In the meantime ...

Prayer Warriors, Part 1
(En Español)
In our rapidly changing times, people are desperate to know the future. Barely do we adjust to the last changes when totally new realities explode into our world.
In answer to the common fears spawned by change, society has been inundated by a plethora of occult and demonic sources -- fortune-tellers, astrologers, psychic hotlines -- all pretending to be able to peek into the mystery of tomorrow. Indeed, how many otherwise intelligent individuals glimpse, at least occasionally, at their "astrological signs" and try to get an edge on knowing the future!
Why anyone would consult someone who cannot predict his or her own future is beyond me. These fortune-tellers almost always live in poverty. Their ability to predict the future should at least work for themselves, should it not? They could invest in the stock market or pick the right lottery numbers. They cannot even predict or better their own fortunes, yet people go to them for discernment.
Tremendous Power in a Christian!
Christians must realize that God condemns this demonic, fleshly probing into the unknown. He has called intercessors not to wonder about the future, but to create it through the knowledge of His Living Word and prayer! Our Father gives us access to the future right now. You ask, "How do we know what to pray" The Lord Jesus told us plainly, "After this manner therefore pray ye: Our Father which art in heaven, hallowed be thy name. Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done in earth, as it is in heaven" (Matt. 6:9-10 KJV).
We can look at the conditions of the world and faint or look at the possibilities of God and take faith. To bring revival is to pray for the reality of God's kingdom to be made manifest on earth. Jesus was not offering His disciples a millennial prayer focus, for that rule of God's kingdom is coming whether we want it to or not! No, Christ calls us to pray for God's kingdom to manifest itself in our world today.
How will tomorrow look if God answers the prayer Christ gave us? Read the gospels. What we see in the life and power of Jesus Christ is a faith picture of God's kingdom. Jesus said that we can have that same full manifestation. In fact, He actually commanded us to pray for Heaven's release!
The Prayer Womb
The reality that God has planned will always manifest first in the prayer life of His intercessors. When you hear from God and then pray His Word, you are having an impact on the as-yet-unformed essence of life with the Spirit of God Himself! This is why God calls us not only to know His Word, but also to pray it. We must go from intellectualizing God's Word to being impregnated by it.
I know that many churches have special areas where intercessors can pray or people can meditate. Maybe we ought to change the name of such places from "prayer room" to "prayer womb." Everything good and holy that we see manifested in people, in churches and in life is first conceived and then birthed in the womb of prayer.
We have answers to prayer all around us. The place you are living in is an answer to prayer. When you asked God to lead you to the church you should attend, your current church became God’s answer to your prayer. Similarly, your attendance and participation are answers to the prayers of your pastors and intercessors.
Paul wrote, "I pray that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened, so that you may know what is the hope of His calling, what are the riches of the glory of His inheritance in the saints, and what is the surpassing greatness of His power toward us who believe. These are in accordance with the working of the strength of His might" (Eph. 1:18-19).
If you are a Christian, a power accompanies your life that is greater than great: the "surpassing greatness of His power." It is not human power but the actual "strength of His might." God demonstrated this "power toward us who believe" first "in Christ, when He raised Him from the dead and seated Him at His right hand in the heavenly places" (Eph. 1:19-20).
In other words, the power of God’s might is His resurrection power. What does resurrection mean? It means that things that look dead, smell dead and act dead can be touched by God and raised to life!
Now think about it: The resurrection power God has given us is the same potency He demonstrated when He raised Jesus out of the grave. Right now, because the strength of God Almighty is attached to our prayer lives, we can look on things that are absolutely dead and pray forth eternal life!
Our mission is to bring resurrection life to situations that are dead. If the devil challenges your prayer, remind him that you are seated with Christ "far above all rule and authority and power and dominion, and every name that is named, not only in this age but also in the one to come" (Eph. 1:21). Christ's authority is final. But not only did the Father put "all things in subjection under His feet," He also "gave Him as head over all things to the church, which is His body, the fullness of Him who fills all in all" (Eph. 1:22-23).
Notice how the Lord uses anatomical metaphors to explain the downlink of authority: Christ is the "head" of a "body" that has all things put under its "feet." This is a most profound understanding of our role: What the Head, Christ, has attained, the feet of the church walk out. In other words, God has positioned the church as the living bridge between the terrible conditions on earth and the wonderful solutions from Heaven!
As we truly, passionately and accurately submit to Christ in prayer, the kingdom of Heaven steadily enters our now prayed-for world. The key, of course, is to know Christ's Word, for our authority does not originate from ourselves, but from the "sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God" (Eph. 6:17). What we have is revelation and submission. But as we submit to the Word and persevere in prayer, the future is changed and conformed to God's will.
The devil knows that if he can keep our prayer lives silent, he keeps God’s hand distant.

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Back to Laodicea ... in a moment.

Dear Reader
I'm going back to Laodicea and will finish what I set out to write ... but not just now. If you are out there and visiting this blog from time to time;  and know how to pray in the name of Jesus ... then say a prayer for me too.

Se you in a moment
Take care
Ida

Psalm 91

1 He who dwells in the shelter of the Most High
will abide in the shadow of the Almighty.
2 I will say to the Lord, “My refuge and my fortress,
my God, in whom I trust.”

3 For he will deliver you from the snare of the fowler
and from the deadly pestilence.
4 He will cover you with his pinions,
and under his wings you will find refuge;
his faithfulness is a shield and buckler.
5 You will not fear the terror of the night,
nor the arrow that flies by day,
6 nor the pestilence that stalks in darkness,
nor the destruction that wastes at noonday.

7 A thousand may fall at your side,
ten thousand at your right hand,
but it will not come near you.
8 You will only look with your eyes
and see the recompense of the wicked.

9 Because you have made the Lord your dwelling place—
the Most High, who is my refuge —
10 no evil shall be allowed to befall you,
no plague come near your tent.

11 For he will command his angels concerning you
to guard you in all your ways.
12 On their hands they will bear you up,
lest you strike your foot against a stone.
13 You will tread on the lion and the adder;
the young lion and the serpent you will trample underfoot.

14 “Because he holds fast to me in love, I will deliver him;
I will protect him, because he knows my name.
15 When he calls to me, I will answer him;
I will be with him in trouble;
I will rescue him and honor him.
16 With long life I will satisfy him
and show him my salvation.”

... of first importance

Salvation through Jesus Christ isn’t mixable with “salvation” through other religions or self-imposed righteousness. God has given HIS salvation to man the way it is given; through the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ; and it isn’t negotiable.  Salvation has been through the refiner’s fire on Golgotha and nothing can add to it.

1 Cor15 says:

The Resurrection of Christ

15 Now, brothers and sisters, I want to remind you of the gospel I preached to you, which you received and on which you have taken your stand. ² By this gospel you are saved, if you hold firmly to the word I preached to you. Otherwise, you have believed in vain.

^*3 For what I received I passed on to you as of first importance^[a]:

*that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, ⁴ 

*that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures,

⁵ and that he appeared to Cephas,^[b] and then to the Twelve. ⁶ After that, he appeared to more than five hundred of the brothers and sisters at the same time, most of whom are still living, though some have fallen asleep. ⁷ Then he appeared to James, then to all the apostles, ⁸ and last of all he appeared to me also, as to one abnormally born.
⁹ For I am the least of the apostles and do not even deserve to be called an apostle, because I persecuted the church of God. ¹⁰ But by the grace of God I am what I am, and his grace to me was not without effect. No, I worked harder than all of them—yet not I, but the grace of God that was with me. ¹¹ Whether, then, it is I or they, this is what we preach, and this is what you believed.

Emmaus

Read Luke chapter 24

³⁰ When he was at the table with them, he took bread, gave thanks, broke it and began to give it to them. ³¹ Then their eyes were opened and they recognized him, and he disappeared from their sight. ³² They asked each other, “Were not our hearts burning within us while he talked with us on the road and opened the Scriptures to us?”