In Christianity today, there is a lot of emphasis on getting something from God. We find ourselves asking God to do something for us all the time. Our prayer life is full of requests.
Today when we talk about prayer, we associate it with requests hence you often hear people talk about prayer requests. We want God to do something about our businesses, families, finances, sicknesses or relationships.
This is the way most of us have come to relate with God. Our relationship with Him is only based on prayer requests. I am not sure if this is the best way to serve God. Why should it be only about making requests and begging Him?
Prayer is not just about making requests to God. There are different kinds of prayer (Ephesians 6:18). For example there is a prayer of faith and prayer of consecration or submission to the will of God, prayer of thanks giving among others.
Prayer should be part of fellowshipping with God the Father not just a begging episode. Indeed there is time for making our requests known to Him but it shouldn’t be the rule.
We have reduced ourselves to beggars, and we don’t even take time to thank Him for His goodness to us. God never created us to be beggars but to be kings?
We find this in Revelations 1:5-6: “and from Jesus Christ, the faithful witness, the firstborn from the dead, and the ruler over the kings of the earth. To Him who loved us and washed us from our sins in His own blood, and has made us kings and priests to His God and Father….”
We have been made kings. He is not planning on doing it. This is not a promise but a statement of fact and a done deal. “He is not man that He should lie nor son of man that He should repent”. Let God be true and every man a liar.
We have to grow in the full knowledge of God and not remain as babies in Christ. I am reminded of Galatians 4:1 which says “now I say that the heir, as long as he is a child, does not differ at all from a slave, though he is master of all.”
It should be noted that the Bible, didn’t say when the heir is a child but as long as he is a child”.
So it means regardless of our age as long as we keep living like children in the things of God, we will remain living like slaves.
We have to grow through the Word. Many of us are not ready for the life of a king because we have not been trained in the things of God.
You have got to be trained and part of your training in the life of a king is that kings don’t beg.
It is not enough to say it but we have to develop that mentality. It has to become our way of thinking. This suggests the kind of prayer life that we are supposed to have. We don’t beg for health, we don’t beg for prosperity, we don’t beg for deliverance, we don’t beg to be set free and we don’t even beg for anything.
God has already given us “all things that pertain to life and godliness according to our knowledge of Him” (2 Peter 1:3). The key words in this verse are according to our knowledge of Him”. Without that knowledge you will remain a slave.
This is a spiritual kingdom and it is greater than the physical world. Our challenge is that we don’t know how to get things done in the realm of the spirit. The word of God tells us to walk in the spirit. If we walk in the spirit we, live in victory. It doesn’t mean that we will not face trouble or challenges but if they come, we know we will be victorious (1 John 5:4).
We are children of God, We are born again. This means we are born of the Word. We are born of the spirit and the life of God is in us. We should know who we are. God has made us kings. However we don’t just sit back and expect things to happen or just claim it and grab it. Faith without works is dead.
It has always been God’s plan for us to rule and reign as kings as we see from Genesis 1:26
‘Then God said, Let us make man in our own image, according to our likeness, let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the air, and over the cattle, over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth”
This confirms God’s desire for His children to have dominion and rule since creation. However, we will not have dominion whilst we are seated. We have to pray that God will give us the spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of Him and that the eyes of our understanding be enlightened that we may know the hope of our calling and the riches of the glory of His inheritance in us. This will spur us to walk towards our destiny in God.
Jesus gave us the access code to the Father which is His name. The bible says through Him we have access into the presence of the Father.
His name gives us legal authority and so we have the power of attorney through Jesus. The name of Jesus is one of the most powerful weapons any Christian can ever have because it is the access code to the Father.
This name is higher than any other name. It is higher than cancer. It is higher than poverty. It is higher than any other disease one can think of. Every knee or situation bows to that name.
All things are possible through the name of Jesus. There is power to overcome everything in the world through the name of Jesus.
We need to have a sense of the power, the virtue and the glory of that name.
This kind of knowledge will transform your prayer life. How then can you beg when you are praying through such a powerful name? We don’t have to scrounge for faith.
All you need in this dispensation is the name of Jesus because as a born again believer, following the death, burial and resurrection of Jesus, you were born with faith (Romans 12:3) so you don’t have to ask for faith. You already have it. We were all given “a measure of faith”. We just need to activate it.
Indeed before the death, burial and resurrection of Jesus, people had to have faith and this is why Jesus once said “If you have faith as small as a mustard seed, you can say to this mountain be you removed and be cast into the sea and if you don’t doubt you will have whatever you ask for”.
The key words here were, “if you have faith” but as born again believers we already have faith because it is part of the born again package as seen in Romans 12:3.
Therefore when we are faced with challenges, worries and anxieties, in our lives we should then learn to cast that on the Lord and should believe that God will take care of our issues because He cares. (1 Peter 5:7)
“Casting all your cares, all your anxieties, all your worries, and all your concerns, once and for all, on Him, for He cares about you with the deepest affection and watches over you very carefully” (1 Peter 5:7 Amp).
The key lesson from this verse is that we have to learn to cast or offload our burdens to God because he cares for us and watches over us carefully”. This takes faith. However as long as we keep worrying and having anxieties about our issues, our prayers will not produce results. This is because God will not be having our burdens. We will still be carrying them. Jesus is our burden bearer. We used to sing a song – “What a friend we have in Jesus” and this always ministers to my spirit.
This is the most difficult part for most believers because we want to keep carrying the load so the whole world knows how things are so tough for us and we want to be prayer items in every prayer meeting so we can attract sympathy from fellow believers.
It is not your tears that will please God but your faith.
Kings do not depend on sympathy from other people or throw pity parties. They make declarations because they know their authority.
The Bible says thou shall decree a thing and it shall be established.
- Dr Doug Mamvura is a graduate of Charis Bible School. Feedback: drdoug@corporatemomentum.biz or Twitter @dougmamvura