly above all that you can ask or think. You can see His mighty power, but when He gets through, He’s not exhausted. He has much more strength to give you from day to day. He can defeat any giant that’s before you. He can produce streams in the desert. He can produce manna that will fall from the sky. He can send cloven tongues of fire in the upper room. He can walk on the water in the Sea of Galilee and salvage you the thing that you think is about to destroy you. He can use your pain for a sidewalk to save you when you grow weary. He can make you to run like Elijah, forty miles before the chariot. When you grow faint, He can give you strength. He can send you power that you can’t begin to touch. You cannot exhaust God’s power. Our God is an awesome God. He is full of grace and truth. He is the almighty El Shaddai, the conqueror of death, hell, and the grave. He’s the conqueror of sickness and death. He’s the conqueror of powers and principalities. He’s the Conqueror from Calvary. He’s the Lion of the tribe of Judah. He’s the Lord of glory and is coming soon with power and great glory.
Never doubt God’s mighty power to work in you and accomplish all this. He will achieve infinitely more than your greatest request, your most unbelievable dream, and exceed your wildest imagination! He will outdo them all, for his miraculous power constantly energizes you.
Ephesians 3:20
Make a Withdrawal
Resist the devil and he will flee from you. And for those of you who name the name of Christ, stop allowing Satan and his demonic goons to to destroy your marriage. Put on the whole armor of God and fight back. Quite allowing him to attack your health. The Bible says by His stripes we are healed. Quit allowing him to attack your finances. The Bible says God will rebuke the Devourer for your sake, and He will make him give it back to you Sevenfold. Stop allowing the devil to rob you of your peace because Jesus Christ is the Prince of Peace. Stop allowing Satan to rob you of your joy, because in His presence is the fullness of joy. Do you want it? Then fight for it! And it all begins with asking. In the words of the apostle James, “You don’t obtain what you want because you won’t ask God for it!”
Picture it this way. When you accepted Christ, you received an inheritance. It was an automatic free gift paid for by the cross. Your inheritance is held in a heavenly account. Healing, redemption (of all things), and peace are your inheritance. So, when you face sickness, financial issues, marriage problems, and internal pain, you have resources at your disposal. You have to make a withdrawal from your heavenly account. It is like going to an ATM and taking out what is in your bank account. God has already made the deposit; the resources are there. But now it is time to ask, put in your “check card” and withdraw from Heaven. Today is the day to make a withdrawal from your heavenly account. Listen to the words of Jesus, “Ask and you’ll receive. Seek and you’ll discover. Knock on heaven’s door, and it will one day open for you. Every persistent person will receive what he asks for. Every persistent seeker will discover what he needs. And everyone who knocks persistently will one day find an open door.” (Luke 11:9-10)
Scriptures to Encourage you
Don’t you know? Haven’t you been listening?
Isaiah 40:28-31
Yahweh is the one and only everlasting God,
the Creator of all you can see and imagine!
He never gets weary or worn out.
His intelligence is unlimited;
he is never puzzled over what to do!
He empowers the feeble
and infuses the powerless with increasing strength.
Even young people faint and get exhausted;
athletic ones may stumble and fall.
But those who wait for Yahweh’s grace
will experience divine strength.
They will rise up on soaring wings and fly like eagles,
run their race without growing weary,
and walk through life without giving up.
“I, Yahweh, will respond to the cry of the poor and needy
Isaiah 41:17-20
when they are thirsty and their tongues are parched with thirst!
When they seek a drink of water but there is none,
I, the God of Israel, will not abandon them.
I will open up refreshing streams on the barren hills
and springing fountains in the valleys.
I will make the desert a pleasant pool
and the dry land springs of water.
I will plant in the treeless desert cedars and achaia,
myrtle and olive trees.
I will set in the wilderness evergreens,
together with many elm and cypress.
Everyone will see
and know that I, Yahweh, with my mighty hands have done this.
They will consider and comprehend
that the Holy One of Israel has created it.”
Take the carefree birds as your example. Do you ever see them worry? They neither grow their own food nor put it in a storehouse for later. Yet God takes care of every one of them, feeding each of them out of the abundance of his love and goodness. Isn’t your life more precious to God than a bird? Be carefree in the care of God!
Luke 12:24
Now may God, the fountain of hope, fill you to overflowing with uncontainable joy and perfect peace as you trust in him. And may the power of the Holy Spirit continually surround your life with his super-abundance until you radiate with hope!
romans 15:13
Yes, God is more than ready to overwhelm you with every form of grace, so that you will have more than enough of everything—every moment and in every way. He will make you overflow with abundance in every good thing you do.
2 Corinthians 9:8
I know what it means to lack, and I know what it means to experience overwhelming abundance. For I’m trained in the secret of overcoming all things, whether in fullness or in hunger. And I find that the strength of Christ’s explosive power infuses me to conquer every difficulty.
Philippians 4:12-13
Janell Kremer 